The Artist Behind The Iconic Illinois “Leather” Football Helmets

Behind the viral pictures of the leather-looking helmets Illinois sported over the weekend against Michigan, is an artist who painted each of the 100 helmets by hand.

Armando Villareal's company makes two specialty helmets per year, and this year it was Illinois who was selected for one of the helmets.

"I think we worked on those for probably three months or so," Villarreal told News Channel 20. "Each helmet probably takes several hours to do and prepping it, but each one's hand done, and so they look a lot alike, but they're all just a little bit different, so that kind of gives it the uniqueness to it."

These helmets aren't the only ones Armando's company has done.

One of his most iconic works was memorializing Utah Football's Ty Jordan and Aaron Lowe, who both tragically passed away.

Some of his other works include BYU.

The first helmet Armando did was for Mississippi State.

Check out some of his other works:

Villareal also spends time painting iconic moments from sports, which you can see his full collection of on his website.

Check Out Our Interview With Armando:

Another cool project he's been a part of - painting designs onto bats for MLB players, like Bo Bichette from the Blue Jays.