This column aims to be a platform for visual artists to express their viewpoints through conversations with fellow artists. For our first feature, we talked to Stephen “Xteve”Abanto, practicing artist and one of the founders of 13Headz Creative Studios.
YMK: On your artistic journey, what made you interested in art?
XA: There’s this one anecdote that my mom told me, she said that I drew before I wrote my name, and it struck me in profound ways. Luckily, my mom kept my drawings. She said that I had something in me that made me special.
Growing up, even until high school, I never really thought of it as a potential profession. I look at animations, animated series, movies, but you think that they exist, comic book artists, but you look at them as untouchables, a world that I can only see from afar. As technology progressed, social media came, those lines and boundaries began to disappear. You can get your art out there, and get it featured even.
Immediately after high school, there was no fine arts in my mind, never crossed my mind that I want to do it as a potential profession. So among the courses in college, I ended up in engineering and design, because of the fact that there is design involved. Then 2009 came, then fine arts opened. To say I was shocked and surprised, was an understatement cause I never really thought that there was fine arts in Silliman. So I had to make the hardest and biggest decision I ever made.
I was already contemplating while we were on a family vacation in May that year. When you travel, it makes you think about your life. I knew I was capable of finishing engineering, but my grades were mediocre, and that didn’t satisfy. Then somehow, life has a way of reminding you or telling you hints that one should go a certain way. I saw a documentary about ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), watched behind the scenes of The Lord of the Rings. Then I drew something for that year and got a lot of attention in Tumbler. Then I thought, I can actually do this. Maybe there is a chance I can actually break into the industry but I need to have some sort of proper foundation since the skills I know are self-taught.
So when fine arts came around, I really thought to myself that, you have to make a leap of faith. I did what I did, not to spite my parents (out of rebellion) but it was more of ‘ I’m gonna do this because this is how I’m gonna make you proud. ‘I know this is the only way I can succeed in life and that success will be all thanks to you guys. And that success I will offer to you.’ And eventually they grew to understand why this is so important to me as a person since I really can’t imagine myself doing anything else. Ana ra gyud na sya (And that is really it).
YMK: Then your journey from school to now?
XA: I never really identified myself as any kind of artist. While people look at my work and categorize me as a fantasy artist based on the stuff that I post online, I never really confined myself to that.
I can compare art school as a greenhouse. You are planted and nurtured there. The conditions are great with a “gardener” (teacher) that takes good care of you. And of course you can’t just grow and flourish there, you cannot spread your vines, branches in the greenhouse. So the gardener will eventually put you outside to flourish. After graduation, that was probably one of the scariest things that occurred to me.
It took Xteve a year to realize many things. One of his mantra comes from Aragorn of J.R.R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings who said “the swift of the stroke goes astray.” He didn’t want to hastily decide on his future. There were two significant events that happened in this year of contemplation. One is the seminar-like experience of Noah Bradley’s audiobook and the other one was the 1st Visayas National Creative Congress in Bacolod City with resource speakers from the animation and gaming industry: Grace Dimaranan, Alvin Juban, Christopher Ruiz and Hiromichi Masuda. After this experience, he had three job opportunities.
Although he passed on these chances, it led to the creation of a start-up company. Together with Edlyn Abrio and the full support of Xteve’s family, they decided to take that leap of faith and put up 13Headz Creative Studios.
My final question was “what drives you to do your art?” He said that there were three things that motivate him: family, the constant need to explore, criticism.
And there you have Xteve, the trailblazer, as described by one of his mentors, animator Ramon del Prado. Xteve’s artworks have been featured in Geektyrant, Geek.com, ComicbookMovie.com, Screenrant, Dorkly, Epicstream, etc and several online film mags from Italy, Portugal, and Spain.
____________________________________
Author’s email: artistbyartist@gmail.com
