Daniel Bryan weather report

 

WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan responds to imminent storm warnings for the Northeast. Sent as a goof to my buddies at WWE Creative Services in Stamford.

Taker poster

From the current issue of WWE Magazine.

Another Undertaker t-shirt!

(Via wweshop.com)

They changed the background. I like it though. Here's the original sketch:

WWE: Daniel Bryan & others

My laptop is being repaired today, if you define "repairing" as "shoving a new hard drive into a borderline-unrecognizeable shell." The guy at TekServe all but begged me to not hire them to service the thing. But I digress.

I got nothing to do today but draw with pencil and paper, so I thought I'd just throw down, my first subject being a WWE magazine I took home from the office. FYI Daniel Bryan doesn't actually have a dragon growing out of his spine, that was sort of a flourish.

WrestleMania posters

Some rejected poster concepts for WrestleMania 27, which took place in Atlanta earlier this year. Fans may notice that The Rock is nowhere to be seen, because these were done when his hosting was still a closely-guarded secret.

Randy Orton

MITB art

Original artwork for the "Money in the Bank" spot, much of which didn't make it into the final cut.

Kofi Kingston and John Morrison

Sheamus and Randy Orton

CM Punk

Rey Mysterio

WWE: Money in the Bank

More WWE stuff: The commercial for their next Pay-Per-View, featuring some (very limited) animation.

WWE "Capitol Punishment"

WWE Asked me to illustrate the poster for their next Pay-per view, in a political cartoon style (the event takes place in DC). They usually hang a gigantic poster of their current PPV in the lobby of their HQ in Stamford, so when I was up there this week I got a couple pictures of it.



Here's an article on the poster from one of the wrestling blogs. Considering it's the internet, the comments were surprisingly positive.

Undertaker T-shirt

I usually don't post freelance stuff here, because the whole point of the blog is to force myself to do extracurricular work, but I happen to be overly proud of this piece I did for WWE.

I don't usually get hired to do finished illustrations, so it was terribly exciting to really open up and see what I could do. As much of a milestone as this was for me, I had to sit on the art for six months when the Undertaker was temporarily out of action. The shirt very nearly got shelved altogether, and it was well within the realm of the non-disclosure I signed. (Something about sitting in an HR office under a poster of a screaming, blood-soaked Cena makes you sign those standard legal documents with a little more solemnity.)

Anyway, The Undertaker made his heavily-hyped return to Monday Night Raw this week, and lo and behold there's the shirt for sale on WWE's website. I might have to order one for every day of the week.

Michael Tarver

UPDATE: I had an idea to try this much darker, and pop the highlights out some more. I like the result, I think I'm gonna keep experimenting with this.



UPDATE 2: I went in and lightened up his eyes (Thank you for pointing that out, Joan.)

Undertaker

Bill Goldberg

A character study in preparation for a storyboard job for a Speed Network show. Not WWE-related, oddly enough, though it was sandwiched in between two WWE gigs. Go figure.

Batista Nation!

Today I'd like to shout out the Batista fans that come to this site. What up! *fist bump*

I feel closer to you guys today because thanks to my new StatCounter device I now know that you make up about 90% of my traffic. If you're reading this right now, chances are you're a wrestling fan who was doing a random image search on "Batista", and you clicked through to this post purely by law of averages, not because you like what you saw. And evidently you're not sticking around, because that post gets ten hits a day and to date not one comment posted. So really I guess I don't feel that close to you after all. I don't know why I'm typing this. Excuse me, I'm going outside to play!

Hulk Hogan

I sketched this off the wrestling page in the British Sun. Now I know that wrestling's not everyone's cup of tea, and frankly I only maintain an interest because I occasionally get paid to do so. But I think that one thing everybody can enjoy is self-serving celebrity quotes, and Hogan serves those up.

On wrestling again: "I could go out there and pretty much do almost everything I could do before. I could go out and have fun." He talks about how he'd like a reunion match with Stone Cold--who can't ever wrestle again because of the risk of injury--and basically calls Austin an egomaniac for not doing it. Because, you know, it would be cool for the fans. He then makes a bunch of comments about how TNA is only missing a big enough name on their roster to put them over, but doesn't say who he has in mind.

Wow, this guy must really need money. So to sum up, I guess, Hulk's TV show is over, his wife took everything in the divorce, and his kids are showing no signs of wanting to work for a living. Poor guy.

WWE: Batista

I did a bunch of work for WWE last year, sketching poster concepts and stuff, like this one. As an old comic book hack I really enjoyed it, since it was virtually the same as drawing superheroes. Plus every time I looked up from my desk some mailroom guy would be dropping a free lapel pin or some other promotional tchotchki in front of me, and I'd think I was right back at Marvel.

I wouldn't say I exactly became a wrestling fan, but I like to throw myself into my work, so I got my head into it. I still enjoy doing studies of the performers. I mean look at this guy. He looks like he walked right out of a Punisher book. Wrestlers look way more superhero-y these days than they used to. They're these hulking, chiseled specimens. Back in my day they mostly looked like if your dad put on some spandex and a fright wig.

No Way Out