WWE artist Rob Schamberger of the “Canvas 2 Canvas” series recently spoke with Johua Caudill of CraveOnline.com and below are some interview highlights:
CraveOnline: You have painted so many incredible pieces since working with WWE. Do you have a specific piece that means the most to you?
Rob Schamberger: Yeah, there have been several. Natalya bought a painting from me of Bret Hart that she gave to him as a birthday present. He passed along to her that the piece itself reminded him of what his hopes and dreams were when he was a younger man. That was pretty powerful. I also, did a piece of the McMahon family and Steph [McMahon] saw it and bought it from me. That was her Christmas present to Vince a couple of years ago. He now has that hanging up in his private conference room at the office. My wife turned to me that Christmas Day and said, “You know right now, Vince is opening a present from Steph and it’s your painting’ [laughs].
CraveOnline: Have you ever had a hilarious painting request from a fan?
Rob Schamberger: Early on in the Kickstarter days, I was still taking commissions and I had a guy ask me if I could paint him as a wrestler. I told him to just send me a picture of himself and he sends me a picture that’s too dark and I asked him to send another one. He goes, ‘Well, I also have an image of myself that I created for a wrestling video game’ [laughs]. I said, ‘This sounds interesting so sure, send it to me.’ I did the painting of his character and gave it to him and he was like ‘Oh, Rob. Thank you so much. I got this framed up and gave it to my mom and she loves it’ [laughs]. I thought that was awesome.
CraveOnline: What’s your itinerary like for WrestleMania week?
Rob Schamberger: It’s going to be the same set up as the past few years where I’ll be set up outside of the Superstore at Axxess. Fans don’t even need a ticket to come see me. I’ll be pulling long hours, from open to close each day. Fans will be able to watch what I’m doing and we will have prints available there that people can get. Another thing I’m doing on my own is if anyone shows up wearing one of my shirts from WWE’s Shop, I’ll have a print of The Ultimate Warrior, where I purposefully didn’t paint in his face paint and people can tell me their two favorite colors and I’ll hand-color that for them. I think that’s pretty cool.
CraveOnline: I understand you became a pro wrestling fan when you stumbled upon a Ric Flair promo. Can you elaborate on the moment you got hooked?
Rob Schamberger: I was 18-years-old. I didn’t grow up with it as a kid. It was a single-parent household and one TV and my mom didn’t want to watch wrestling [laughs]. I would hear about [Hulk] Hogan, Macho Man and Ultimate Warrior and I would see something as I was flipping through channels. I just didn’t grow up with it but my mom remarried and I was 18-years-old and like any kid that age, I was at my mom’s doing laundry and my stepfather was flipping through channels on a Monday night and landed on WCW Nitro. Ric Flair was in the ring cutting a promo and “bam,” right then I just got it.
Nick was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and lived there until the age of 18, when he decided to pack his flack jacket and move to New York City.
