Austin Bean

About the Artist

Since I was a child, I have always had an interest in drawing, my main inspiration coming from artists such as Bob Ross, Jim Lee, and Todd McFarlane. I grew up watching, reading, and learning from these artists. When it came to school, I made it a habit to draw almost non-stop, often filling my notebooks with doodles and scribbles. By high school, I had amassed a library of sketches, and my interest in pursuing higher education in art was peaking. I spent roughly a year working and sending applications to college art programs. After receiving an overwhelming amount of rejections, I believed that I didn’t have what it takes to pursue an art career at top-tier art schools. Instead, I decided to attend a community college where I could hone my craft and possibly increase my chances of getting into a desired program. After two years I decided that pursuing schools such as Maryland Institute of College Art and School of the Arts Institute of Chicago were not within my financial range, so I decided to attend St. Mary's College of Maryland and pursue a bachelors of art degree.   

Artist's Statement

As of right now, modern technology only allows scientists to speculate what may dwell on other worlds. While the idea of life beyond our planet has the potential to cause hysteria, I find it comforting to think that humanity is not alone.The idea of exploring the cosmos may be well out of my realm of possibilities, but the premise ignited a passion in me, the passion to illustrate an adventure on a planet of my creation. Through the eyes of a fictious scientist, my work illustrates an adventure on planet Dahst, a planet brimming with alien life. This scientist, Holtin Ranger, has documented his jouney, encounters, and endeavors in his personal field journal. For example, he comes across a creature known as a Rothoic in Dahst’s tundra. He then chooses to study its anatomy and analyzes its behaviour in the given environment. Throughout his time on Dahst, Ranger records a myriad of different beasts and has illustrated each of them within the bindings of his journal.