Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Back when I was younger I didn’t have a clue. Come to think of it I still doubt I do.
WHAT’S NEW?
A couple years ago I made these creepy af Bray Wyatt ‘Fiend’ 4x6 paintings with watercolor and stenciled spray paint. I just came across one and thought you should have it instead of me.
I’m giving this away at random to someone who leaves a comment telling me about the last book you enjoyed reading. Whether it be fiction, non-fiction, a graphic novel, I don’t discriminate. Audiobooks count. I’m interested to know what kept YOU interested.
Comments are open to all paid tier members!
I’ll let you know what I recently loved down in the ‘What I Liked This Week’ section, like always!
The signed Paige print from a couple weeks ago is going out to reader Aaron Johnson later this week. Thanks Aaron!
ICYMI, here's last week's Canvas 2 Canvas episode. Turned out pretty swell in my opinion.
UPCOMING VIDEOS
3/12 - Bray Wyatt
3/26 - Bret Hart vs Shawn Michaels Wrestling Landscape
4/9 (Maybe earlier) - Cody Rhodes vs Roman Reigns
Card subject to change.
Hundreds of prints and paintings at Schamberger Labs!
Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Signed prints at WWE Auction.
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Instagram
YouTube
WRESTLING LANDSCAPE PROGRESS
Here’s where it all started clicking for me. The crowd sitting on the floor are directly under the overhead lights, so they’ve got white highlights on them. They’re also closer to us, so they’ve got more discernible features. For a composition, this would be what’s called the mid-ground and what creates some fascinating depth as I proceed.
Like we talked about last week, the crowd sitting in the lower bowl are getting some of the ambient light reflected onto them, which allowed me to start bringing in some warmer colors onto them. That area still had a wash of blue acrylic over it, but the floor crowd does not, making them pop even more. The darker shadows on them are still done with a dark Prussian blue though, as I’m saving the black paint for the foreground to make in seriously pop out. I’ve also painted in a couple of the further-back ring ropes and you can see the difference of how brilliant their colors are against the wash of the background.
NEXT WEEK: In-ring action begins!
WWE2K23 ICON EDITION
Hey, I painted this. No, I’m not going to shut up about it. Did you see it in motion yet on WWE Games’ Instagram?
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
Picard Season Three Episode Three. I lost my mind when ‘it’ happened. I was watching before Katy woke up and I had to physically bite my hand to keep from screaming and waking her up. I’m not going to spoil this moment for anyone who hasn’t watched it yet, but it’s definitely a MOMENT that we Trek fans have been waiting decades for.
A couple episodes into Bel-Air Season Two and Katy and I are liking it pretty well. Episode one tied up some of the threads left dangling from season one, so episode two has mostly been setting the status quo. Now that all of that is established, I’m intrigued to see how they tear it all down.
I finished reading the Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson Omnibus the other day. This collects Frank and Klaus’ monthly run on the series and not any of Frank’s later work like Born Again, Elektra: Assassin or Man Without Fear, which is fine because there really is a nice arc to the initial body of work. I’d read a lot of this as a kid but never all of it and not over the course of a few days like I did here. The stories and art hold up exceptionally well and it’s incredibly readable. The art especially starts to shine the more Klaus Janson first establishes himself as the inker and later working from Miller’s layouts, doing some incredible mark-making and use of zip-a-tone.
It’s crazy how much of the Daredevil mythos was established during this run, over 150 issues into its publication. Elektra, Stick, the Hand, the Kingpin rivalry, the nature of the character’s powers and so much more. It’s like almost everyone’s been a cover band playing these hits ever since.
I forget how I got turned onto Everybody Knows by Jordan Harper, I think it was Ed Brubaker’s newsletter, but I’m so glad I was. A lot of people have tried to establish the ‘neo-noir novel’ but this book seriously does it. It’s all about the dark underbelly of Hollywood and the lengths the industry will go to protect itself, told through a modern post-Weinstein/ Me Too lens that kept me engrossed from the bloody beginning to the gripping end. It’s a very current Raymond Chandler nihilistic vibe with constant danger and worth your time if you’re into crime fiction.
I liked that book so much I looked up Harper’s first book She Rides Shotgun and finished that audiobook yesterday while painting. It’s like Jim Thompson and Sam Peckinpah adapting Lone Wolf & Cub in current-day Los Angeles, where a death warrant is put out by a white supremacist prison gang against a recently-freed ex-con and his estranged family. It’s a got-dang masterpiece.
She works so hard. Her back spikes up like that when she’s excited to get some pets. Her tail will fully poof out when she’s really happy as well, which is our very favorite thing about her.
YOU GOOD?
This week in our session my therapist urged me to try to make more social connections. From late 2018, into lockdown and beyond I really isolated myself. I had a lot of bad relationships that I needed to end (if you’re unsure if I’m talking about you, don’t worry, it’s unambiguous with those people), I did so, but I was left needing some more positivity to replace those relationships. I’ve got friends, I’ve got people I care about, but the more positive connections we make the better we are overall as different folks connect with our own personalities in different ways.
So.
I reached out to my high school art teacher Mr. Williams, who had moved into my neighborhood after he retired a couple years ago. With my crazy travel schedule having finally slowed down, we got together on Tuesday for brunch and ended up talking for four hours. It was delightful and we made plans to get together this coming Tuesday for the monthly figure drawing session I go to.
Manning, as I’m going to struggle for a while to call him by his first name, was THAT teacher for me in high school. I had several great teachers over the course of my time in school and even a few who had a huge impact on me but he and I really clicked. A lot in my life at that time was bad back then, more than I’m still comfortable talking about, but the time I had in his class was not only when things were good, but where I truly got to shine.
When my career got up and going it was so nice reconnecting with him to let him know what a profound impact he’d had on my life. We’ve stayed in touch and it’s even better to now call him a friend.
How about some secret project updates?
I finished painting CODENAME: Project Intergalactic on Monday with some minor revisions and submitted it to the client for the various rounds of approval needed. Which over the course of the week happened, so I feel like this will get announced in the next couple of weeks. It’s a cool sequel to something I did a while ago.
CODENAME: Project Sabotage is finally moving again. There was a last-minute insurance requirement that slowed things down while my agent and his broker worked that out, taking quite a bit longer than anyone involved thought it would. That component should be resolved in the next day or two and then I get to learn some new tech components while working with the client to get everything up to their specifications before we launch.
A lot of business-y stuff, but once it’s up and going it’ll kinda be what I’ve been working towards my entire career and might change my life. No pressure!
Oh yeah, and next week’s Bray Wyatt painting has been seriously kicking my ass all week. It has NOT come easy to me but started clicking after I got the great news about CODENAME: Project Sabotage. The stress around that situation was taking up a lot of my brainpower and it was like an instantaneous relief of pressure and my brain all of a sudden started working again!
I’m working on it, and the ‘it’ is me.
Love you more,
Rob
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