We recently connected with Charles Person and have shared our conversation below.

Charles, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I’ve always know that I wanted to do something with my talents since I was 9 years old. Back then, it was a cartoonist, probably due to my love for the cartoons that I watched with my father on Saturday mornings. I was able to draw the characters well even at that age, and I used to think to myself, “Maybe one day, I could be the one making cartoons of my favorite shows.” I think it was during my senior year in high school that I truly decided that I’m going to pursue an art career, but I had NO IDEA where to start or if I was even good enough to be hired. But this is where I started to lose faith in myself and in my abilities, and for the next decade, I would bounce around a self-created realm of doubt. In 2015, I finally found a path that I wanted to pursue when I was taking a screenwriting film class and I wrote a really good story for the final project. I decided that I wanted to become a comic book artist and that I would write and illustrate my own stories. Fast forward 8 years later and I’m not closer to reaching that goal than I was when I graduated in 2015, but the difference between then and now…I know who I am as an artist and I’m done doubting myself because of the more talented or more popular artists circling around me on social media daily. Now, I’m actively gaining insight from my fellow artists and I’m working towards my goals as a freelance illustrator, and future comic artist.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

As far for my love art goes, it started when I was young, like 8 or 9 years old. I think almost every kid likes to draw and doodle when their young and exposed to cartoons, video games or just colors in general. But what I noticed around this age was that I could draw better than a lot of the kids in my neighborhood. And not just the kids, but the adults as well (at least the ones who weren’t obviously working artists)! Back then, my favorite things to draw were Power Rangers, TMNT and Pokemon. As I got older, my tastes evolved a bit, but I became more focused on character creation centered around armors, robots and magical powers. The name of my brand is GHOSTGRAFX and in 2024, I’m really going to work towards developing some pretty cool comic stories as well as building my business and gathering clientele. I’ve already developed many designs for art prints and stickers that I sell at art shows, but I’ve also been commissioned to work on some graphic design work for clothing and logos for small businesses. When people commission me, I strive to bring their ideas to life to color and and shape, while making sure that I don’t rest until they absolutely love the final product. I’m very detail orientated when it comes to making my artwork, trying to include as much as I can during the drafting process. I think it helps because I find it easier to dial it down if I need to, rather than trying to figure out what to add on later. (And I think this works for the client as well.) When clients see my work , I want them to be able to see how much of myself I put into each piece.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I think that one of the biggest misconception about artists and what we do is that making art is not difficult or that it’s not a real job. Even in this day and age. I feel like we still get flack from those who have never used a creative bone in their body. First of all, just the basic foundations and lessons of art have to be learned in order to create something that makes others want to know the artist behind it, and want to see more of it. Like which colors go well together and how using certain combinations of color can change the emotions of the viewer without them even realizing it. What about the style of the artwork? or what kind of art that is being displayed? Not to mention how many different fields use art to some extent in order to get others to learn about it or to create the things that we use everyday. The work of an artist can be used for so many things…literature, science, architecture, fashion, entertainment, etc. The sad thing is, now that AI art has gotten traction recently, it’s going to be even harder for hardworking artists and up and coming artists to find work for themselves. Not to mention, another excuse for non creatives to discredit the actual work that goes into being an artist. But that doesn’t mean that we should give up on ourselves, because there is something that can’t be replicated, and that is the soul of the artist that gets put into everything they create. As well as the appreciation that comes from the artist to the patron when a job is done.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

So, I was at an art convention in Philly about four or five years ago. I was already nervous because me and my girlfriend(now my wife) we’re going out of state for this convention, not to mention we both had new artwork that we weren’t sure would sell well. But we went and it was a two day convention that seemed like would get a lot of traffic. Saturday came and there seemed to be a good amount of attendees, but they weren’t really buying anything from the row of artists that me and my wife were in. We started to get a bit discouraged because by the end of the day , we hadn’t even made back half of the cost of the table. Sunday came and it was even worse, but we couldn’t figure out why. It seemed like a well advertised convention, but I guess we were wrong. We also found out that a huge majority of the artists/vendors there didn’t do well (and we saw some really good merchandise from them!). We’re still creating though and the bad luck of that art show doesn’t discourage me from trying new venues and trying to get myself out there. Just because you think you have a good hand, doesn’t always mean the conditions are right for you to win. but you have to keep playing to win. If you quit,then you’ll never know victory.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @ghostgrafx
• Facebook: facebook.com/ghostgrafx
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/ghost825