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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. But he knows not what it means.
WORDS
Here’s my first-ever Tiffany Stratton painting! I hadn’t made a straightforward watercolor painting in a while and wanted to see how I could apply all of the tools and techniques I’ve learned lately to make the strongest piece possible. As an artist, there’s a lot of little things about this painting I’m happy with.
It’s my first painting of Tiffany Stratton, but I’m sure it’s far from my last!
HELP MY MOTHER-IN-LAW WITH HER CANCER EXPENSES
My mother-in-law Ruth Ann has been battling cancer for a few years and the medical expenses have mounted up. The family has started a GoFundMe to help her out. If you can contribute even five or ten bucks it will help out a lot. She’s over a quarter of the way to her goal already.
Thank you for reading and thank you in advance for your help.
ICYMI, here's the latest Canvas 2 Canvas episode. Tomorrow’s episode will go up on WWE's YouTube channel at 12PM CST!
UPCOMING PAINTINGS
Roman Reigns
Kairi Sane - I’m working on this right now and it’s really surprising me. One of those times where a painting dictates to me what it wants to be and I just have to let it happen.
Iyo Sky
Randy Orton
CM Punk
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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Prints and Signed Prints at WWE Shop
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Threads
YouTube
WHAT I LIKED THIS WEEK
I’m a casual history fan, so I mostly enjoyed The Nazi Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill by Brad Meltzer and Josh Mensch. There’s good stuff in there about several people and events during World War II and it’s told in a really engaging narrative style rather than the dry textbook style most associated with history books. That said, it may venture a bit into pseudo-history if not historical fiction. Good for entertainment and SOME facts, and would definitely make a great basis for a TV or movie dramatization, but it’s possibly not entirely based in fact.
I’m truly blown away by Thalamus: The Art of Dave McKean. I’ve been a big fan of McKean’s work since I was a teenager, pretty much carrying his Mr Punch graphic novel with Neil Gaiman around with me at school every day during my sophomore year. Thalamus is a huge two volume collection of all of his work. Now, no of course it doesn’t collect all of his comics work but it does have selections from all of them, giving a gorgeous retrospective on a titan of the artistic world. Comics interiors and of course his notable Sandman covers, children’s books, album covers, book covers, film work, editorial illustrations and a wide array of personal works.
I was really surprised at how much I enjoyed the graphic novel Creed: The Next Round by Latoya Morgan, Jai Jamison, Wilton Santos and friends. It’s set in the near future where Adonis Creed’s daughter is continuing the family tradition by training for boxing. But good golly is it so much more than that. The extended Creed family gets involved in a way that this starts feeling more like Empire or Succession but with boxing. Definitely worth a read if you’re a fellow fan of the Creed movies.
I’m a massive Michael Mann film but had somehow never watched his early film Thief until this week. Yo, it’s SO GOOD. Probably James Caan’s best work outside of The Godfather, at least in my opinion. It sets up a lot of the elements that Mann would explore more and arguably better later in Heat, but this is a very worthy film unto itself and holds up really well.
David Fincher’s latest film The Killer on Netflix is excellent. I enjoyed the French graphic novel series it’s based on, especially the earlier volumes so when I heard this was an adaptation I got especially excited. If you’ve seen the reviews that this is Fincher back in top form, you’ve heard right. Stylish, character-based and a thrill to watch. After a job goes wrong, a hired assassin played by Michael Fassbender finds himself hunted by those who hired him, and in turn goes after their network for revenge. Sounds like standard fare but the way Fincher and company tell this tale is what makes it so special. Yes, it gets violent but it’s more about the killer’s preparation for each strike and why he does each thing he does. A really rad twist on the form.
My friend and assistant David and I went to see Godzilla: Minus One on Friday and yes, it’s as good as everyone says it is. It’s a story about a Japanese kamikaze pilot who lost his nerve and ended up surviving World War II, living with shame, survivor’s guilt and a healthy helping of PTSD in post-war Tokyo. Other survivors rally together, trying to rebuild the city after it was leveled by carpet bombing as well as trying to rebuild themselves. Oh, and Godzilla is in it stomping on things and blowing up battleships and chomping on trains, as one does.
David and I agreed that it’s the best movie that also has Godzilla in it. Truly worth seeing.
A nice 45 minute pose with our model on Friday, painted with watercolor.
YOU GOOD?
Thursday morning I ran the numbers for the past week’s Black Friday sales and we did THREE TIMES as many orders for the same week last year. Three times. Wow. I’m really floored by how huge that is and am so thankful to everyone who supports my art. I’m still trying to wrap my head around this.
A big part of the success for this, I feel, is what David and I built at the Schamberger Labs Art Fulfillment Center. Having a dedicated facility to process these orders and to hold our inventory made this so much more efficient. Like, David and I thought we did LESS this year because it went so smoothly but…nope. Quite the opposite. That’s promising.
Speaking of promising things, I’m waiting on approvals from WWE to make my old CM Punk artwork available again and to start working on new stuff. I’ll send a separate email once they’re up, which may be this coming week. They’re dealing with a lot right now due to the holidays and producing their own Punk merchandise, so it’ll happen in its own time. Not all of my old work will get approved for a variety of reasons and that’s just a part of the process. But I don’t know that a week has gone by for the past ten years where I haven’t been asked about my work of him so I anticipate some really strong sales once they’re available.
I don’t have any of the old original paintings anymore as they all sold quick back then, but I imagine there’ll be a few new ones made in the near-to-longterm future. We’ll get there.
A CM Punk mosaic would be fun at some point in the next year, I think. Don’t you?
Love you more,
Rob
EXCLUSIVE PAID SUBSCRIBER CONTENT
Paid subscribers this week will get an exclusive 25% off discount code for prints! You’ll also know about the signed prints coming soon to WWE Shop! Lots of them. Plus, 24 hour early access to the original TIFFANY STRATTON painting! Exclamation points!
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