8 September 2010

LOL - 6 years ago


Because I love you guys Im going to share with you my deep dark secrets: Some of my artwork back in 2004 when I was in my final year of high school.
If not for comedic affect I hope this can encourage other artists by showing where you can come from (in my case: absolute shit!) and go to where you want to be (Im now a concept artist in computer games which was what I dreamed of doing).
I sometimes imagine this scenario... If I travel through time and talked to myself back in 2004 and told him that I would be an artist designing for computer games and show him the work in my portfolio I wonder how that 2004 version of me would react! Im very sure I would not have believed it! I doubt I could have imagined painting the way I do now and be blown away and all but right now when I look at my work I think 'meh! Its no big deal.' What Im trying to say is that through hard work, setting yourself goals and pushing your art you can go beyond your imagination! 2004 Ben couldn't believe he could eventually paint like 2010 Ben but that he did! If your drawings sucks at this point in time, all it takes is practice. For every hundred of bad drawings you do you get a good drawing! And then for every 50 bad drawings you do you get 2 good drawings etc. Its almost like you have a set number of crap drawings to get through before you break the barrier to 'good' art. And when you reach that goal, it becomes standard to you and you set higher goals and aim for them. Along the way you might meet that younger version of you who tells you "OMG your art is amazing!" and you'd think "meh!"
Happy drawing :)

EDIT: Hehe you know what, I took a look at my portfolio and even some of the stuff I had in there from last year I find a little shocking :P This is a good sign I believe if you can look at your work with a critical eye and make decisions on how they can be better. Maybe in future I will write a big crit for the artwork I did last year and post it up here so you can see how I view things now. At the time I thought the painting was great but now I see sooooooo many things I would do differently. Stay tuned!

6 comments:

Tegan Jephcott said...

I just removed all of my old art from (hopefully) everywhere on the internet!!

Ben Ho said...

Boooo! Ive still got old art somewhere on the internet, which is where I dug these out from.

Philip Barker said...

love that dragon on the left man..keep at it !!!

Ben Ho said...

You're fucking joking right?!?!?! :P

Kayvon Darabi-Fard said...

I actually laughed out loud at that last comment.:). Keep up the drawing and blogging Ben, It's a place I love coming!!!

Ben Ho said...

Thanks Kayvy! Coming from a student background and into a place I wanted to be makes me think about the whole experience in a different way. Suddenly all the failures and struggles are worth it! Well, theyve always been worth it but even more so now when you reap the rewards. Knowing too well the struggles on the journey to learn art I want to share my experiences and dispel any illusion that it was some magical word called 'talent' that was sprinkled on me. I hope this can inspire and encourage more artists :)