The Dark Art Society Podcast with Chet Zar

This week I interview prolific painter, tattoo artist and Dark Art Society member Brian Brown. We talk about his life growing up in a family of 14 kids (!), building childhood guillotines, mask collecting, art collecting, skull collecting, living in Egypt and stealing a mummy skull, seeing auras, his freeform oil painting and tattooing techniques, and a ton more! I could have kept going for anothe...

This episode I interview fine artist Kris Kuksi. You are probably familiar with his totally unique style of fine art sculpture that is often copied but never equalled. We discuss his early life experience living in rural Kansas, going to art school and traveling to Europe to study the old masters, primarily being a painter and suddenly becoming known as a sculptor, his inventive style of "kit bash...

This week I interview tattoo artist turned full time fine artist, Ego Shoreclay. We talk about his childhood influences, getting into tattooing, getting out of tattooing, his unusual acrylic painting techniques, working as an illustrator, his use of cryptic symbols and ancient forgotten languages in his paintings, teaching, the importance of online promotion, sharing information about your art wit...

This week I interview Brad Gray, a fantastic painter and Dark Artist living in Ireland. We discuss his path to fine art, traveling the world with his family for the last 20 years, living in China, living in South Africa, his creative techniques and how he develops his paintings, his philosophy about Dark Art, working with Copro gallery and tons more! This is a long one and extremely conversational...

This week I interview my old sculptor pal Matt Levin. We discuss his roundabout way of becoming a sculptor who specializes in creatures, moving to LA, Guillermo del Toro encouraging his fine art making, moving to Atlanta, being inspired by the work of DAS member Paul Komoda, going to a Buddhist college, Alan Watts, Zen, working with computers/3d animation/character modeling, one of his sculptures...

This week I interview artist, DAS member and creator of the Friday Night Dark Art Jam, Steve Cleff. We discuss his unique approach to creating his unusual watercolor paintings, his experience in my Patreon Mentorship tier, his experience in art school, his day job as Director of Product Design in the tech industry, his (and my)synesthesia, working with models pre and post Covid 19, the importance...

Another legend on this week! Derek Hess! We talk about all kinds of things including his (highly recommended) documentary "Forced Perspective", his take on "dark art", his loose style, his art teachers, how he got into creating rock posters, mental health and tons more. This is one of those conversations that we both forgot was being recorded so there is lots of interesting chit chat. Also- Derek...

This week my guest is the legendary Wes Benscoter!!! Wes was a big inspiration for me when I was starting to think about having a painting career so this interview was one I was kind of nervous about doing. We talk about our many similarities (LOTS of similarities), drawing monsters as a kid, working on many legendary metal album covers (straight out of High School!), being a self taught acrylic p...

This week I interview creature sculptor Dug Stanat. We discuss a wide range of topics, from the esoteric to the highly technical! We talk about Dug working for 12 years at PDI/Dreamworks, getting into the animation industry, leaving the animation industry, his fear of horror films, magick and the supernatural, his techniques for creating his characters, working in ceramics and tons more! This was...

This week I interview the amazing Mexican painter Dos Diablos for a 2nd time (3 years almost to the day later)! We chat about many things including: the quarantine, his process for creating artwork, art history, bad acid trips, designing creatures for the film "IT", favorite artists and much, much more! This is a long episode clocking in at over 2 1/2 hours! It's always great talking to my friend...

This week I interview monster painter Scott Sherrod about mushrooms, UFOs, Twitch live streaming, stamping numbers on silicon computer chips, and his awesome monster watercolor paintings among other things. This is a super fun conversation that went in many directions (just the way I like it!). Also a quick art life update and new subscribers. Interview starts at 5:36 All of Scott's links in one c...

This week I interview creature creator/designer/mask maker Casey Love. We discuss growing up in Monrovia ion the 80's and 90's, loving monsters and horror films as a kid, discovering masking (relatively) late in life, working for Sideshow Collectables, the power of obsession, working conventions, old dude stuff and much more! Casey is a super great dude and I really enjoyed talking with him! Also...

This week I interview illustrator Dave DeVries. We get right into conversational stuff right away rather than the usual format of history, background, etc. You probably know Dave from his Monster Engine project from years back. He’s the dude who painted children’s drawings as realistically rendered paintings. Yeah, that guy! The Monster Engine went viral on all the big blogs and even got him on TV...

