Lum: Alright Chris, first off congratulations of being our featured artist! This is your first exhibit you are involved in and already you made it to our feature! How does that feel?

Chris Cold: First, thanks for the feature, and yeah I never thought I'll get featured so soon. Actually I consider myself a noob, I'm 19 years old and started using photoshop when I was 17. Don't know when I finished my first art piece, but I still remember that before making space art I really liked to customize fonts, painting fire around the letters and so on. And now almost 2 years later I joined the Luminarium.

Lum: So only 2 years later and you became an amazing artist. Where do you see yourself going with art for, lets say in 5 years?

Chris Cold: Well, I dont think I'm an amazing artist just yet, but I'm definitely better than 2 years ago. My ultimate goal as an artist is to be able to paint everything I want and it should be easy like talking. I kind of want to express everything I can say with words in pictures, or at least to be able to do this.

Lum: Your piece Perl, used in our Genesis teaser, got a great response form the audience, what where your thoughts behind that piece? And tell us a little about the creation process.

Chris Cold: Actually I didn't have a solid idea for this piece, I think that explains why it looks a little abstract or surreal. I wanted to create something good looking and also interesting, mystical if you want. I started with some 3D work using 3ds Max, and then finished it in Photoshop.

Lum: As far as your first experiences with The Luminarium team, you have made some amazing pieces already, how do you like it so far and in what way does it inspire or help you?

Chris Cold: I think I work more effective in a team. It motivates me more when a lot people work on one project, it also encourages me to try new stuff and not only recreate the same old pieces again and again. It also helps a lot to see how great artists create their art, that's the best part in my opinion.

Lum: Just out of curiosity, if you would be able to pick the next theme for an exhibit, what would you find interesting to have as a theme to work on?

Chris Cold: Oh that's a difficult question. Hmmm, I liked “genesis”, but I would vote for “darkness” or maybe “darkness and light”. I know it sounds not very original but I my upcoming pieces may fit the theme very good haha



Lum: What would you say generally is your main influence for an art piece, for instance, what was the main inspiration for your piece Rise Of A Blue Star?

Chris Cold: My main inspiration was the frozen throne in warcraft, I saw some concept art from blizzard and liked the blue colors and the tower in the middle, but it's also some kind of a remake of an older piece that is still somewhere in my gallery.

Lum: Talking about companies like Blizzard, is it a goal of yours to work in the entertainment industry as an artist one day?

Chris Cold: Oh well, I would like to, but I never worked as an artist or designer or anything related, I didn't even study art and I certainly never will. If I'll be good enough for a job like this I would totally do it, but for now I'm just a hobby painter.

Lum: As a hobby painter, if you could pick any artist on the planet, who would you love to collaborate with on a piece?

Chris Cold: I think Victor Antonov, cause I like the Half-Life concept art a lot. But actually I would pick anyone who can come up with an interesting and original idea. It may be even more interesting to collaborate with a new artist because it's more of a challenge.

Lum: Awesome, it looks like you are a very open minded artist! A good addition to The Luminarium for sure! So as for our final questions, are you excited for V3?!

Chris Cold: Of course! I'm sort of part of it, so I'm as excited as I can be.

Lum: Great! So before we wrap this up, anything you would like to say?

Chris Cold: No I think I said everything I wanted to say haha

Lum: Alright thanks for the interview it was fun Chris!