SHOP TALK: Rob Schamberger Newsletter 08SEP24

You've been down too long in the midnight sea.

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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. You're the star of the masquerade, no need to look so afraid.

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WORDS  

I caught The ‘Rona for the first time a couple weeks ago (more on that later) and part of the recovery has been trying to get back into art-making shape. The brain fog aspect of Covid is for real, like my focus was really low and I couldn’t multitask and that’s still slowly coming back to full strength. Which makes painting a little more difficult, as it’s all about focusing and multitasking! So I’ve spent this past week doing smaller paintings to get back in the swing.

Above was the first one. I recently drove by the Mill Creek Park fountain here in Kansas City and realized I’d never painted it before. It’s considered to be the most beautiful of the fountains in The City of Fountains, so it was definitely on my to-do list. I didn’t intend for it to end up having a similar vibe to Frank Frazetta’s iconic Death Dealer painting, but I’ll definitely take it!

Next up I did this study of the Standing Bodhisattva statue at the Nelson-Atkins Museum, from some reference photos I took a few months ago. I liked a lot of the colors I’d used for the fountain painting and played more with them here, doing something representational yet still stylistic.

I finally felt back in shape with this painting of the Cambodian statue of Indra on his Three Headed Elephant, also in the Nelson-Atkins collection. It’s a piece that’s fascinated me since I first saw it as a kid and it proved to be a pleasant challenge to represent it here with this color palette. I had to do a lot of planning for this, by design, which I felt was the final test to get back where I want to be artistically. The whites are all the white of the paper, so I used a ruling pen to apply masking fluid (GREAT tool for this, for any watercolor artists out there who struggle with masking fluid (which is every watercolor artist)), then a wet-on-wet coat of orange and teal, followed by sepia for the mid-tone shadows and finished with black for the deepest shadows.

I think it’s a good synthesis of organic and precision, which is my favorite area to play around with visually.

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Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Mariah May painting. It’s glamorous.

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UPCOMING AEW/PWT PAINTINGS  

• Mariah May - SIGNED

• Mark Briscoe - SIGNED

• Kamille - SIGNED

Card subject to change.

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Rob’s Art on ShopAEW
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Rob and Jason Arnett's novella Rudow Can't Fail!
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Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
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Instagram
Threads
Cara
YouTube

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WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK

I wasn’t immediately blown away by the Terminator: Zero anime series on Netflix but the way that it escalated quickly sucked me in and left me thinking it’s possibly one of the best entries in the franchise. Set in Japan on the day that SkyNet comes online, it rapidly evolves beyond the original concepts with a ton of fascinating twists and new ideas. Plus, Timothy Olyphant voices the Terminator, so that’s rad.

I was excited finally watch RoboDoc now that it’s up on Prime. I’m one of those kids who saw RoboCop at a much-too-young age (probably 7 or 8), which I’d say was just about the perfect age. The documentary goes in-depth on the making of this unexpected classic movie with insights from all of the major players, although there wasn’t any discussion of Peter Weller in full RoboDrag playing trumpet between takes, which I painted once for my friend David. That said, they DO get into the Oreo controversy.

As a joke on Threads the other day I posted, “It’s wild that they never made any RoboCop sequels. Just that one perfect movie.” Naturally, that got some traction and in typical social media fashion there were a lot of people who thought I was serious, which makes the joke that much funnier. The internet, baby! I’d buy that for a dollar!

Houses of the Unholy by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips is the latest from my personal favorite creative team in comics. It’s a fascinating exploration of what became of some of the kids from the 80’s satanic panic who were led into having false memories of underground dark rituals that swept the nation of that time. Like, the lasting and compounded trauma of when they become adults and realize the ramifications of their actions, and how some of them might still believe it in the internet era.

The Absolute Edition of Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean is really gorgeous. I remember when I first saw this book in Junior High and how the art in it was so far beyond what my brain could even comprehend. There’s been a million and a half attempts at doing dark psychological examinations of Batman and his foes and it’s all a bit of a bore to me at this point, but this one still stands out as highly effective. Morrison and McKean have both gone on to do much better works, but this is a fascinating forecast of where their careers would go. This Absolute Edition finally remasters the artwork to a point close to what McKean envisioned for the printing than what the technology of the time back then allowed. Much richer and more subtle colors and deeper shadows. Glad I picked this up. It’s a beautiful object unto itself.

Here’s David Bowie performing Life on Mars? and Ashes to Ashes on Johnny Carson in 1980. He’s dressed like James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause because of course he is. Worth it for Johnny trying to introduce him and not understanding why the crowd is excited. Also love what the drummer is doing on Mars? especially after the first chorus.

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The wild coleus that volunteered to grow in our front yard this year. GORGEOUS markings on it.

YOU GOOD?

I’m getting better. Two weeks ago I got the ‘Rona for the first time, which knocked me right out. It was a comparatively mild case, likely thanks to staying up on my vaccinations. Mostly congestion, low appetite and being incredibly weak, leading to several days of just sleeping. Once I tested positive I got on Paxlovid, which leaves a TERRIBLE taste in your mouth but keeps the virus from propagating and getting worse. Monday was my last day for that, and otherwise I’ve been slowly recovering.

Luckily I work way ahead on my AEW paintings (currently still 6 weeks ahead) so none of this affected my regular paying work and I have the luxury of some recovery time. It’s a privilege I don’t take for granted.

As far as these things go, I was very fortunate. I have a heart condition, so pre-vaccine 2020-21 were a time of constant terror for me as it would have been fatal if I’d caught it. I lost coworkers, friends and family to this virus during that time, like we all did. It’s amazing how much scientists from around the world were able to mobilize and address Covid-19 in such an impactful way. When I got the second half of the initial vaccine back in 2021 I looked up at the nurse and said, “You just saved my life.” Flash forward three and a half years and I can say that she honestly did.

Love you more,
Rob

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