The Art of RollingSun2000

I had originally started the background version of Chris Brookes about a week ago. I wasn't in a hurry to finish it. But I then watched a livestream the night before the KO-D Openweight Championship...  

I don't consider myself a wrestling fan. I only started paying attention to Japanese Wrestling in April 2021 when I was looking for a distraction from projects I was working on and all the other noise on social media. Chris Brookes makes regular appearances on Gatoh Move Pro Wrestling / ChocoPro, and they are always a spectacle. I first discovered him through his matches with Lulu Pencil.  Brookes would also team up with Baliyan Akki for English commentary on the women's wrestling show "That's JPW" for Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling. It was through Brookes' involvement with ChocoPro, I wanted to see what else he could do, so I paid special attention to him (as well as Antonio Honda and Masahiro Takanashi) whenever he was on DDT Pro wrestling. It was at the end of ChocoPro #159, Brookes took a moment to talk to the audience (the livestream chat) about the upcoming match against Takeshita. He attempted to sound sincere, even complemented some of the wrestlers at ChocoPro (despite being more known as the villain that abuses them all). It still tried to stay professional (like a footballer after a game). As I said, I'm not really a wrestling fan (even thought it might not sound like it, considering how much I have wrote). I'm more interested in the people and the stories they portray in ring or around it. When I saw Brookes' attempt at being sincere and complimenting the crew, I realised that the Openweight Championship was more important than just another match or belt. I don't know how to express what I was thinking, but I realised Brookes needed fan support more than before. Watching the emotional end result with Takeshita the next day, I wasn't wrong. After the ChocoPro stream, I began finishing this image.

I'm considering getting into quick sketches and sketch-cards for conventions (hence the pre-printed boarder and logo). This however wasn't a quick image. I think the problem is my idea here was too ambitious, I wasn't familiar with drawing Judge Death and I was worried about it looking perfect (it will never be "perfect," so don't worry about that). It's been years since I drew Judge Death so I was learning as I went along. I think I will need to focus on quicker sketches with less details, and practice is key.

I think Nigel and Nika were after my time, I was reading the Beano and Dandy in the early / mid 90s. 

Fun fact: as a kid I started out improving my drawing by copying how to draw Dennis, Pug (from Bashstreet kids) and Desperate Dan (from Dandy comics). That was before discovering 2000ad when I was a teenager and then anime and manga (which set my drawing ability back for a few years).

This started as a quick drawing in my nephews sketchbook / notepad. He wanted something to colour based on images I did for the Sector13 fanzine (he was in my house one of the days I was scanning copies of the line work, so I photocopied smaller versions for him to colour). He's only 5 years old though, so he didn't understand how long these things take to draw. I drew it while he was asleep (and while I was re-watching Jurassic Park on Netflix). I then took a photo of it (I didn't have access to a scanner at the time) and used Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop to add colours and all the grey tones. I recently bought Clip Studio Paint for making comics, so I took this opportunity to practice with it. I spent a day earlier trying to get the shortcuts to match Photoshop. But I'm not happy with the colours. They seem to be darker than what I get with Photoshop (I use a swatch because I don't trust my own ability to pick base colours). I think (or I hope) the problem is that CSP uses CYMK colours for print, but Photoshop (or rather me) uses RGB for internet and has more range.

This one was inspired by the events from last week when two girls (8 and 5 years old) went missing for 44 hours in the wilderness of Humboldt County. They managed to survive by using skills they had learned during their family camping trips (and something I had not heard of before called 4-H. Not quite sure what that is, but it seems to be about learning skills and staying safe. I originally thought it was something like the girl scouts, but I could be very much wrong).

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As I was finishing and preparing images to post online, I screwed-up and shrunk the original work file! It's devastating to shrink a work file that could have made a good print at some stage. Right now, I want to crawl under a rock and not look at Photoshop ever again.

I have A3 Jpeg versions of the image from different stages, expect the final stage which is when I noticed I had made a mistake the save (while closing) previously, but it was too late by then.

They Called Her Vivaldi, The Hawk’s Well Theatre, Sligo.

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These images are going to be posted less frequently from now. I don't have the same amount of time to dedicate to them.