We recently connected with Alex Castaneda and have shared our conversation below.

Alex, appreciate you joining us today. Do you have a hero? What have you learned from them?

I actually have almost 10 years living in California and the reason I came here was to learn from my heroes. I am originally from Peru and back in 2010 when I was an art student I got an email from the Wallstreet Journal asking me to be featured in an article. I thought it was a hoax but eventually turned out to be true. After that I had many clients coming from California and I thought I should venture into this market at some point. Not only I had people interested in my work but most of the artists I admire were from CA or came here for conventions and shows. Once my wife brought me to the United States my dreams of meeting these people become a reality. Among my heroes were Kent Williams, Korean artist Kim Jung Gi , Ashley Wood from Australia and many other more. Meeting them was such an honor and privilege. Not only I could talk to them but also learn from them in more ways than just art. From Kim Jung Gi (may he rest in peace now) I learned that humility is key for everything. He might have been considered as one of the best illustrators world wide but he never considered himself a master. To me this was crazy!

Alex, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I was always inclined towards the arts ever since I was a child. I remember hours drawing in my room by myself and just enjoying that activity so much. I always told people that I was gonna be an artist when I grew up. My father worked as an engineer when I was younger and so we used to move from country to country so I barely got to keep friends growing up. Art was always there for me to comfort myself. while I was a student I really wanted to be a concept artist to work on movies and games but during art school I developed a new love for figurative work. That is drawing and painting the human figure. Specially the feminine figure. Art Forums were a new thing back in the day and I learned a lot from them. It was actually the great positive feedback I kept getting on my female nudes that sort of made me lean towards that route and eventually ended up loving it and hopefully it loved me back too. Back in art school I started a project of figure paintings on skateboards that caught the attention of many including the Wallstreet Journal. They contacted me and the rest was history. I did manage to work on videogames eventually as a colorist for the backgrounds on a few 2D games. I learned a lot in the process but I felt I needed to keep painting my figures and eventually I left the videogame job to dedicate myself 100% to my paintings. I always tried my best of always improve as much as I could. At some point I got offered to be a teacher since one of the teachers at an art school was absent one day. that made a huge impact on me since I did not want to be just any teacher. I have had many bad teachers in my journey that I made clear to myself I wanted to be a good one. So I dedicated myself to come up with an easy to understand method for my students. and so far it’s been more than a decade of me teaching and perfecting my formula. I have had the honor to work for companies like ArtStation.com now owned by Epic Games. Which btw offer now free classes in which you will find my painting course as well. Besides teaching I started a drawing group called Caffeine Heroes. It originated back when I was working at the videogame company and just had so many talented workmates with me. What we basically do is get together and hire a model to draw. It is a terrific way to get the art muscles going and in shape! We now offer zoom figure drawing session that expand the globe. We have many people from Asia to Europe joining us. You never know who might be drawing with us so I always encourage people to talk with everybody in the sessions. One day could be a legendary artist from Disney or Capcom and one day it might very well be Jamie Hewlett from Gorillaz Inc.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I don’t consider myself the most successful person but I have been able to reach from point A to point B following a few steps. First of I tell my friends that want to start a page of any expertise be it art, gaming, photography, fitness, etc to make a dedicated page just for it. Avoid mixing personal life with the business you are trying to develop. I think that is the main first step, Then just pure dedication. You gotta find something that really inspires you and eventually something that is on it’s core part of you. Think of it as a relationship. Also talking about relationship finding business partners is also like finding a love partner. The chemistry must be there because ANYONE can be with ANYONE when things are nice and working but when there is no money coming and things are not selling as well as you initially thought then you will start to realize who really wants to be by your side. I think the same concept can be apply for the longevity of your project. I have many friends that want to become full time artists but then they complain that inspiration is not flowing and so they start to feel stagnant and blocked. Art blocks will happen and sometimes that brings the money will not be the project you really want to work on. You will have to learn to brute force your way out of those situations. I say having too many options is one’s downfall. When you have fewer options is when you have no other choice but to come through and endure the hard times. I always tell my friends about the 5% or 10%. What I mean with that is that when they have a big project they want to do life sometimes makes it hard for such projects to get going at the speed you would like to. I always say just work 10mins of your day in that one project. At least make sure everyday you did at least 5% and little by little you will start to see the bigger picture come through!

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

Eventually is helping my younger self. I had no idea what I was doing when I was a young art student so when I became a teacher I tried to remember the struggle as much as I could so when I find those younger me’s I would be able to help them as much as I can. That is as far as teaching goes. Being a fine artist; I’ll be honest it all started with a very selfish reason which was just draw models I thought were beautiful and try to depict their beauty as much as I could. If you see in my work you will realize that the type of bodies I draw and paint might be cataloged as Rubenesque and voluptuous. I personally find these ladies very attractive. However with the years I started getting messages from ladies saying that they see themselves being represented in my art and therefore they feel beautiful; that my art made see their bodies in a new light. That was truly moving to me!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.iamalexxx.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamalexxxcastaneda/

Image Credits
I took these pictures and you are free to use them as well