After I recently went to a wrestling event put on by the brilliant guys at NGW – New Generation Wrestling (http://www.ngwuk.com/home) in my hometown, I was contacted by several of the wrestlers who I know through some mutual friends. I was asked to do various pieces of artwork and portrait pieces by one or two of them, and since completing those I’ve been quite in demand with their circuit! Every other day I’ve been sent requests for artwork, for personal and commercial use!
One wrestler from the event in particular, “Dara Diablo” (https://www.facebook.com/dara.diablo) asked for quite an elaborate chibi-esque portrait of him in character. We bounced several ideas back and forth between each other during the ideas stage of this project, and compiled a list of things to include in the finished piece, with the concept of “overt manliness” in mind.
For the production of the video itself we decided very early on that it needed an “80’s Montage” vibe to the soundtrack, to mix together with the extrovert style and subject matter of the artwork. We compiled a list of tracks which we would consider putting in and then I picked from that list after editing the video clips together.
I am going to have to order more ProMarkers after completing this image. I’ve had to shrink down the size of any other commission portraits I’ve had since purely to economize on what little ink I have left until I can order in some more! Luckily there are some quite cheap deals on multi-packs which you can get on Amazon. Such a useful website!
It has been quite a while since I have had an “Itty Bitty” style commission of this magnitude and detail, so it was a lot of fun to get stuck into. It was upon completing and publishing this one online that I started to get a flood in of other similarly-themed requests!
I had drawn the image and coloured it first before asking whether he wanted to include any script. There were quite big blank spaces left so I thought it would be good to fill those with something else, be it more artwork or some script to really round off the overtly-stylized manliness of the image. I waited for Dara, my commissioner, to think of something he wanted to include and I got right to it. Writing out script, as fun as it may be, was incredibly and utterly tedious. I’m just glad that the font I chose to replicate (from font website http://www.dafont.com/) looked very nice upon completion. I liked the slightly Latin-look to it, which complimented his wrestling persona quite well.
I feel that I could’ve positioned some aspects of the drawing a bit better, but other than that I am very pleased with the final product, and Dara Diablo himself was very pleased as well! That is the most important thing! He’s said that he’s all set to go out and buy a frame for it when I give it to him this coming Saturday at the next upcoming NGW event!
He’s also recently asked me to help with some potential designs for his new wrestling costume. So, here’s to future endeavors, everyone! Watch this space for more commissions which I will be uploading in the coming week!
AbbieSTABBY 