Benjamin Gonzales: creator of silly creatures

By Jacob Roe

Benjamin Gonzales has been drawing 2D characters and designs as long as he can remember, drawing things both from and inspired by games such as Donkey Kong Country Returns and the Pokemon franchise since he was in the fifth grade.

That passion he had to create 2D art as a child only grew, and has become a focus area he hopes to pursue after he receives his bachelor’s degree in simulation and game design at William Peace University.

“Drawing characters, coming up with silly little designs, was always my favorite thing to do. And I figure if I can make a career out of it, I might as well,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales, 21, is able to take a personal passion of his and turn it into something he can use in everyday life, not only as a hobby but as a potential career in the future as well.

“I went through three or four pages [in my sketchbook] just trying to get down to one solid design based off of the same prompt of a short little imp, demon-y type character,” said Gonzales.

Gonzales hails from the state of California but grew up in the small town of Wallace, North Carolina. As a kid he joined up with the Cub Scouts, dedicating years of his life to climbing the ranks and eventually becoming a full-fledged Eagle Scout, the highest rank one can achieve in the Boy Scouts of America.

He claims that working up to Eagle Scout and lessons from his parents helped instill a sense of dedication in him that he still carries today. He attended Wallace Rose-Hill High School in nearby Teachey, North Carolina, and participated in the school’s dual enrollment program.

The dual enrollment program gave him enough college credits to be able to graduate a semester early once in college, which is now the case at WPU, where he currently has one more semester left to complete after finishing the ongoing one.

“I can definitely see a future for him with the art that he’s doing if he keeps on improving because there’s always room for improvement,” said David Moore, another 21-year-old senior in the simulation and game design program. Moore has become one of Gonzales’ close friends and is his current suite mate at WPU.

Moore has been friends with Gonzales since the first day of classes together during Gonzales’ freshman year. Ever since they met, the pair, along with a small group of friends also in the program, have been together in nearly claimed victory, progressing his way through the losers bracket, and Howard received his first loss moving to the losers bracket. At this point a significant number of the competitors had been removed from the tournament. Those who remained were veterans of the game. every game design class that WPU has to offer.

“[There’s] how much he puts out, how much he dedicates to drawing and making new iterations when he needs to, and just pumping out a lot of work,” Moore said. “Even though it’s just some 3D drawings of little characters, that’s still something to work towards.”

There is always something else going on in the background when Gonzales is drawing. Sometimes he is just listening to music, which often consists of classic rock, Nintendo video game music, or song mashups he has found.

He has a small notebook on him at almost all times that he uses to sketch out character concepts such as a little creature he has in mind with a literal bucket comprising most of the design. After grabbing a picture of the sketch on his phone, he brings it over to Aseprite, a pixel art program, and completes the character he is making there.

No matter what setting he finds himself in at times, Gonzales will always have the urge to draw something with whatever is available to him. In the past, it was napkins or note cards at church with the pencils in the pews along with the notes from his Scout meetings.

Now he doodles concepts that he is able to use in future projects whenever he fancies it and brings some of the concepts he makes into the digital realm to make concepts full-fledged characters.

“I’m just always drawing something,” Gonzales concluded.