UFC Octagon girl shows off her artistic side

Published Mar. 30, 2012 6:50 p.m. ET

foxsports

It turns out there's not a lot UFC Octagon girl Brittney Palmer can't do.

Palmer, who is in Las Vegas for filming of The Ultimate Fighter, has already had a big year.

Palmer, who is an art student in Los Angeles, was on the cover of the March issue of Playboy. She's also quite an artist too, and her latest work featured a certain German NBA superstar.

Palmer was commissioned by a collector on the East Coast to do a painting of NBA Finals Most Valuable Player Dirk Nowitzki. And while Palmer isn't a huge basketball fan, she enjoyed painting her latest project.

"I'm so busy with the UFC it's hard for me to follow any other sport," said Palmer. "All I know about Dirk is that he's one of the best players for the Mavericks and he's known for fade-away stuff. I started on a couple of different pieces of Dirk. He has such distinctive features. It took me three different times to find out what I wanted to do."

The piece, which wasn't finished until it was sealed Thursday, took Palmer around 10 hours to complete. There are no plans currently for Palmer to sell copies of the print but that could change based on demand.

There's certainly a lot of demand for Palmer these days.

Palmer has been involved with art all her life. She's also always been into mixed-martial arts.

"I'm from Vegas and the UFC headquarters are in Vegas," she said. "Right out of high school I started in some Vegas shows and signed up with a couple of agencies. The WEC called me to be their Octagon girl and then it merged with the UFC and that was it."

Palmer, who began working for the WEC in 2007, doesn't just show up with ring cards either. She's also a big fan of the sport she's involved with.

"I really do love it," she said. "I love it because you really don't know how a fight is going to go. One second someone is going down and you know they're going to win and two seconds later they're knocked out. There's such a shock value. It has everything. It's such a unique sport."

Palmer has her favorite fighters too. Bantamweight Urijah Faber, who came up through the WEC, traveled to Italy as part of a USO tour with Palmer. Lightweight Clay Guida is another fighter Palmer likes to watch.

When Palmer isn't busy with the UFC or modeling, it's art that's her main focus. She lives in Venice, Calif., where she goes to two art schools. She's painted portraits of everyone from Nowitzki to Sammy Hagar to Johnny Cash to Jimi Hendrix.

"I've always been into the art world whether it was dancing or music," she said. "I've only been doing this for a couple of years. I've always been creative."

Palmer even considers MMA an art form.

"Any way of expressing yourself is art," she said.

As busy as Palmer is, she doesn't plan on slowing down anytime soon. She doesn't see the point.

"The beauty of this business and the business I'm in is there doesn't have to be a be all, end all," she said. "I can be a UFC Octagon girl, an artist, be on the cover of Playboy. I like to be able to spread myself around. I get to live out my dream."

To view more and purchase art, visit BrittneyPalmer.com.