We recently connected with Cobus Nell and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Cobus, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

As a kid, I always wanted draw. In kindergarten our teachers always given us coloring drawings of cars, trees, dinosaurs, etc. for us to learn draw inside the drawing. Which I always turned the paper to the blank and draw my own creations of fantasy characters or creatures. I never stopped talking about my creativity and the stories behind what I’ve drawn. Thus I wanted to pursue the path of going into art, but my question was always what kinda art?

I developed a love for video games at a young age, playing mostly games that were inspired from stories like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Then later in early years as a teenager I found love for games that have various unique characters like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, the way their appearances and behavior was a great inspiration to my art. I always got upset finishing the games and wanting to play the next game in the series, thus art given me a backdoor to draw the characters out with pencil and crayons. Especially when it came reading Rick Riordan’s mythology novels, I grew fond of drawing fantasy warriors as well.

Although growing up I received comments from adults telling me ‘there is no money in art’. Even from bullies I received the same verbal comments, including “my art looks ugly”, thou sometimes taking my artwork for themselves to get the marks in school or ruin by drawing other unnecessary images on my art. Thus with all the negativity I lost inspiration in any creativity, and the fear of sharing my art made me interact less with people. At the same time I found school hard with assignments and studying while doing art, and finding the balance to do both was hard. Making a decision to only focus on my school work.

One of the few things that motivated and got me back into art was the few teachers at school that have a passion for art. Learning from art in their perspectives open doors later in my middle school years to designing. Motivating to do art again through the course of late middle school to senior year in high school. Giving me that balance to do my school work and work on my art assignments. Experiencing the many categories that fall under art but still struggle find the line of art and design I wanted to focus on. Till on day a occupational therapist did assessments to our grade’s students, sat me down with my parents at school as she tell me I would do great by designing characters. That very words from her sparked my long future goal of becoming a Character Designer. Remember the games I use to play and the characters and creatures I use to draw, I discovered my path in art.

After school I still found some time to do my art and plans to do a study course, but financially it was expensive to go study. Taking casual jobs and a internship at our local event, KKNK, that takes place each year to build up my work experience out. When everyone went into isolation for Covid19, it became very lonely of not talking to friends or hangout with someone that is outside my family. I decided then to explore the social media platforms of Instagram where I met a few artists and photographers who had the same passion for art, making my move to start my art career as a self-taught graphite artist of drawing fantasy warriors like gladiator and amazons. Then in 2021 two of my oversea friends, FallapaGoose and BTacklesArt, convinced me to try live stream my art on Twitch. Though difficulty was I didnt had a proper stream set-up to do stream, I found mobile streaming very helpful to start off with in the begining of my stream journey. Having live streaming with my art really helped the exposure to my art.

Currently working I’ve been working at a human resources job at security company that helps support my live streaming content while I still pursue my art professional of becoming a character designer. Making my opportunities to following my dream come true.

Cobus, 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?

My name is Cobus Nell. Im from a small town called Oudtshoorn, in the beautiful country South Africa, where I still thrive today. Most people call me by my name in my day-to-day life. On my Twitch and other social media platforms I go by the name CobuPantheon. How I came up with my social media name was partially from my overseas Scandinavian friends who struggle to pronounce the full name with the ‘s’, so instead called me Cobu. Pantheon was inspired from my favorite League of Legends champion, Pantheon, although when I took the name I felt unoriginal towards using the characters name. But when I did my research about the meaning of the name, it also referred to the Pantheon temple in Rome.

I enjoy drawing fantasy characters like Gladiators, Amazons, Minstrels, Vikings, and all manner of unique fantasy characters. I enjoy a good walk outside of town to refresh and keep my body active. I also love to collect things from the enviroment like sea shells, rocks, and feathers, and as well I do enjoy collecting Funko Pops as well.

Most of my artwork I draw live on my stream channel on Twitch, where I’ve been doing live content for over 3 years. At first I had the only 1 art project which was the Gladiator and Amazon series, but ever since my content grew on Twitch with my community I created 2 other art projects and well the first 1 became bigger. The first project that is now called the Pantheon-verse is where I work on my personal Original Characters and other unique drawings that is unlike from my Gladiators and Amazons. Second project became my first community based series called the Twilight Sons where me and my Twitch community draw faces of their horror and fantasy characters, this series was also a great oppurtunity for me to experiment art techniques and practice to improve my art. Third series is another community based drawing where I give one of my community members a chance for me to draw their characters on a A2 scale paper. I do take commissions through my discord and other social media platforms.

