i was born on november 12th, 1967, in san pedro, california.
my interest in art began at an early age. the first thing i can remember drawing was a turtle at age 3.
my mother, who is the reason i have gotten to where i am today, always encouraged and supported me in this area. i remember one time i asked her if it was o.k. to draw something (i don't remember what) and she told me,
"you can draw anything you want". that was very liberating.
it seems that as far back as i can remember, i had always wanted to be an artist. i used to imagine what it would be like to be in my very own studio, painting whatever i wanted.
but why did i choose to go down this dark road?
my interest in scary things began early as well. i remember watching "night of the living dead", fresh out of the bathtub and sitting directly in front of the tv in my tighty whities. something about it was fascinating as well as terrifying. i could not turn away. i think i felt some kind of connection to it, due to the fact that my family was slowly beginning to fall apart around this time. there was a lot of fighting, not a lot of communication, and i really didn't know why. it was then that i began to immerse myself in art, often drawing monsters with bloody knives, carrying bloody heads, you know, those sorts of things. it somehow made me feel better.
my family also seemed connected to the supernatural. every house we lived in had some sort of weird, paranormal stuff going on in it (or maybe we were just crazy). creepy ghost sightings, out of body experiences and pre-cognitive dreams were just normal to us. i feel that this is another reason why my artwork has taken the direction that it has.
at around age 6 my dad left (giving me no explanation). it was a bad time.
a couple of years later, my mom re-met and married her high school sweetheart, jim zar, who became known to us as 'jimmy'. jimmy was, and is, a super talented artist. he had a tremendous effect on my life and my art.
by age 12, i had become really interested in special make-up effects. i was a full fledged horror fan by then and i was intrigued how the things that gave me the creeps were created. then a friend of mine's father who worked in a hospital gave me a shoebox full of stage make-up supplies. he used them for simulating casualties for trauma training exercises. it came with a little pamphlet on how to make burns, blood, scars and the like. i loved it. i would make up all the kids in the neighborhood with blistering burns and slashed wrists, much to their parents dismay. i would scare my mother as well with these tricks. this was a little cruel because i was always getting hurt and being taken to the emergency room for stitches. but it sure was fun seeing the look of shock on her face. she never got mad though. maybe it was because she was used to it from my grandfather. he was truly a terror. he used turn all the lights off chase me and my brother and sister around the house wearing this freaky caveman mask (yet another possible reason i have taken this path). scary as hell at age 5.
so i read books, practiced, and when i graduated high school, i bailed on my plans to go to cal arts to get into show biz. (i actually started working while i was in high school for a guy who really helped to teach me the ropes of make-up effects, jim beinke. we have since worked together frequently, and has since become one of my closest friends. he also introduced me to my soul mate, lisa. we've been married 13 years and have 2 kids.)
i made a portfolio, showed it around and got hired by an effects guy named tony gardner. i think i was his first employee. we worked out of illustrator william stout's studio on a couple of small productions. i think tony was renting a small section of it.
tony then landed the remake of "the blob", from which he then created alterian studios. i worked there as his lead designer and sculptor for 10 years.
it was at alterian studios on the film "darkman" that i met adam jones (pre-tool days). we became friends and he introduced me to cam de leon. not only is cam an artist of amzing genius, but he is a great drummer as well. i am a guitar player, so the three of us jammed a couple of times, but nothing really ever came of it. after "darkman" was finished, adam went to work at stan winston studios and we lost touch.
a few years later, i got a call from adam asking me to help him out on a video (stinkfist) for his now successful band, tool. i obliged.
after that, i became tool's 'make-up effects guy', heading up the make-up effects for every successive tool video since.
around 1997, alterian studios had tried to branch out into computer animation. they hired a couple of cg guys, elliot wortman and john mconnell. by this time, i had become more interested in cg as an art form, and asked elliot to show me some things in lightwave, the 3d program they were using at the time. i was immediately hooked. my first attempt at a full fledged computer generated art piece was 'toilet training', created with the help of then alterian co-worker jeanne vosloo and my best friend chris owen. this became the basis for the dark, endlessly looping computer animations that i and screaming lobster have created for tool's live shows. in fact, it was the first one of mine they had ever used. adam saw it and said, "can we use that for our live show?". i said yes and have been doing them ever since.
after this, i had a falling out with tony and i left alterian with jeanne to form screaming lobster, creating make-up as well as digital effects. that lasted for about 3 years, with tool providing the mainstay of our work. during this time, i landed a day job at cinovation studios on "the grinch" (painting hundreds of 'who' ears- yechhh), where i still work to this day.
cinovation has some of the most talented artists in the business, and working in that environment really re-ignited my desire to pursue my initial goal in life, to be a fine artist. so i began painting again.
due to a number of reasons, jeanne and i have since split the screaming lobster partnership and, well, here i am.
wish me luck.
chet