This week I interview artist and art collector Buddy Nestor. We talk about getting a new bed, growing up in small South New Jersey town, going to art school, working as a scenic artist, joining the Navy, hauling giant paintings to art galleries to try and get representation, becoming a painter and finding his artistic voice, becoming an art collector, his current art favorites, his art collection...

This week I interview artist and Dark Art Society member Ryan Case. We talk about growing up loving monsters and comics in a small town in Kentucky, taking terrible art classes in high school, community college, being a professional piercer, moving to Louisville, deciding to become a professional fine artist, teaching children's art classes, his "My Pet Monster" palette, creative DIY solutions to...

This week I continue my interview with my old friend and makeup effects sculptor buddy Ryan K. Peterson. In part 2 we talk a LOT about Magick but also cover Ryan's later film career as well as his forays into fine art and sculpting for Sideshow collectables. Conversation gets pretty deep in this one! Also a quick art life update and new subscribers. Interview starts at 6:25 Ryan's website: ryankpe...

This week I interview my old friend and makeup effects pal Ryan K. Peterson. Ryan is one of the greatest sculptors in Hollywood, or anywhere for that matter. We talk about his childhood growing up in rural Utah, his love of monsters from an early age, getting a degree in art college, breaking into the film business, working on major motion pictures such as "Seven", "Mission: Impossible", "Men in B...

In episode 170 I interview the man behind Toxictoons, Eric Pigors. We discuss going to art school, our mutual love of monsters of the “Monster Kid” era of the 70’s, his 15 years working in feature animation at Disney (and working on a TON of hit films), his techniques for creating his monsters, dying from a heart attack (!), finding his style, his vast monster collection and tons more! I'm a HUGE...

In episode 169 I interview Visionary artist Jake Kobrin. We discuss Visionary art (and Dark Art as a subset of Visionary Art), Magick, Crowley, magick.me, Eastern philosophy, Psychedelics, living in Bali, making money as an artist and lots more! This episode is my favorite kind- lots of mystical talk and full of insights! Also a quick art life update. Interview starts at 4:40 Jake's article about...

In episode 168 I interview multi disciplinary artist, Dark Art society member and brain cancer survivor Dan Colonna. Dan talks about getting into art, painting, model painting, working for Disney Imagineering and then suddenly getting a diagnosis of having terminal brain cancer. 7 years later, he is going strong and doing so well that the doctors can't even explain it! We also discuss the importan...

In episode 167, I continue on the topic of "social media marketing for artists" with resident marketing and social media expert Josh G. His first interview (Ep. 110) is our most listened to podcast and Josh does not disappoint in this new fun and informative follow up episode. Lots of little nuggets sprinkled throughout! I ALWAYS learn something new about art promotion and marketing when I talk to...

This week I interview artist Brian Despain. Brian was an artist I really loved in the early days of the Pop Surrealism scene (and still do!). We talk about his days in art school, working as a graphic artist in the early days of Photoshop, working for gaming companies, painting digitally, transitioning into fine art, learning to paint in oils and of course, tons more! Interview starts around 07:22...

This week I interview foam fabrication expert, prop maker and makeup effects industry professional Kenneth J. Hall. We learn about the art of foam fabrication, how he got into the film industry, stories from the many films he has worked on and LOTS of technical and process talk- something that I am really interested in! I had a great time talking with Ken and learning about his career. Super fun e...

This week (director if "Chet Zar: I Like To Paint Monsters" and Dark Art Society co creator) Mike Correll checks in to talk about his latest RV life adventures and his newest project, the all in-phone created unscripted fiction film "New Mexico True Horror". It was great to see how Mike is doing and we had a super fun conversation that went in a few different directions (just like we used to)! Int...

This week I interview another one of my makeup effects industry pals, the two time Academy Award winning (“Bombshell” and “Darkest Hour”) Kazu Hiro! Kazu is widely regarded as one of the greatest (if not THE greatest) special makeup effects artists of our time. We talk about his childhood in Japan, breaking into the Japanese film industry, starting his own FX shop, working with Akira Kurosawa, com...