About

I have always been drawn to visual images. Growing up I loved comics, Saturday morning cartoons and magazine illustrations. From a young age I knew I wanted to do something creative, whether it was building dioramas, drawing pictures or making home movies. During school, instead of taking notes I would always be drawing characters, monsters or some far off landscape. My early medium basically consisted of computer paper, a pencil and a Bic pen. At the time, it was all I needed.

After high school, I attended Columbia art school in Chicago where I began developing my art style. I was always drawn to detail, people and scenes. I have many influences but some of the major ones would be Japanese artists, video games, 80s editorial illustrations and films.

Sometimes I try to tell a story or have some symbolic meaning to my art but I am always more into the detail, composition and color scale. My mediums are pencil, pen, watercolor and gouache. I work primarily on illustration board but occasionally work on wood panel. In addition to traditional mediums I also make motion graphic movies that use my hand paintings as well as digital elements.

– Ben Stevens, Illustrator