We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sinister Star a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sinister Star thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Hello, my name is Trent, I have always had this artistry in my blood at a young age. I was definitely inspired by my mom when she showed me one of her art projects from when she went to school. It was a steppel (millions of dots) portrait of a horse. I was amazed by the amount of detail put into it that it inspired or flipped a switch in me that stuck til this day. From there I would be selling little drawings of dinosaurs or cars in elementary school for a quarter to eventually doing art for bands for cover art and or designs on merchandise to doing photos of sets to creating lyric videos and music videos. I think I have a mild case of ADHD because I always want to have my hands in something creative be it from a form of photo manipulation or drawing or something that I can make look cool.

My start here in the Colorado scene had to of been when I was first drawing zombie portraits for random people and then I met this character that eventually became one of my best friends, Maris The Great. All I will say is look up his website. I re-built it for him. It’s awesome. www.maristhegreat.com . from there I really dove into the music scene, since meeting Maris opened the doors to me being creative with photography and videography and interview style editing for a lot of people to see my work. I came up with the tagname Sinister Star because when I would do drawings or paintings my signature was always an inverted star because i would connect the T and the J in a jagged style and it just became a star eventually so i just pretty much put the name together because I am definitely cynical with my sense of humor, the horror aspect and metal music I love all kinda tied it together.

Sinister Star, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started really getting into photography in 2018. I would wander the streets of denver during events like The Zombie Crawl or just randomly just to get out and try and show people things i would come across as interesting, morbid or just find cool juxtaposition. I especially loved going to the art district and checking out all the graffitti and free tag walls and then learn all the things about editing, color correction and creative styles by talking online with other artists I really looked up to. I would then start going out to local shows that were held at a bar that was near by my apartment called Trailside Saloon. It was ran by a promotion company called Swinging Noose Productions established by a man named Zack Beecroft. I definitely gotta give him credit for always letting me show up and photograph the shows that were held there at this little bar. He definitely allowed me to sharpen my skills and be able to introduce myself and the work I could produce to the bands that would be all up in this little hole in the wall that always felt like home. From there things just started gaining traction and people were amazed by the quality and the turnaround time I had for photos. I went through a really bad breakup and had to live with a friend by the name of Andrea Thomas, a professional wedding photographer. She showed me a few tricks for editing and some photography tips that have stuck with me to this day that I constantly use. I have had the honor to work with many local bands and national bands as well such as- HATED, Lungburn, Angelic Desolation, IAMTHESHOTGUN, Flesh Digest, SpaceCorpse, Death Upon the Ignorant, Divine Torture, Skin Dancer, The Guise Of A Demon, Lacerated, Neuromorphic, Obscene Worship, GraveDancer DOA, It’s Always Sunny In Tijuana, Triune, Source, In The Variant, Blood Of Lilith, Vitiate, Maris The Great And The FOD, Rosemount, Lavagato, Harvested, Condemned To Burn, Goat Hill Massacre, Carnal Contempt, Cryptic Witch, Awake In Ashes, Purge The Heretics, Human Paint, Fetal Embalmment, Humanity, Insipidus, and many many others. National Bands i have worked with are- Job For A Cowboy, Nuclear Power Trio, HAVOK and a few others as well.
I want to give a huge shoutout to Kyle Lamar of Digital Myle for allowing to be part of the national acts and doing behind the scenes photos.

Photography alone wasn’t all I wanted to do. I really wanted to learn how to do animation and also learn how to do video editing. I dove into After Effects and Premiere Pro heavily and worked with many hip hop artists as well. I took three years of heavy courses online via Youtube and also purchased courses and talked with editors all over the country on Discord and Instagram. There is a whole underground culture in itself with video editors and it is pretty insane of a rabbit hole. There is so many techniques and ways you can do things. but most importantly you will have to develop your own style. It’s almost like the graffiti underground. There is a big list of videos I have edited as well. I’d have to say that Heyy Ayy One was always one of the truest in the culture of underground hip hop music videos as well as my good friend The Mac Films, Nathan Brandt and a few others that I follow on instagram, in the Colorado scene.

I am obsessed with what I do. Even working a full time job I always have this eternal desire to be creative and always have something to work on. I love helping people and solving problems and producing solutions to make whatever picture in their head come to life in a multitude of options and mediums that I have under my belt. I just know it is successful because everyone always is hitting me up for that next project.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Mostly it is to make art that I really think is cool and that others would think is cool too. No matter what it is.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

Social media is a massive resource for sure.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sinisterstar303/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sinisterstar1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@trentjacobs8823/videos