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Becky Lynch Neon

Becky Lynch
Ink and watercolor on 18″ x 24″ watercolor paper

So this is different from anything I’ve done up to now, but that’s the point. I’ve done a lot of smaller paintings for the past couple of months for a variety of reasons, mostly because I needed a recharge. I felt it was time to do something bigger and wanted to make it special.

My last painting of Becky was a noirish thing, riffing hard on Jim Steranko and I at first wanted to dive deeper into that world by doing a nice large painting of The Man walking down a dark alley. It was obvious, but being obvious doesn’t have to be a bad thing. As I was really thinking about it, I instead opted for a more cyberpunk-tinged approach and making that alley bathed in neon.

The composition is something inspired by how Bryan Hitch approached his work on The Authority by showing a sense of scale. Instead of having the characters up close flying at you with the Earth in the background, for instance, he instead drew the Earth in large detail and the figures as almost specks against it, creating a larger sense of not just scale, but wonder.

I took that thinking and applied it for kind of the first time, seeing how taking a WWE Superstar out of a familiar environment like the ring or backstage, but into another one that may still speak to their persona. It also forces the viewer to ask themselves some questions and create narratives in their own minds, like why is she walking down this neon-scarred alley? Where’s she going and where is she coming from, and why?

Compositionally, the lines all lead to her. Becky may be a small size-wise element in the environment, but by controlling the perspective she’s brought all of the attention onto herself and her mission.