 Welcome back folks. We have a very special video today. I'm going to be interviewing Chris Hopkins, the artist behind the cover art for Dragon Warrior III and Dragon Warrior IV on the NES. Chris is a very talented and experienced artist who has been doing this kind of work for a long time. He has done paintings that have shown up in different museum galleries. He's done Superbowl advertisements, movie posters, and even album covers. I hope you guys enjoy the video. Hello. Hello. Hi Chris. Hey, how you doing? I'm doing good. How are you? Good. So you're losing stuff, huh? Yeah, I'm off school now. Well, how old are you now? I'm 23 years old. Oh, you can't be losing stuff yet. That's that's my world. I'm old. You're young. What is this? You know, your mind is sharp and everything losing is my category. Well, yeah, I've had a bit of a rough semester, so it's kind of nice to relax a little bit, I think. No, well, at your age, would you act like a young person and your mind is too sharp to be like mine? So thanks. I got a tease with you a little bit here. Got to start the day with that way. Anyway, what can I do for you, buddy? I just want to go over the same kind of stuff again. I look more into your work and very interested actually in a lot of the stuff you've done. Okay. So I'll just ask you some stuff about how you started. How did you get into art again? Well, I started, well, if you go back to the beginning when I was in kindergarten, I drew a parrot that got a lot of attention. And I realized that I liked that. And I had an older brother who was athletically gifted and it was a type of thing where he got all the attention for his athletic prowess. You know, great guy. Love my brother. And then it took me a few years to, you know, get into that sports myself. But I just thought it was something that people responded to gave me the attention that I wanted as a little kid. And I figured, well, I kind of like this. And I kept doing it from then. I had my little business in elementary school selling pictures of monsters for like a dime a piece and things like that. And then I would just fiddly futz around as the years went on, doing little art jobs for maybe 20 bucks or so. Then I went to the art center colleges design and and got out and went from there, I guess. That's pretty cool. Yeah, I can relate a little bit like, in regards to wanting something to set yourself apart a little bit more. I think so. And I it's in it, you know, came to a crossroads and I was in college. I went to college on an athletic scholarship for wrestling. And I wrestled. I did that for a couple of years. And then it just really dawned on me. Well, pretty hard actually that I didn't I had the future that I wanted was not as a wrestler. I mean, the only future I had would to be a coach or something. And I did not want to do that. I wanted to be an artist full time. That's when I gave up my scholarship and dropped out and lived out of my car for a couple of years and stuff, traveled around and did all that odd jobs. And, you know, mostly being a next collegiate wrestler, I'd get a job like at a bar as a bouncer at a college bar in a different town or, you know, in Idaho and stuff like that. And which I was a terrible bouncer because my idea of crowd control was cream pies and seltzer bottles, you know, so, you know, that wasn't wasn't very good at I didn't like to hit anybody and I did not want to get hit. So there you go. I'll be pretty bad bouncer to if I ever did that job. Oh, God, I was I was horrible. God, I do that Jedi mind trick on him, you know, they'd come in and be raising hell. Hey, what guys want to go raise health to pop down the street? You know, come on, boys, let's go down the street and raise them hell, you know, stuff like that. So, you know, that was that was just as good as any, you know, they're pretty toasted when they come in there anyway. So let's see. So a lot of odd jobs over the years and then while I'm trying to support a lot of physical jobs when I was younger, you know, before I went into art school. And actually, once I got out of art center, I had to do concrete to for the first six months, they couldn't get any work anywhere. I'd been working while I was a student for, you know, a couple magazines and whatnot. And then when I got out, I couldn't get anything. And so I had to resort to concrete work until things picked up, got hired by Willardson and White and never look back. So do you still work there at the Watson and White? Oh, God, no, they've been dissolved for years. They they were Charles White and David Willardson started that company. And they had two of us working their full time and they had a couple of people come in from time to time. But Mick McGinty and myself did the bulk of of the work there. But I left in like 1983, something like that. And then the company, I think, went went out of business, like within a year after that, not that I had anything to do with it. I mean, it's just the way the timing went. That's how it went. They everyone moved on to their different, different directions. Okay, what kind of work did you do at that company? Illustration. I was an illustrator. Okay. Yeah. So where did you go to art school again? Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California. That's cool. Did you enjoy your time there? No, I hated it. I was broke. I was poor. I mean, I got a really good education. But I had no money at all. You know, it was one of those things to where I was just trying to hang in there and as hard as I would try, I could never get a scholarship. And even though I graduated with honors, you know, I just could not get a scholarship. And it's really, you know, it was one of those distressing times where, you know, my father had terminal cancer, and he was he was dying. And I wanted to get out. I wanted to go back to Oregon to see my father. And my mom and dad were very adamant, you know, they because I was going to drop out of school when they said, No, no, no, this is one of our big dreams that you, you know, finish college, get your education, this and that. So I stuck it out. And my dad stuck it out long enough to come to my graduation. And he was very, very pleased and everything to see, you know, you know, see me graduate, because no one in the family had ever graduated from any college. But no, I didn't like it there. I mean, the education was great. But, you know, like I said, I was hungry all the time I was dead broke. And my father was dying. So, you know, I wanted to get the hell out. But I didn't. So the long answer to a very short question, I mean, had I just said no, that would have been what it's not real cheeky of me. So anyway, I see it's it's good that you stuck it out. I suppose it helped along. Yeah. Yeah, it was it was good. I mean, I learned everything I really needed to learn there about all the fundamentals and the, you know, and techniques. I had some wonderful teachers that I'd never would've gotten anywhere else. So before your your current project started, you did a lot of interesting things. You did movie posters, you did some Super Bowl advertisements, I believe, is that true? Yeah, I did theme art for three Super Bowls. So that would be like the the the program that everyone gets, right? It's the poster, the program, it's a theme art. That means it's well, it's it's the art they use for everything. Yeah, the tickets, posters, programs, backdrops, these lot times and videos and things like that. So that's pretty incredible, actually. So you probably saw your artwork everywhere during the Super Bowl period at the time, right? I still do it during the Super Bowl because they'll still pull those things out and put them up there, even though they were done so many years ago. They'll pull them out for other things and they'll even have what was the best Super Bowl designs of all time or something. They had one of those things out last year and put them up and it shows up a lot still. Wow. So what what years were the Super Bowl that you designed? I don't remember the years. I can tell you the numbers. There's Super Bowl like there are somewhere like 80, oh gosh, I think they like 85, 86 and 88. I did Super Bowl 20, 21 and 23. Okay. That's pretty cool. I did take a look at them. They're pretty nice looking, actually. Oh, good. Long time ago. Yeah, they still sell them in there on the NFL store, actually, your designs. Oh, do they? Okay. Yeah. I guess from that top 25 or whatever it was, two of them were, two of my three were in there. So that was that was nice. That's cool. Yeah, that's good. You also did album covers, apparently. Yes. Yes. What bands? God, these are a long time ago. So I did Oingo, Boingo. I did Sticks Paradise Theater. I did. I did some Christian bands when Zion, Petra. Oh, God, I did some RAF was a different band from A&M. Sea Wind with Pauline Wilson. God, I did quite a few. I just don't remember all of them really. I did one. Oh, God, the guy who was in Super Tramp. I can't remember. Anyway, but I those are the ones that come to mind right now. The Sticks Paradise Theater. I was I was a finalist for a Grammy on that for album package design. So so you were nominated for a Grammy before? Yeah. Yeah, I was a finalist for that album package design for Sticks Paradise Theater. That's pretty cool. And I did some for what was it? It was a movie, White Nights. So they use that for the movie. They did it for the soundtrack as well. So are there any other movie posters that come to mind that you've done in the past? Yeah, I mean, I worked on on loads of them, but the ones that actually went to the end were like like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and oh, God, I'd have to think Ruskies was another one and all the ones I worked on. I worked on the original Return of the Jedi and and. Oh, God, I mean, they're just they're just so many. I mean, I'm a little shop of horrors. Did that matinee Christmas story? Lord, there's just there's just so many that I just forgot all of them. Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember. There are so many. I mean, I could look them up and try to find some things on them. But but it was it was a long time ago. OK, so how many paintings do you think you've done like over the years? Just thousands, thousands. Yeah, I mean, there's no I mean, I've been at this for God, how many years since 1979? Or I mean, I was illustrating when I was 78. Well, not when I I'm not 78, but in 1978. And I've just and I paint and draw every day, you know. So I really it would literally be I mean, I if you count all the finished drawings, it would have to be thousands. Yeah, I just can't. I can't even imagine where all of this stuff goes. I mean, you could safely say hundreds, but that would be inaccurate, you know. But I say thousands of people like, ah, he's, you know, what he's been drinking his bathwater or something. That's just I think it's really true, though. I think if I went through everything, I would see that it would be. I mean, it's it's a lot. I mean, I've got sketchbooks here that are full of what like what I consider finished sketches and things like that. It's just it's ridiculous. So yeah, just put a lot, you know, just be on the sale. Just say a lot. So every day you paint in there and draw. Yeah, every day. Wow. I'm pretty obsessed with it, you know. That's great. So you you have a studio also that you go to to do specifically. Yeah, I just have a detached garage that I had converted into a studio years ago. That's pretty. That's where I'm at right now. It's not bad. So works out OK. I was looking at some of your exhibits. I noticed that you have a lot of exhibits focusing on parts of history. This is something you're interested in now compared to. Yeah. Yeah. And compared to what I'm sorry to hear the last year. I didn't say anything. Oh, I thought you so I'm interested in compared to something. Yeah, I am interested in history. I think it's amazing. I think we can learn a lot from that. When I like say, friends, when I started on the things that's really passionate about like Tuskegee Airmen, it wasn't as big or as well known as it has become. Again, that has nothing to do with me. It was just the timing just happened to be the right time. And I started working on these things for a few years. And I know George Lucas put out another movie while he put out the only we never did. But the second movie I saw in the Tuskegee Airmen and that gained a lot of attention for the Tuskegee Airmen. The internment that was when I worked on it wasn't as known as it is now. Again, I'm not being any delusions of grandeur. You're like, I need to do with it. It was just timing again. And and that has to with my, you know, my wife is Japanese American and her family and it had to do, you know, a lot with that. But I am, you know, I think we can learn a lot from history. I'm not an activist in any way. I'm a historian and I will paint history things and people can, you know, kind of join the dots and make their own decisions and how all that stuff compares to things nowadays or what not. I don't tell anyone how to think. Let's say I just present what I believe to be historically accurate out there. My 70s site. So your Tuskegee Airmen collection has over 40 paintings, apparently. Oh, it's got like 70. Seventy. Well, yeah, there's a lot in there. I had to stop doing it because I wasn't getting paid for it. Just doing it. And after a while, I, you know, my wife is a wonderful woman and she has stuck with me through all this doing all the free stuff. But, you know, that's enough. You know, I don't want to, I don't want her finally have enough and walk out on me. So instead, I started doing free paintings on the on the Japanese American internment. So. Oh, there you go. So what aspects of each subject kind of drew you into Tuskegee and the internment camps? And. Well, the Tuskegee Airmen was something I was familiar with them with, you know, who the Tuskegee Airmen were. I wasn't didn't have a whole lot in depth knowledge, but I was a artist for the U.S. Air Force and what they would do, which they don't need more of what they did is they would have a biannual celebration where they would turn over the artwork for all the artists who turn over to the secretary of the Air Force and from there would either go to the Pentagon or wherever it would go or go into archives or go to a base around the world or something. And I had yet to be on a mission, you know, to accompany the guys somewhere. And so they told me, well, just paint what you want to paint. You know, I said, well, I'm going to do a history piece on the Tuskegee Airmen. I did that. The first piece I did was received better than I had thought. And so the guys at the Pentagon asked me to team up with CBS to do a documentary where they were going to follow me around while I interviewed Tuskegee Airmen and then painted them, you know, things like that. CBS dropped out. I was so involved in it. And I found the subject so compelling and so inspirational that I just kept rolling with it. And the Pentagon helped me out. So it became kind of a partnership between the Pentagon and myself. And I just got more and more enthused as I found out more. And if I had my way, I would probably do another thing that isn't Tuskegee Airmen because they get a lot of attention nowadays, but there's a lot of other African-American groups from back in that era who didn't, who served honorably in either the Marines or the army or something, where the Air