Alex Konstad was broke. The illustrator had been living in San Diego where rent was relatively cheap. To get by, he had to make around $1,000 a month – though, at a push, $800 would do it. But then he moved to Santa Monica – the beach city west of downtown Los Angeles – and his bills almost tripled.
Alex was living with his friend and fellow artist Dan LuVisi. They were both at the beginning of their careers. Literally and metaphorically, they were hungry (their combined weekly grocery budget was $10). The pair rented an office together where they would work from 8am right through to 3am, cycle home, sleep a few hours, then get up and do it all over again.
“I had a lot of help from my parents while I figured my life out” the American artist says, “and, also, lots of credit card debt. I had many smalltime freelance jobs during this period, but it was quite hard to pay any bills with the income. The industry rates were abysmally low for the jobs I took on. I did whatever I could to keep my head above water.”
Santa Monica was a grind. But even while struggling for money, he and Dan made sure to stick at personal projects. And this would be the blueprint for the rest of Alex’s career, balancing commercial and personal work, making sure the skills from one fed into the other, and vice versa.
Alex got his first “real” job in 2015. An art director from the cinematic department at Blizzard Entertainment spotted his work on Instagram and offered Alex a position in-house: “I was ecstatic,” the artist says. “I’d always imagined myself just painting Magic: The Gathering cards and maybe working on some video games in the future. Now it was my chance to get my foot in the door.”
AN UNLIKELY COMBINATION
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