Hello Zombie

I stumbled across this piece of awesome via Hot Topic via Facebook. The artist in question is Joseph Senior, a digital illustrator and art director based in Auckland, New Zealand. He specializes in creating realistic concept art, and his tools of the trade are Photoshop and Illustrator.

The thing that caught my eye most about Senior was his sheer geekiness. As a fan of all things geeky, cute, macabre, or some combination of the above, I couldn’t help but adore his Hello Kitty Pop Culture model mock-ups, which can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/josephsenior/. They’re fun, globally relatable, visually appealing, and absolutely stunning in their photo realism.

Because he isn’t a world renowned artist, I learned about him in a much different way than expected. Instead of an extensive Wikipedia page, I went straight to his professional Myspace page, where it was more like meeting a new geeky friend than researching a creative inspiration. He manages the page himself, so there was a heartwarming combination of humor and quirk thrown in amongst the details. May it be known that he is a huge Star Wars fan, I kid you not.

Unfortunately, none of the figures are currently marketable because of licensing and are merely fan art. However, that doesn’t seem to discourage his growing fan base. Here’s to hoping that these ideas will be picked up by Sanrio, LucasArts, and any other involved licensees.

Check out Joseph Senior’s Myspace http://www.myspace.com/yodanz and one of several related blogs for more inspiration and smiles - http://youbentmywookie.com/wtf/joseph-seniors-outstanding-ultimate-hello-kitty-concept-model-kits-9156.

To be concise, Joseph Senior FTW. The zombie kitty is certainly believable.
(It's surprising how invaluable the internet can be for global research, especially when you least expect it.)