Force, well, it wasn't the Air Force back then, it was the Army Air Corps, which is where the Tuskegee Airmen were in. But it would be nice to shine a light on some of these other real heroic people from back then. Yeah, it's a great story. I heard about the George Lucas movie. I haven't seen it yet, but it's not good. No, I wouldn't recommend it at all. OK, OK. Yeah, just look at the historic things they have on it. You can find some actual history things on like YouTube and whatnot, but the movie was really, you know, wasn't very good. OK. And that the collection was done in what year? 2014 or? I started it. The first one I did was 2006. The first one I did for the Pentagon that got the attention. And then I started, you know, putting adding to that the bulk of them were done in 2012. And then I did a few after that. But yeah, I would say the bulk of them were done 2012. OK. And were they displayed anywhere? Oh, yeah, they've been they started out at the Museum of Flight in Seattle. Then they went to the National Air Force Museum for a year and Dayton was. Yeah, the National Museum of the United States Air Force. Then it went to the Rosa Parks Museum. It went to the Southern Museum of Flight. It went to the Future Flight Museum in Muckltea, Washington. It went to the Gadsden Museum of Fine Art in in Gadsden, Alabama. Then it went to the Shack Art Center in Everett, Washington. And I think other places between in the course, it was at Bowling Air Force Base and Andrews Air Force Base. We've got probably somewhere else. I'm forgetting right now, but but yeah, it's been around. It's traveled around a lot. Yeah, yeah. And it's not done. It's not done traveling. It's just working on other other venues right now. OK. And after that, you started the internment of Japanese Americans Collection. Yeah, I started that with my wife, who is a different kind of an artist than me. She's a three dimensional national materials like Sculptor and Weaver. And she does just wonderful work. So she and I started working on that project together. OK. And is that completed or did you display it already? Well, we we display. Yeah, we had the first place where we've got other venues. We've got a real big show, but that's in 2022 at the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art. Bainbridge Island is where the actual roundup in an evacuation process. The Japanese Americans started in March of 1942. First from the ground zero place was Bainbridge Island. And they're going to have the 80th anniversary of the evacuation and there and where that's what our show is going to commemorate is that. But we've had the first one we had was at the Shakar Center. And we've had interest in a lot of other places. We just haven't nailed down any of the venues besides Bainbridge. Yeah, but it's ongoing. There's still some things I need to need to cover and explore. I get emails from people asking me if I will, you know, read this and that and then come up with something for it. You know, it has to deal with the internment. And I want to keep doing. But again, it's all a money thing because these things I do on my own dime, you know, people don't buy that stuff, you know, it's not, you know, if I wanted stuff to really be hit the mark, which I should be doing, I'd be doing like plain ear landscapes or cowboys and Indians, you know, and that stuff sells. But that's, you know, been there and done that with the landscapes, cowboy stuff, I've done some of that, but I have no passion for it. So I don't do it. I do commission work to pay the bills, mostly portraits and things like that. You know, the other stuff I do because I love to do it. And that's why I do it. Not the smartest artist in the world for damn sure, you know, I admit that. But at least I paint what I love to paint. Yeah, that's good. At least you're not, you know, stuck just doing what you don't want to do. Did that for too many years as an illustrator, you know, so. Now it's different. Take those skills you learned through all those years and apply them to something you really want to do. So there you go. All right, I can see that. So I wanted to go back to the Dragon Warrior games for the NES. I just want to ask again how that whole thing happened. I just got hired to do it is all really I I can't remember all this stuff for the the who the art director was or anything like that. It was just a matter of someone hired me to do that. It was like, you know, like movie stuff or any any stuff that I did back then, you know, it's people call me up and so we have a job. Well, you take a look at it and yeah, then I'll do it. I did a lot of gaming stuff, yet I never played any games. You know, I just they were just tired of me to do that. And I would, you know, try to, you know, get as emotionally involved in the in the subject as I could for the moment and then produce a piece and, you know, that's it. We want to the next work, you know, and I think about it again. That was kind of where I did it. I see. So Dragon Warrior three and four. Those are the two games that you did in the Dragon Warrior series, correct? I guess so. I can't remember. I mean, there was one with all the the sword