Maki Itoh

Passion inside the ring inspires passion on-page. Here at Love Wrestling, we curate some of the best fan art we can find every week. Take a look at this week’s gallery and meet your new favourite artists!

These awesome artists work quite hard on these pieces, and we hope you can hit like or RT on their fine works!

Artist Spotlight – Lindsay!

It’s been a pleasure to share galleries of multiple artists, and while ARTomic Drop will very much continue to do so, these artists also have amazing stories about their fandom and their trade, and we’re going to start exploring those stories in depth starting with Lindsay from Binghamton, New York.

Lindsay was one of the first artists I met – digitally speaking – through my scouting missions for these galleries. The above Brodie Lee piece was featured in the very first ARTomic Drop. As she was among the first to be featured, it made sense to involve her and her work in the first Spotlight.

Lindsay has been involved in the art world and wrestling fandom since a young age – though there was a lapse of the latter that had been mended in 2017. It didn’t take long until her love of art spilled into the wrestling fandom.

While Lindsay works professionally in the art world as a graphic designer, her worlds of art and wrestling fandom colliding have been rewarding in very interesting ways. Her claim to fame – a painting of Jon Moxley from his CZW days hangs in the Good family household!

“In 2019, Renee (Young) started following me on Twitter after I randomly asked her to have me illustrate her cookbook. (I was working a very boring temp job at the time that gave me a lot of time to screw around on the internet) I almost thought she was going to unfollow me because I post a lot of spammy stuff, but I’ll see her fave a piece of mine here and there. I started working on a piece of Jon Moxley from one of his Dog Collar matches in CZW, and she kept liking my progress, so that was a huge confidence boost.“

In perfect happenstance, Moxley would soon be booked at an indie show near Lindsay’s home. An opportunity to present her art to the muse!

“My thought was, I probably will not be able to talk to him or see him in close proximity, but if nothing else i can impress everyone with a very elaborate sign! I went with one of my good friends (Who is also artsy and made adorable keychain charms of Benny and Blue, Jon & Renee’s dogs to give them) and right when we were let in, we heard an announcement that Jon Moxley was coming out for one additional signing/photo op. We were the first people in line, and I can not remember what my opener was – It’s absurd how starstruck I can get – but he held my painting and said “Oh yeah, fuck yes, this is rad as shit” and it’s literally something I think about whenever I feel like I can’t make anything good. We joked that maybe our stuff would make it back to his home, and a few days later Renee posted a picture of her knitting supplies with my friend’s Benny keychain! It’s our headcanon that the Blue keychain is Mox’s favorite and he carries it with him everywhere. Most recently, Renee took a few Instagram videos of the studio she’s making for herself, and had my painting up on the wall! It’s incredible to me that they’re going to have a kid who will have to explain that painting to her friends down the line. “Oh theres my dad in a dog collar strangling another man..typical dad stuff!”

Lindsay has also had fun interactions with the likes of Orange Cassidy (he was so appreciative and kept telling me I was talented. Like, sir, you just did flips w/ your hands in your pockets!), Joey Janela (super sweet and generous with reposting and crediting artists) and MJF (He told me he wanted 20 copies. He also told me he’d see me in court for illegally using his image. We have yet to cross that bridge).

And on top of it all, Lindsay was also involved in a beautiful collaborative project called Tarot Supercard.

“Tarot Supercard was put together by Valerie Quartz, who is one of the kindest makers I have come to meet on Wrestling Twitter. It took roughly 4 months for the project to come together, and initially, we were going to have a spring 2020 release, but that was pushed back and we were able to get our decks in the summer. It was a bit of a letdown that we couldn’t resell them at cons, since so many of us used to work those, but it’s definitely one of the best projects I have ever been involved in. A portion of the profits we made went to The Trevor Project, which provides shelter to LGBT+ and at-risk youth, and we ended up giving them over $1000 if memory serves! Unfortunately, we only did one print run, and a few of our cards feature wrestlers that were named in Speaking Out – stickers were provided w each deck if you wanted to cover their faces – so this may be the last opportunity to grab a deck!“

As mentioned, stock of this beautiful deck is running low! Get your deck while knowing that 75% of sales will be benefiting the Kaleidoscope LGBT Youth Center by clicking here.

Thanks to Lindsay for lending her time to us to speak art and wrestling with us. Follow her work on Twitter and Instagram. We were also quite thrilled to have Lindsay compete on our most recent edition of Quizplex! Watch the replay on the Love Wrestling Twitch, Facebook or YouTube!

And with that, please enjoy the rest of our gallery!

Itoh Respect Army continues to takeover!

As we always emphasise, we always get permission from artists before we share their art on this page. Last thing we want to do is do wrong by these talented folks. In last week’s ARTomic Drop, we highlighted art inspired by the Queen of Simps Maki Itoh, and permission for these pieces came in after the article had been published.

But really, you’re not upset about two weeks of the Cutest Pro Wrestler, are you?

All fan art is curated with permission from the artists. If you are the artist of any of these pieces and have changed your mind or believe we have had a misunderstanding regarding permission, please inform us and we will have it removed.

If you’d like to have some of your wrestling fan art featured, send me an email or at me on Twitter to call my attention to your latest work!