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Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Wish I knew what you were looking for, might have known what you would find.

I’ve painted Kris Statlander a couple times now and thought it’d be fun with this new one to lean into her cosmic art tattoo with the background. I think the result speaks for itself, but I had a blast making it and thought I’d share the process with you.

For that galactic starscape, what I did was first splatter some masking fluid to look like stars. Then, I added a couple primer coats of orange, pink and violet. I splattered some more masking fluid to preserve that color as well. Then I did a heavy coat of granulating watercolors, which have a few different pigments in them to create some wonderful effects when they dry. They also reactivate nicely with more water, allowing me to lift some up with a paper towel to create that Milky Way nebula cloud look.

It’s something I discovered while playing with my daily 4×6 warmup paintings, notably with this one:

It’s my favorite part of doing this sort of purposeful experimentation every day, things happen accidentally that I can then replicate with my other works.

I finished off by removing the masked areas, creating both the stars and a sort of Jack Kirby ‘Krackle’ effect. I thoroughly enjoyed making this for you and I hope you get a similar joy looking at it!

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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Rob’s prints and shirts at Pro Wrestling Tees
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Bluesky
Cara
YouTube
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Katy’s book Oldest Kansas City

Sometimes I come across an artist who does nothing short of wizardry and one of those is Alberto Breccia. He has a lush combination of contrast, texture, and experimentation to his work that I can’t get enough of.

There’s a lot of things that he does that shouldn’t work but he makes them sing instead. Look at that parallel line in that profile headshot above in panel three. It shouldn’t work! But he has such a classical, almost painterly eye for his work that it’s balanced and instead becomes interesting. I also love how he drops the outline for the pattern of the striped shirt, knowing that the reader’s eye will fill that in on its own.

A lot of Breccia’s peers, in my opinion, often get lost in style over substance, so their work becomes hard to read. I don’t feel like that with the majority of his work, as evidenced in the page above. Perfectly readable, which is kinda job number one for comics. I’m also in love with the feathering in panel three, creating tone and texture on the character’s face.

When it’s time for heavy contrast, Breccia shows up for that as well. How wonderful is that owl, right? But I also love the use of negative space in the final panel, used to frame both the robed figure and the owl in front of the moon.

One of his most experimental works that I’ve seen is his revamp of the seminal Eternaut. That this is from 1969 and not five years ago is mind-breaking. It has a sort of woodblock quality to it, but like if a woodblock print was photocopied fifteen times.

One of those artists I can study for a lifetime. And so far: I have!

Last week I got one of those ‘fiesta’ sour cream dips and thought, hey, pretty good but I bet I could make this. And friend, I did just that.

Put the cream cheese, sour cream, salsa, mayo, taco seasoning and chipotle in adobo sauce into a food processor and pulse until it’s smooth. About 30 seconds. Pour that into a bowl and do a quick seasoning check to see if you should add more (I did). Then add the cheese and the green onions and mix that sumbitch up. And that’s it! Super easy and tastes SO MUCH better than the store-bought stuff.

Quick tips on chipotle in adobo sauce: This stuff is REALLY spicy and you should ease your way into it, even if you have a higher threshold. I might do 2 tablespoons next time as all of the cheese and cream cuts the heat a lot. Also, recipes always call for about a tablespoon and then you’ve got the rest of that can. I freeze mine and reheat it as needed. You’ll probably find you’ll include it in more dishes to give them that distinct smokiness.

Love you more,
Rob