This is a work in progress and he is hoping to receive suggestions from readers of the Daily Post to be considered along with his own ideas and those of his family and friends.
And every time he engages people in conversation, Tony learns of more candidates to be filed in his mind.
"Ah, you must have heard of so and so, she did such and such a thing. A fine lady."
There will be 100 living Merseysiders, but these will be supplemented by a massive "Canvas Charter" to be assembled in sections, containing faces from the area's rich past.
That brings us to the contentious question of King John himself, a man who in a later age might well have been branded a "cad and a bounder", if not a "scoundrel".
His real purpose in granting Liverpool its charter was to enable the Crown to use it as a port for dispatching troops to quell rebellions in Ireland, which had come under English control in 1172 during the reign of Henry II.
II. But given the nature of the commemoration, it was impossible to leave him out, though there is no reason why his furtive eyes and weak chin should not be in evidence.
Central to each painting will be the portrait, based wherever possible on a photograph. "I am using a collage style," says the father of four from Birkenhead.
"This will enable me to produce a work which is almost three-dimensional."
In the style he has developed, Tony, a devotee of Pablo Picasso, is able to use newspaper cuttings and images relevant to the person's life as a background to the paintings. These could include a hero or heroine of the subject's or some item of particular interest in his or her life.
