The Lonestarr Personal Collection: Wrestling Hits

Well, the posts are just slowly trickling in, but trickling in they still are.  Here are a few of my favorite pro graps cards from my collection for your approval.

2008 TNA iMPACT! Booker T Yellow Printing Plate..

Booker is my favorite wrestler of all-time, and this is my best card of him.  Despite having a lot of autographs (as wrestlers go anyway) out there, I’ve yet to come across one within my price range.  The 6 (should be more like 10-12) time World Champion and one of the single most decorated champions overall in the history of professional wrestling blew my mind as a kid with his heavy, but not really martial arts, kick-based offense that’s never really been duplicated, and agility.  He could fly a little too, with the Harlem/Houston Hangover, which is one of the coolest moves ever invented.  He’s also being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, which is pretty cool too.

2012 Topps WWE Eve Torres WrestleMania XXVIII Mat Relic

It’s sad Eve left right when she turned in an absolutely amazing heel run (oddly similar in to the Batista’s run, in every aspect).  I was down with Eve from her first televised match, which I just happened to catch even though I almost never get around to watching Smackdown!  I want to say she was teaming with Maria or someone like her that had been there for quite awhile yet never really even became competent in the ring.  Anyway, it was pretty amazing, because Eve was already immediately better than Maria or whoever it was that had been there so long from match one.  So, aside from her stunning beauty, which according to my #WrestlingBros homey Alex* is even more disarming in person, I was pretty enamored that she immediately had more skills than the average WWE eye candy from the start.  Her autographs are far, faaaaar more expensive than Booker’s, and the only one even close enough for me extend for got nabbed on COMC before I my money into paypal.

As a pretty nifty aside, Eve retweeted the tweet when I tweeted this card to the above mentioned ALo and it’s currently sitting at 17 total retweets and 19 favorites, which is, whoa…

Tara/Victoria WWE Heritage Chrome Autograph.

This was my very first autograph of my favorite Diva of the legendary Victoria/Trish Stratus/Molly Holly/Lita/Gail Kim era legit awesome wrestling.  Good times.  Her autos used to be a lot harder to come by before she made the jump to TNA and became Tara, and picked up several more in the $3-8 range in recent months, even a couple more WWE offerings.  That said, when I got this way back when I felt super lucky to pick it up for a hair under $15 (not counting shipping, which I’m guessing was about normal).  So why was she my favorite then and still remains high enough on the list to dedicate a binder page entirely comprised of hits to her?  She was easily the toughest and most underrated of the bunch (only two title reigns over like seven or eight years, if I recall correctly), and the second best wrestler after Molly (at the time; Gail didn’t really get many chances to shine until the Knockouts division started up in TNA).  I’m also way envious of my Chicago homies, because I want to go to her new restaurant!

I guess that’ll about do it for now.  Thanks for stopping by! 🙂

Until our next…

Pay No Attention to the Man Behind the Curtain

*pokes head out, sees own shadow, so six more weeks of no blogging, but leaves a little art on the way out*

The Intergalactic Luchadora, Saturyne!

The voice of a forgotten blogger echoes on the wind… “Until our next,” he whispers. “Soon we will be together again.”

In The Meantime…

I got seven packages sent out on Feb. 29th.  Hopefully they’ve all reached their destinations by now.  In the meantime, I finally broke out of the writing funk briefly and got nearly 1000 words in on Missionworks one night, but mostly I’ve been getting my art on.  And it has mostly just been one big picture.  I recently started watching Ring Ka King, and I absolutely love it.  It’s a TNA-backed Indian wrestling promotion.  So I had the big idea to take a 9″x12″ piece of cardstock and cram as much of the roster as possible on that thing.  I’m only maybe 30% done with it, and it’s taking forever to find the right pics, but here’s a preview, if you missed it on Twitter the other day.

First Ring Ka King champ Matt Morgan, Commissioner Jazzy Lahoria & his bodyguard the Deadly Danda, and Ring Ka King goodwill ambassador and apparently a rather famed cricketer Harbhajan Singh.

Singh again, The Sheiks, & Alyssa Flash/Raisha Saeed.

It was too big to fit in the scanner, so I had to do multiple scans of different parts.  Anyway, there ya go.  Not much of a post, but it’s something.  Hopefully I’ll finally get to the trade bait from COMC soon.  Until then, back to the drawing board.

