Finally a Cintiq 12 WX replacement

A month ago I was going to buy a Cintiq 12 WX. After using both a modbook and a retina macbook pro I was tired of  making sure files were transferred when working off site. Also the 16 gigs of RAM, quad core, SSD drive, and highly superior graphics card on the macbook pro really make a difference. But after calling around only B&H photo and the Wacom store had them in stock. A couple weeks ago they went out of stock on Wacom's site. I thought I was in for a long wait. However Wacom has announced a long overdue upgrade of the 12 WX, the 13 HD! The resolution will be higher and I'm really hoping the screen will be brighter. The announcement was made on the european Wacom estore so hopefully they will be announced on the U.S. site soon.

Article on Engadget.com

Creature Sketches

Various scary beasts- a humanoid and carnivore with extra limbs, and an herbivore that is capable of causing damage also. If you open the image in a new window or tab the image will open in a much larger size.

Ad During the Oscars Inspired by The Fifth Horsewoman of the Zombie Apocalypse?

While working on an assignment for some creature designs last night, I had the Oscars playing in the background. A funny Samsung ad showed Tim Burton brain-storming for a Zombie Unicorn Apocalypse movie, which totally reminded me of my painting. I hadn't seen those three words put together until I did my painting of the Fifth Horsewoman of the Zombie Unicorn Apocalypse last year (scroll down to July 2012 for that post).

At the beginning of last year when my wife and I were coming up with the idea of the zombie apocalypse rider on an evil unicorn, we looked around online and there was no one making a connection between those three things zombies, unicorns, and the apocalypse. So I wonder if I inadvertantly got Tim Burton to say those are his favorite things.

Here is the ad.

At first I thought it was a remote possibility because if they googled those three words they would have seen my painting. It's shows up about eight rows down on Google image search. But then I saw this image in the ad. It is very much a My Little Pony version of my image. So many elements are similar, a skull that's exposed mixed with a mostly intact body, the teeth showing, the exposed ribs (which where one of Dan Dos Santos' many great suggestions for the painting), the drill bit-like horn, the long hair growing around the hooves, even the angle and the gray sky in the background.

I have to say extra props for the dangling eye ball.

I know as an artist who paints from reference these are the types of details that repeat if you are looking at an image for reference and trying to create a new piece that is equally as effective. Here is one of the first images that comes up on Google search for My Little Pony, their illustration looks very much like a combination of my image and the one I found online. 

I think the ad is hilarious and that would be cool if they were inspired by my work, obviously they came up with something creative and different with the my little pony-cartoonish look. But it does feel uncomfortable discovering a huge publicity campaign might have been working off my ideas without the slightest notice. I am an easy going guy though, but I wouldn't mess with My Little Pony.

Humanoid Creature Design

I'm taking a Gnomon class with the brilliant creature designer and excellent teacher Jerad Marantz. This is one of my first projects, a tribal humanoid, monkey mixed with a bat type creature.

Recently, I had jury duty. I had quite a bit of time while waiting for jury selections. Here's an herbivore drawing I did on the iPad.

In the Realm of Dreams & Fears Art Show

On February 6th from 5-9pm I will be at the opening of a group show at Longwood Arts Gallery @Hostos, titled, "In the Realm of Dreams & Fears.". The last day of the show is May 1st and there will be a closing reception that evening.

This group exhibition is organized by artist and guest curator Antonio Vicenty, inspired by his interest in horror/fantasy films. It presents recent phantasmagorical works in drawing, mixed media, painting, photography, sculpture and video by visiting artists from Brazil, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States. Participating artists include Pierre Ayotte, Patricia Ayres, Michael Paul Britto, Fernando Carpaneda, Kari Christensen, Shawn Conn, Steve Durham, Elisabeth Faraone, Julio Garay, Alba García, Mike Hrubovcak, Jayson Keeling, Steve Lewis, Claire Martial, Ivan Monforte, Owen Mulligan, Lucrecia Novoa, Peter Pier, Matt Pinyan, Radical Sem Dó, JohnnyRamos, Vertebrae33, and John Zhao.

I will have four pieces in the show. The address is:

450 Grand Concourse
(near the intersection with 149th street)
Bronx, NY

The building with the gallery is on the same street as the 4 and 5 subway 149th street stop.

Bug Beast

Another rough sketch of a bug beast. Legends of Norrath Set 15, Debt of the Ratonga releases December 4. I will be posting some art done for the set after the release on my website karichristensen.com