KAZUCHIKA OKADA: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 09MAY24

Cash rules everything around me.

May 09, 2024

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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. The combinations made my eyes bleed.

WORDS

This Kazuchika Okada piece is actually the first painting I made for AEW, even before the deal was formalized. I’ve painted Okada a couple times before and he’s such a visually exciting subject I thought it’d be fun to revisit him.

I always say that my favorite subjects to paint are the ones who are already pushing the boundaries because it frees me up to go even further, and that’s definitely true here. The idea for the composition was to let the designs on his entrance attire to almost flow out over the whole image. I painted his figure with watercolor as well as a little bit of blue and pink to delineate the background, and then used a brown marker to draw in the dragon and floral designs. I think it’s an interesting mix of illustrative and painterly approaches.

There was this brief two week period where I had decided my time with WWE had come to a close but things weren’t finalized with AEW/ PWT yet. Nevertheless, I bet on myself and went ahead and made some AEW paintings, the first of which was this Okada piece. While I was working on it I got an email from WWE rejecting a new painting and instead of it triggering all of my negative emotions, I just chuckled and said out loud, “Bless their hearts.” Then I got back to work on my future. That’s what I think about whenever I see this piece.

UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS

Toni Storm - SIGNED!
Owen Hart - My first officially sanctioned painting of him!
Mercedes Mone
HOOK

Card subject to change.

Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Prints, Signed Prints and Original Paintings at ShopAEW!
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Instagram
Threads
YouTube

WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK

After a 30+ year wait, the collected edition of Miracleman: The Silver Age by Neil Gaiman and Mark Buckingham came out! And for me, it’s definitely been worth that wait. Young Miracleman aka Dickie Dauntless is brought back to life 40 years after his death to discover the ‘utopia’ Miracleman created and finds it to be a nightmare. But it’s also a book about how childhood trauma can thrust one prematurely into adulthood and leave them questioning everything and everyone.

There’s a long and convoluted history as to why it took 30 years for this book to come out that I won’t get into. TL;DR: There were a lot of rights issues to sort out. What’s fascinating though, is that Miracleman is considered a milestone in superhero comics that along with Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns completely changed how the genre is approached. Except Miracleman was never completed. So, it was once genre-leading but due to the rights issues it fell into obscurity and coming out now it almost feels old and out of touch. Kind of like Young Miracleman waking up 40 years in a world inspired by him but which he no longer fits into. Fascinating.

Captain America: Stand by J Michael Straczynski, Jesus Saiz and Lan Medina is one of the best Captain America stories I’ve ever read, if not the best. Not only that, but it feels like one of JMS’ best stories in quite a while. It’s split between the modern day and also Steve Rogers as a young man before he got the Super Soldier Serum that turned him into Cap, unknowingly fighting against the same demon while also knowingly fighting against hatred and bigotry. It’s layered, exciting and full of humanity and I couldn’t have enjoyed it more.

The new season of Newcomers has hosts Nicole Byer and Lauren Lapkus watching the films of Martin Scorcese for the first time and it’s so interesting to get their perspective. Prior seasons have been superheroes and Star Wars and LotR type stuff and for a change they want to watch what’s considered ‘the good stuff.’ What’s interesting to me is that these movies are so ingrained into my DNA but if you do the numbers, yeah, the majority of people alive today haven’t seen them. It seems impossible but…it’s not. This week’s episode featured my very favorite movie Goodfellas and I was delighted that it held up so well for them. The funniest thing about this season is that it’s not them cracking jokes about the stuff they didn’t like but instead just enjoying some quality film making.

Here’s that time Tom Jones and David Gilmour covered Purple Rain:

I shared this with Katy and she said, “There was my life before I heard that, and after.”

NANANANANANANA BATMAN!

YOU GOOD?

By Tuesday morning I finished up everything I needed to painting-wise so that I’m prepared for the next three weeks. (Sorry for the vagueness, but I’m doing something really amazing this month that I’ll tell you more about once I’m on the other side of it. Good stuff.) I’m, like, really far ahead on AEW and Pro Wrestling Tees stuff so I’m in good shape. My main task now is to officially close down the Schamberger Labs Art Fulfillment Center, which I’m actively in the midst of. The biggest chunk of that was done Tuesday afternoon and now I’m taking care of all of the ‘little’ things like equipment and fixtures. Moving! Everyone loves moving, right?!?

I made that Adam West Batman painting above while waiting at the office for a pick up. It was one of those situations where I couldn’t really get into anything else but I was given a window of the driver showing up during a four hour period. So, I made a painting of my favorite on-screen Batman to fill the time.

My hope is to be out of that office over the course of the next week, finally ending a 10-plus year chapter of my life. Then I’ll go do my secret fun thing as a palette cleanser before returning to the studio to focus on this new chapter.

My therapist told me that the final ‘acceptance’ stage of the grief cycle waxes and wanes. Those other emotions can come back up and that’s not just common, but normal. The ending of that prior chapter in my life has a lot of weight to it and it’s something I’ve been processing. I’ve attained acceptance of that loss, although there’s still moments where it wanes. That there’s still this physical manifestation of it adds to the waning, but soon that’ll be over.

And that’s okay. That’s common. That’s normal.

Also, moving sucks.

Love you more,
Rob