or all the arms, you know, the axes and swords and all that kind of stuff. And they had like a crystal ball with a golden dragon sitting on it or something. Yeah. Yeah, that's one. And I think was the other was just the hilt of the sword, like a ruby type thing. Right. It was green. Yeah. Green background. And I think if I remember the handle of the or the hilt of the sword was kind of rubies or something like that, red of some kind. That's all I remember of it now. I mean, I should, I guess, pull it up and see, but it sounds familiar because I, you know, I totally forgot about all those things until I think you brought it up last time. Right. Right. Because in our like little Dragon Quest community, we kind of have you wondering who would painted those for years. We like never even knew, you know? Uh-huh. OK. And people have been trying to find out and all this and then I found you and it turns out you're a little more, you have a lot more or under your belt than I thought you would. Oh, it's it's pretty ridiculous. Yeah, it really is. It's all the stuff I've done is pretty. I mean, like I've been doing a long, long time. So I'm trying to see if I can find this dragon warriors, too, was it? Yeah. Yeah. And that's the one with the sword, right? Yeah. Four was the one to sword. Oh, four. OK. Let me see if I can get that. OK. Let me make sure because I'm sure that's, you know, that's what I did. I mean, well, I know what I did. I just don't know the number on it. Right. Nothing's coming up, son of a bitch. Let me see. Well, anyway, I'm still looking this up, aren't you? Ask me whatever else I can tell you right now. OK, so do you remember how large the paintings were for Dragon Warrior? Probably the one with the dragon on the crystal ball was probably 16 by 20, something like that. 16 by 20? Yeah, that was usually a standard size. I would work the other one was bigger. Oh, golly, I don't know. Because I paint a lot more and they'd crop in on it, probably oh, 28 by 24, something like that. That's pretty large, actually. Yeah, it was pretty. It was bigger than the other ones, so, you know. But yeah, let me still do this. Yeah, they were what they were, what they were. So, you know. OK. And do you remember what materials you used for those two paintings? Yeah, the one with the crystal ball one was just acrylic on illustration board. And the other one with the sword help was oil on canvas. OK, yeah, I kind of, that's kind of what I thought. Yeah, I want more traditionalist people. I was at that stage where people were starting to get into digital. And I went totally the other way and got rid of airbrushes and the acrylics and started doing this. Traditionally, they could be oil on canvas type thing. Yeah, a lot of people don't do that much these days. It's mostly just digital. Everyone was into that. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's it's really that's kind of what it is, you know. So, um, so, yeah, I'm a throwback to that those old days. So that's good. It probably takes a little bit longer, though, because on a computer, you could, you know, do very fast. Oh, sure. Sure. No, I that I understand that everything goes real quick. But that's why I got into doing the other stuff, too. I kind of hit my limit, I think, as an illustrator. I did some illustration work after that. I mean, I even did some maybe as recent as a year and a half or two years ago or something like that. But normally now it's I just, you know, do a lot of portrait commissions and do the the stuff that the museum stuff, meaning the internment, the the Native Americans do a lot of work with them. Because he said I like to work with the people. That's one of the things like that the cowboy thing I'm really not interested in. It's planes stuff, everyone and their dogs doing it. They go to these, you know, kind of rendezvous and, you know, dress up as cowboys and all this kind of shit. And they, you know, come back in the studios and dress up as cowboys and stuff like that. And that doesn't interest me. But what does interesting with the Native stuff, I work with the Northwest Coast guys and I actually go up and stay with with them for a while. These aren't, you know, just whatever rendezvous and stuff. You go up there and stay with them. You learn about them. You attend their potlatches. They, you know, the natives are honored. I've been honored in potlatches. My wife and I both have several times with some of the the tribes up here. And it's more of a real experience for me, you know, as you're trying to really, you're not romanticizing anything. You're just painting what's there, basically, or you study the history and work with the, you know, the culture bearers and the tribal noblemen and the chiefs and whatnot. And then work with, you know, archaeologists and anthropologists as well. Like here at the University of Washington or up at Simon Fraser University or some of the places, you know, in Canada and whatnot. So to me, it's more real experience. So. OK. Are there any current or upcoming projects like big ones that you're working on right now? Yeah, I've got I'm working on a book project with my wife on a lot of my my