TALENT is a God-given gift that must be treasured and nurtured and that is how dedicated Austen John Zamora is in honing his gift by continuously practicing his skills in sketching and being able to explore the world of art.
Zamora, 20, of Dumanlas, Davao City won the first place in the 9th Mindanao Toy Convention 2018 Drawing Contest held at Gmall of Davao Atrium last April 9 to 14. According to him, it came as a surprise since his art bested the rest of the over 100 entries.
“I was shocked but at the same time very happy. It was totally unexpected,” he said.
Drawing has always been his hobby ever since he was a child. He took inspiration from anime and cartoons that he watched on television for his artworks.
Just like any aspiring artists, he started from scratch. He had bad outputs and dull moments that frustrated him. But, those challenging experiences fueled him to go further on his craft.
Winning for him doesn't come in an instant as he also had fair share of sacrifices. He did a lot of preparations to be armed with enough confidence to deliver his best and be able to showcase his artistic side to the public. He also decided to join because of his desire to inspire young artists like him.
He studied the contest's guidelines and criteria for juding which include creativity, visual impact and craftmanship and technicality and from that, he was able to create a concept.
His winning piece was Beerus the destroyer, a character from Dragon Ball where he made it appear realistic by adding a outer space background to create an impact. His concept impressed the judges.
Being a Bachelor of Science in Computer Technology (BSCT) third year student of the College of Technology at the University of Southeastern Philippines helped him to further harness his creativity because of their animation subject. This brings his passion for drawing to a whole new level with the incorporation of technology. It enables him to bring more life to his artworks and manipulate it using animation softwares.
“Actually po nakatulong yung subject in a way na nakakapag-practice ako whenever nagpapagawa si maam ng activity, dun ko din po hinahasa yung stroke ko sa mga output ko,” he added.
Asked on his plans in the future, he said he wanted to pursue animation.