Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Ben Taylor. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Ben, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I started in college as a computer science major with the goal that I would develop video games that follow my artistic vision. Throughout the first two semesters, however, I realized that I was heading in the wrong direction. I wanted to do something creative, but I was going down a career path that was in the opposite direction. After the first year of school, I decided to drop out of the CS program and join the art program. Ever since then, I’ve been leading a life with more creativity.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I got into my craft by experimenting with a ton of different mediums while I was in college. I moved from digital to traditional, and I eventually settled on watermedia and 3D digital rendering. I love being able to use watermedia like watercolor or gouache since it give each artwork a unique quality. Since these mediums are so unpredictable, it ends up being a lot of fun seeing what the end product becomes. This lends to my style since I love to create the impression of detail. It’s difficulty to make tiny details in watercolor, so I always aim for a piece that looks great from a distance, while looking closer reveals the brushstrokes and impressions from the paints. I’m most proud of my approach and my choice in subject. I’ve been influenced a lot by surrealism and sci-fi painting, so I’ve enjoyed combining these concepts in my art recently.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

When NFTs first started, I was still active in the digital space. At the beginning, it seemed like a great way for digital artists to auction their work like traditional artists, so it was kinda exciting. It didn’t take long for people to jump on the train to make money so it got ruined pretty quick. I’m pretty disgusted by NFTs now since they play off a horrible feedback loop with AI art.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I think people need to be more willing to pay an artist to do something. I feel like a lot of people assume art is some kind of hobby, so compensation is an afterthought. The rise of AI art has really highlighted this. Instead of paying an artist or graphic designer to make a web page, logo, illustration, etc. anybody can just open up an AI generator and make any kind of image they could want. It’s just interesting to me that somebody would be willing to shill out money for all kinds of other expenses, but a professionally made image somehow isn’t important to many people these days.