Connor Chamberlain was one of three people named as winners in the latest L. Ron Hubbard Illustrators of the Future Contest.
He will soon be Hollywood bound for a week-long masterclass workshop and award event, and his work will also feature in the anthology L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Volume 40.
"Fantasy art, that’s always sort of been a hobby, but to actually win the award is quite surreal," Mr Chamberlain said.
Initially founded as a writing contest by the eponymous pulp science fiction and fantasy author — and Scientology founder — the competition later expanded to include an illustration category.
It attracted many artists from the United States and across the globe, including Asia, Africa and Europe.
Mr Chamberlain entered three times previously, before being announced as one of three winners for last year’s fourth quarter competition in November.
He had never been to Tinseltown before, but was looking forward to his trip in April.
Mentors taking the workshop in previous years included some of his artistic heroes.
"Being able to learn under them and take the next steps in my journey, that’s the most invaluable part of it to me."
Growing up in rural Southland, there was not much else to do except use his imagination, and he always knew he wanted to become an artist.
"It’s a tricky field and it’s always the cliche of ‘you’ll never make any money as an artist’, but there’s lots of opportunities these days to make something happen."
He also worked as an artist at Dunedin game studio Runaway Play in addition to his freelance illustration work.
He was "addicted" to drawing, so his illustrations were largely passion projects, but over the last few years commissions had grown as people found him on Instagram.
Contributing to the competition anthology was his first experience creating an illustration for an author’s story, and he had just finished on New Year’s Eve.
A lot of flowery descriptions were associated with art, and creativity was certainly a big part of it, but perseverance was essential too.
A single drawing could take anywhere from three hours to 30 hours to complete.
"After the first 5% of the piece that you’re working on, the rest is just really sitting down and doing the hours and bringing it all together."
Nature was his biggest inspiration, and he felt lucky to live in New Zealand.
"You ask people from outside of New Zealand what this country means to them and they automatically think of Lord of the Rings and that sort of thing, so we’re kind of already living in the world’s fantasy continent in my mind.
"There’s such fantastical environments that it’s so easy to let the mind wander and come up with all sorts of crazy stories behind them."