whimsical paintings. But I'm also I also have a show next year with a big, a big show actually. It's going to be up in Everett again, Washington. It's going to be with David Boxley, who is considered the finest native artist of his generation. And he and I are going to be working together on a native, you know, two different cultures, but one voice type thing. He and I are real good friends and and, you know, work together on a lot of things. But this is one show we've been trying to get together for a number of years. You know, it's kind of a path that, you know, both of us is he being a native and me being a non-native. You know, I have a feeling of respect. So we're working on that. I've got some things in the hopper with the the Buffalo Soldiers Museum in Houston. And you know, I've got a number of things going to get it. They're going to have a show at the Pentagon of Vietnam pieces. I mean, we have a lot of pieces. They're pretty, I guess, prominent in that show as well. So and I am the Air Force is flying me around to paint women, first women, like say the first one, first and only African-American woman, you two pilot, I painted her. And then I went back to DC and painted the first African-American female three star general. So I painted her and I'm going to Texas to paint the first Hispanic woman fighter pilot. So I got that. There's always something going on, so which I'm grateful for. That's cool. So those are like government collaborations, kind of. Yeah, they're just I'm doing those for the for the Pentagon. They're asking me to do that. So. Wow. So and I like said, I've got those others that have already been done. So, you know, it's it's it's going. And then my wife and I have been we've been down in New Zealand, you know, the Maori and things like that. You know, to me, that that's really exciting stuff is stuff like that, you know, going to work in with with different cultures and leaders of those cultures. And that's, you know, I find that real interesting. So I do a lot of that. You travel a lot. Yeah, at times, I do. At times, I'm gone a lot. I mean, last year, I did quite a bit, I guess, you know, work related stuff. My wife does a lot. She travels a lot, you know, work related things, you know, with our artwork. So, yeah, that's that's kind of some of the things I can remember that I have going on here, but I know we're going to have more to coming up. So that's good to hear. And you said you were working on a book. Yeah, my wife and I are working together on a book on on my whimsical stuff. I don't know if you've ever seen any of that because I don't post it everywhere because we're trying to, you know, keep it kind of on the QT until we get you know, the book done and out and stuff. But I do a lot of stuff that are based on ridiculous sketches of my sketchbook. And then I paint them up and my wife has been writing a story about behind them. So. So anyway, that's that's one of our big projects coming up. All right, I'll keep an eye on that. That sounds very interesting. Sure. All right. And I think we'll finish soon. Do you have any advice for like painters who want to get into it? I mean, even myself, I'm getting a little bit more interested in painting lately. Well, you know, it's something that you really wanted, you know, I think you've got to love it to or want to love it, I guess. And and then just pursue it. You know, if you like it, you can put the time in it. I mean, if you're going to if you love digital, you put time in that no matter what you do, it's just a matter of your art form. But one thing I would say, don't get discouraged too badly. I mean, if people tell you, like in my case, I had a grandfather said, you know, you're ridiculous, you know, anyone who goes into art is a fool. You're never going to make it, blah, blah, blah. You don't listen to that stuff. You just usually those are said by people who have never made it. You know, the thing is, is to just keep working hard at it, you know. If you want to enter those contests, I don't personally, because I don't I don't do that anymore. And I'm not interested in it. But if that's something you want to do, you should persevere in that as well. You know, and keep doing it, you know, even though you get a lot of rejection, just keep doing it, you know. And that's that's your best way is just what's going to get you over the top is your love for your craft more than anything, you know. So and always be a lifetime student. And if you love it, you will be. You'll always be learning and expanding and experimenting with these things, even when you're old, you know, been in the old meaning. You've been in the business a long time. You'll always, you know, find a passion for it. And that's what I would say. Long answer, of course, you can distill all this down because you're the writer, not me. This is good advice. Thanks. I appreciate it. Sure. So I think I'll let you go. Thanks a lot for talking to me again. I really appreciate you taking your time to tell me a little more about yourself. No worries. If you need anything else, just let me know. Of course. Thank you. You bet, buddy. Have a good one. You too. Bye. OK. Bye bye.