Interview with Noise.net (young artists site) on February 2006...

I've mentioned answers to some of these questions in the Q&A page already, but I guess it doesn't hurt to say it again.

• Noise: Tell us something about where you come from.
• Ben: St. Mary Hoo is a tiny little village in the South east of England.
  
  
• Noise: List 5 words that describe you.
• Ben: Composed, Observer, Patient, Laidback, Friendly
  
  
• Noise: Who are some people in your life you admire and why?
• Ben: All my family and friends, of course. People I meet who work hard to achieve their own goals in life as it inspires me to want to do the same.
  
  
• Noise: If you could be anybody else, who would you be and why?
• Ben: I'm pretty happy being me, but I wouldn't say no to being given amazing looks, intelligence and social skills etc and the ability to not become lazy!
  
  
• Noise: Where do you get your inspiration?
• Ben: Movies, comics, games, anime and life in general! Growing up on a diet of He-Man, Arnie movies, wrestling, cartoons and computer games all contributed my artistic and visual preferences.
  
  
• Noise: How would you describe your work?
• Ben: Cool. Neat. To the point.
  There's a strong manga and game influence to my style, but it's perhaps not so typical “manga”? My line work has Japanese influence, while my usual colouring style is a more mainstream western comics style. I also like to dabble in other art styles and graphic design.
  
  
• Noise: List your 3 favourite things.
• Ben: My computer, car and junkfood!
  
  
• Noise: What do you do for fun?
• Ben: I like watching movies, playing games, snooker & pool, poker, coming up with cool ideas, hanging out with and doing cool stuff with my girlfriend and mates
  .
  
• Noise: What do you consider to be essential in your creative process?
• Ben: Initial inspiration and then motivation to carry out your idea. If I don't have an idea of what I want to achieve before sitting down in front of a piece of paper, it can be difficult to draw something I'm happy with. However, if I have a few cool ideas floating around, it can be great fun translating them into a visual form.
  
  
• Noise: What has been the biggest challenge for you so far?
• Ben: Probably generally just staying motivated. I'm sure a lot of artists go through stages of simply not wanting to do anything or not being able to think of anything good to create and I'm no exception!
  
  
• Noise: Do you have a life/creative highlight?
• Ben: The biggest highlight in my life was finding my cool girlfriend :) Creative highlights would be those times when you draw or make something and manage to blow yourself away with what you've managed to create!
  
  
• Noise: How do you imagine yourself in ten years time and what challenges do you imagine you'll face along the way?
• Ben: I honestly have no idea. For the last 5 or 6 years I've been considering what creative path I want to go down. Continue my freelance illustration? Become a full time employed graphic designer? Web Designer? Video game designer? Or maybe something else.. Trying to decide what to pursue will be a pretty big challenge in itself!
  

• Noise: Is there an idea or subject that you feel obsessed by or curious about at the moment?
• Ben: I try not to let myself get weighed down with one idea at a time. But I have been through stages of just/mainly concentrating on: backgrounds, characters, fashions, drawing ‘line style', digital colouring, multimedia, animation…
  
  
• Noise: What's the next thing on the cards for you and your art? Any big plans? Exhibitions, gigs, collaborations, exciting things?
• Ben: Nothing concrete at the moment. I'd love to: have an exhibition of some of my works, produce my own manga/comic, produce an animation- be it 1 minute long or a feature-length movie, publish a full colour “Ben Krefta” art book. Possibly run an online art & design studio. Do my style of work for big name clients (car or electronics manufacturers, fashion labels etc.).
  
  
• Noise: Noise is...
• Ben: Bomu-tastic!

There's more?..

Answers to dozens of random questions, from: How would you describe your work? To: What are your top 20 Video games?

Online journal type diary thing. Comments on various issues: My and other's art, web sites I've checked out, stuff happening...