Bray Wyatt: Dark Thoughts

Bray Wyatt and The Fiend

Ink, spray paint, acrylic, paint marker and watercolor on watercolor paper

Artwork by Rob Schamberger

Printed on 11" x 14" 130 pound uncoated cover stock, perfect for framing.

Where do you get your ideas?

A common thing every creative person is asked that question and we're always stuck to answer it. How do you sum up your entire life and creative journey/career into an easy soundbite? How do you easily talk about how everything you have done in the past informs everything you make now?

Where do ideas come from?

I've had several conversations over the years with Windham Rotunda, the man who portrays Bray 'The Fiend' Wyatt. There was a painting I made of him several years ago that had tentacles all over it and he he asked me why. I told him I saw the Bray Wyatt character as similar to Wilbur Whately from 'The Dunwich Horror' and Windham immediately quoting another Cthulu myth passage from HP Lovecraft.

When we sat down on Friday at SmackDown I showed him this new piece and he immediately dug it and asked me what my inspiration was. I said on this one I wanted to play around with Freudian theories on the id, ego and superego as well as the art of Terry Gilliam.

"...who's Terry Gilliam?"

"You know, the guy that did the illustrations for all of the Monty Python stuff. Plus Brazil. Specifically I was vibing off of the Brazil movie poster."

"I've...I've never met anyone else that knows about Brazil."

We then got around to talking about his inspirations for The Fiend and it mainly came down to, "So many things that have nothing to do with wrestling." Which I love, it's fresh and new and not another story recycled from decades ago.

Getting into the making of this painting, I wanted to create two different realities within one composition. First, black and white Bray rendered in ink, watercolor, spray and acrylic, pointing to his forehead in the universal 'think' symbol. Then, the head split open Gilliam-style with The Fiend springing forth in vibrant technicolor rendered in ink and watercolor, playing on both the roots of psychology and drawing from ancient myth.

Where do you get your ideas?

That's not what you really want to know. It's what we DO with our ideas that is important.

This print is made on demand and may take up to a week to be produced before shipping.