Drawing in the dark…

Stuff I’ve Been Working On

What’s this?  A new post?!  Yes, I’m still here.  And since they are the only thing I have handy (I was hoping to do a trade post here, but alas…), here are some pics of some sketch cards I’ve been working on recently.  Last Tuesday I penciled 19 in one day!  Most of them have been given some ink and a couple are colored now.  Check ’em, and the immediately preceding bunches, out!

The first 7 Doctors Who..

Was sorta trying to do like I did with the Jareth card I did as an art trade (that you will see in a bit), and not be hyperrealistic, but still instantly recognizable.  What do you think so far?

She-Hulk, Psylocke, Mia Yim (Pro Wrestler), Axe Cop (Webcomic Phenomenon), Optimus Prime, Vampirella, and 2 Jigens (Lupin III; it's a classic anime)

At first when I didn’t get on the Vampirella set I was just like whatevs, but the more I’ve thought about it, the more it’s bugged me.  I think I’m good enough for a major set like that now!  What say you?

Anyway, those were all the presentable ones from the 19 I did.  One just sucked, one was nekkid, one was pervy (but not nekkid), and one maybe doesn’t suck but I just don’t like how it turned out.  16-18 out of 19 in one sleep-deprived day is still a pretty good percentage though, methinks.  Now for the immediately preceding bunch.

Beth Phoenix, Vampirella again, Rogue, Ms. Marvel, Zatanna, Kratos (God of War video games), Static (w/ Kirby Krackle!), Fire & Ice

Ms. Marvel and Zatanna were done at the same time on an ill-fated ustream cast, then I did the rest a few days later.  Static is for my dad, his consolation prize for losing our bet on the Bears/Jets game back in December.  I won three sketch cards from him (that he still hasn’t gotten around to doing yet!), but offered one as a consolation.  He was a big fan of the Milestone line back in it’s day, and still has most of the early issues of all the (four?) original series laying around somewhere.

So yeah, not only does artistic ability of various forms run throughout both sides of my entire family tree, but geekery is big as well in at least the immediate.  Even my mom is becoming a fan of Castle and The Cape and has been a pretty serious casual gamer going all the way back to when she used to hog my original Game Boy to play Tetris and Dr. Mario (and be exponentially better than me at both) when I was but a youngling, lol.

Anyway, back to the cards!  These next bunches are from a gaggle of art trades from Facebook and some randoms from right after and precede the above by about three weeks or so I guess.  I think all 7 or 8 people involved have received their cards by now.  I’m pretty sure I’ve received all of mine anyway (another post for another glorious day).

Three Rogues, Akuma (Street Fighter), Sam Witwer (aka Starkiller, and I guess he's on the US Being Human), Gambit, Jareth (Labyrinth), Heath Ledger's Joker

Witwer was mostly just penciled and then colored over with marker.  Still not sure about how it came out, but it was gleefully accepted, although that may just be due to the shirtlessness of it all…

Tron, Witwer finished, Jareth finished, Storm, The Flash, Darth Maul

As you can see, Witwer got a darker background and Jareth got a couple touchups before I sent him along.  All that circuitry on Tron was just brutal, although it didn’t really take any longer than usual I guess.  It sorta reminds me of an anime bumper.  The other notable thing is that all the coloring on The Flash is done in colored pencil (as is Tron’s circuitry).  I’m actually quite pleased with how he turned out, considering how little thought and effort went into him initially, and accidentally using the wrong colored pencil at first because they aren’t clearly marked.

So yeah, there ya go.  I had one more scan, but there’s a card on it that might be close enough to NSFW to not post it right now.  Still, this is nearly my entire output from 2011 thusfar.  Save for licensed sets, I think I’m already getting close to what I did in 2010, lol.  And I’d like to think that most of it is worlds better than much of my previous work as well.

Incidentally, I have no idea what I’m actually going to do with most of these.  That first Rogue with the starry background, Tron, Gambit, Jareth, Akuma, Witwer, and Ledger Joker were traded and Static is for my dad, but not so sure about the rest.  I’d like to get the Beth Phoenix and Mia Yim cards autographed.  I have this idea, to do a bunch of sketch cards of real people and get them auto’d, then frame and display them when I have myself a mancave someday.  Everything else… I dunno.  I suppose I may make them available for sale or maybe even trade if anybody is interested in them.  Let me know and we can work something out.

Well, I guess that’s it for this massive sketch card post.  Seeya next time, y’all!

Until our next…