wulfpaper

aotearoa wrestling promised the biggest night in the NZ scene and they didn't disappoint! it was actually quite fucking incredible to watch pro wrestling at due drop arena; the setting and lighting was so good that every shot looked professional. it was a 3+ hour long event so i did some live drawing between matches. tee hawke jumping off the second floor was the highlight!

loved watching rangi and jamie tagataese as well—sad to see the big man go but it was a great venue for a send-off. i enjoyed the tubbs and murdoch tag team a lot, really great bumbling foolery fun in the same sense as the bushwhackers. just an amazing night. i love pro wrestling.

pro wrestling is like real life brain rot (and real life brain damage for the wrestlers) but it is my go-to comfort food when i need a pick-me-up.

there were only three people in the audience by the time i got there at opening, but by the first few matches the number had grown to ten— and none of them were people part of the local pro wrestling scene! still, the turnout was worse than i expected. i thought there would have at least been fifteen people given how well the new years showdown did.

i didn't mind the intimate atmosphere, though. the dojo got a new host instead of the guy who usually handles hughes academy's shows, and i felt like his inexperience and silliness added to the fun of the event. like you can't really take a wrestling show with an audience of ten that seriously.

the matches were pretty unserious too. first event had xander taylor up against bruno astro in a gimp mask. i guess the dojo didn't have enough people willing to fight that night because they pretended that bruno was a mysterious mexican luchador character and had him speak spanish and everything (bruno is brazillian). i'm not sure what to make of bruno's progression in the dojo— he's easily the best technical fighter and performer out of fale's boys so stuff like this and jungle fury feels a bit beneath his talents.

unfortunately i've soured a bit on the pretty boys. even though they're faces i just don't like how homophobic their gimmick feels. a lot of it is like jokingly sexually harassing other wrestlers or staff members which aside from being weird simply feels played out and unfunny. i don't feel like mark is even into the role as much as richie, but maybe it's because he's also taken to running a family vlog instagram reels account.

after richie's fight with tj illes, the pretty boys made an in-character speech about how they were there at the dojo since day one, always fighting and persevering despite never making it to japan, staying strong in the face of those who did and came back to laugh at them. first of all, it's like what are you on about. there have been a couple of fale boys to make it to japan but the dojo is also very infamous for not getting anyone to NJPW itself outside of one japanese guy and the two brothers from late last year.

secondly, it was just a sad, strange speech. the struggle to make it to japan might be an in-character thing but that's also eight years of your real world life spent on a goal that probably isn't going to come true. sure it's kayfabe but the gimmick of the pretty boys is to call everything hot and sexy, not to be so serious like this. the audience had ten people and i was likely the only one who's familiar with actual NJ tamashii lore so i don't know what they gained from talking about it character-wise unless there was a hint of truth. and if there was... again, it's sad that the audience only had ten people.

finally painted the nyanzieks model by a3DKiwi.

tips on painting him:

• remove the base attached to the model so that it's easier to paint
• prime the model by using white paint to fill in the gaps and sandpaper to smooth it out (repeat this step multiple times)
• use nice quality paint or at least use shitty quality colors mixed with nicer white or black as a base
• 'overpaint' gaps; you can always paint on top of it afterwards. the colors showing through can even contribute to more of a painterly look if you're going for that instead of a clean-cut look
• to paint the flowers on his cloak, mark out the two flowers on the front. then, wrap a piece of paper or string around his cloak and mark out the same points. use a ruler to divide the distance by 7 and determine where the rest of the flowers should go
• i painted the flowers by mixing silver paint with yellow/umber, but it's probably smarter to just use a gold pen