I do enjoy doing my art live on Twitch, and its always amazing to see someone pop in my stream and to interact with. Thus made me come out of my shell more to interact with people. Especially when working on the art porjects with my community, each individual person has a story to tell about their character. Hearing their story in what I draw for them really helps me draw out the character. As my plans continue further develop my art and streaming journey I would love to have video game streams with my community if we work on a fanart or find certain themed references for my art projects.

One of my first paid commissions was a fanart of a Mass Effect Krogan that used Pencils for spears. The drawing was a very fun interaction as I am huge Mass Effect. As well another drawing that I hold close to my heart and proud of is Ben The Irish Celtic Gladiator drawing, that also became one of my original characters and mascot to my Twitch channel.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

When I started my art journey, I used normal pencils and erasers. These was for me the easy methods to create my art although the process was very long and tiring. For example, hair took me a long time to put the details in because my eraser that I used erase the entire part and I only wanted to add a highlight.

Watching YouTube videos for art techniques I picked up certain tools like an electric eraser and kneaded eraser that easily created skin textures, normal tissue paper for shading, knitting tools to for the hair on paper before going over with a graphite pencil, or a mono eraser for hair.

Another fun tool I discover was a elastic glove. I always got my hand dirty with the graphite that sometimes smudged the drawing, making the draeing come out ugly. I later discovered elastic glove that digital artists use for drawing tables, which I started using for my graphite. Till today I forgot that smudging was a thing because I hardly make smugdes with my drawing glove on.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

One of the most rewarding things for me is when someone gets an art piece of mine. Either as a gift or a surprise. Between the person and the art piece captures a moment where the person reflects something from their past or their current feelings, brings their emotions out. Either laughter or crying or both.

It does bring me a smile seeing a person having to show their emotions and able to understand how they are as a person.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.twitch.tv/cobupantheon
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/cobupantheon/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CobuPantheob
• Other: TikTok – https://www.tiktok.com/@cobupantheon?_t=8n3PoiWSjmH&_r=1

Image Credits

Personal Photo – the person whose drawing i did is one of my moderator’s drawing suggestion on A2 scale, JacobiteGames. Whose a talented content creator on Twitch. He suggested the Space Viking character, as well most of the tshirts that I wear are his personal merch.

Drawing from top left –

1.) Draven OC – The current that im currentlu working on is a Draven OC drawing that is inspired by AC Valhalla’s Eivor, the male counterpart, and also DerekUpNorth’s(another talented and amazing content creator on Twitch, previous wrestler from WWE 2k23, Draven Winters. The model who I more or less chosen for the character is Konstantin Kamynin, who is Opera director from Russia and does modeling part-time.

2.) The Original Big Three – Three of my original characters who are my mascots. Avia whose my High Half-Elf Minstrel, was inspired by two of the amazing singers of their time: Leona Lewis and the late Tina Turner. Veino my human Nordic Druid who whose model look was inspired by the sculptor, Matt Schiermeier. Ben whose my first OC is the Irish Celtic Gladiator whose model look was inspired by the amazing fitness instructor, Ben Mudge. As wearing a JacobiteGames and DerekUpNorth merch for his Exiled Club podcast.

3.) Showcasing my previous art Ive worked since arriving on Twitch – The color piece was a DTIYS challenge for one of our talented and my role model, Sylessae. Big one is Jelani, whose my Midnight Panther OC mascot who is also a wrestler in JacobiteGames and DerekUpNorth’s efeds on Twitch. Two full scenary drawings are Ben on the right edge, and the other one on top is a Gladiator and Amazon drawing called the Lovers’ Last Night. On the corner is a Twilight Sons drawing of a Diwali Tiefling whose suggested by TheSpaawn, a talented South African content creator on Twitch.

4.) Last image is the Jelani drawing again that was inspired by looks of original Marvels Black Panther look and JacobiteGames WWE 2k23 look he created for me. Also wearing another merch shirt that belongs to another talented artist merch, ArtbyPaleHorse.