Hi. My name's Rob Schamberger. I'm that guy who paints rasslers. And other stuff. Try now, we can only lose and our love become a funeral pyre.

Roman Sarcophagus Study 1

Watercolor on 9” x 12” watercolor paper

I’m trying right now to get a certain look and feel, I’m chasing it, but not quite getting there. That’s part of the process, I can’t expect to nail it right out of the gate and that’s why I do these studies. They’re all about building and maintaining skills that aren’t currently being used with my commercial work.

Roman Sarcophagus Study 2

Watercolor on 9” x 12” watercolor paper

There was a lot about the first one I liked but it was too busy for what I was going for. I stripped a lot of that away with this one and maybe went too far. That said, by doing these I have a better feel for my next attempt. We’ll find out next Sunday how that turned out!

Here’s a preview of Thursday’s new Darby Allin painting. Another one where I wanted to find my way in so I did some sketches and a study first. I think you’ll see that the extra effort paid off!

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

Slow Horses season five started off in a big way. A few weeks ago I caught up on the series and season four ended with some major changes to the status quo of our main characters as well as a pivotal death. Events are in play while they’re all still reeling and muddying their way through PTSD, dragging them into another threat without even realizing it. If you’re wondering, Gary Oldman’s Jackson Lamb hasn’t had an aggressive fart yet but apparently there’s a combative one coming this season. Stay tuned.

I also finished watching Outlander seasons four and five a few days ago and man, when this series went from very good to great it STAYED great. Our characters have made their way to America in the years leading to the Revolutionary War and soon find their family grow in surprising ways, some welcome and some horrifying. Time travel shenanigans, major historical battles, and legitimately respectful depictions of indigenous peoples, this show’s got it all.

The series’ depictions of all forms of violence are very mature and nuanced. Like, it’s Trigger Warning City with this show because of how realistically it’s all done. Nothing is glorified or stylish or without emotional consequences. It’s a very hard watch at times by design but it’s all earned. There’s a series of events in the season five finale where my mind is screaming and a character finally echoes my thoughts by saying, “Kill them all” and I legitimately cried as an emotional release.

My Kickstarter copy of Dracula volume 2: The Brides by Matt Wagner, Kelley Jones and Jose Villarubia came in and I, pun intended, devoured it. The story gives origins to Dracula’s brides, who are briefly ever shown in the book and movies but never given tales of their own. Wagner, the creator of the Grendel comic series, certainly knows how to write a story from a villain’s perspective, keeping Dracula both monstrous yet relatable. That’s a hard balance. Kelley Jones is a life-long favorite artist of mine, going back to his art on Batman: Red Rain where the character gets turned by Dracula. What a perfect fit! His art, colored by Villarubia is huge and lush and haunting in all of the right ways. The mass market version comes out in a month or so and I highly recommend picking one up along with the first volume.

”First they came for…” never ends until the regime does.

This week I started doing these little 9×6 watercolors of the houses on my block as surprises for my neighbors. I’ve got a few personal reasons for doing them but mostly with the state of society I thought some small acts of kindness are welcome.

I’m doing a plein-air painting event later this week, something that’s very far outside of my comfort zone so I thought this would also be a nice way to warm up for that. I was curious how a lot of the watercolor techniques that I’ve learned in relation to figurative subjects would translate to architectural and landscapes. At the end of the day it’s all about shapes, lighting, form and composition, right? So ideally there’ll be some things I learn from this that will in turn inform my regular work.

It’s a fun challenge to find a way in and tell some sort of story with each piece. For instance, in the one above this house is up on a hill from the sidewalk and has gorgeous landscaping, so it made for a clever way to frame the composition.

This house doesn’t have a dynamic facade like some others on the block, but that turned into a story about the light hitting the tree in front of it and the resultant cast shadow. My favorite neighbors live here, btw.

There’s beauty all around us to be found and I like that this is getting me to focus on things I see every day and appreciate them for what they are.

Just don’t tell my neighbors I’m doing this yet, it’s supposed to be a surprise!

Love you more,
Rob