Interview : Caesar

Making art and following your passion is something many people do every single day, but there are people who are so dedicated to their passion that they are able to turn it into their career. This number is much smaller however. Many overlook how much time and effort It takes to build yourself up as a brand and be able to sell your art so you can be financially stable. Others look at the path and say that it is too risky or too hard and decide to take another route, but if they have that thought in their head should they really be pursuing this path in the first place? There is long long nights of creating and grinding so that one day you can make your passion your job. Plenty of work you create gets no recognition, which can be very discouraging at the start. We all begin at square one but everyone's journey to their dream is very different. Some reach their dreams sooner than others, and sometimes when that person reaches their goals and dreams they stop striving. You must have a drive to always top what you last created in order to create a legacy. This week we sat down with Caesar who is working on building his design empire and creating an everlasting legacy for himself.

INTERVIEW

Q. How old are you? Where did you grow up and where do you live now?

A. "I turned 22 in September, I moved over (to London) in 2008 so the world as a whole was quite different, but growing up on an island (Mauritius) is almost surreal in comparison to a large city. You don't hear much about the world when you're in a place so small and remote, especially as a child I grew up almost naive to the rest of the world, on the plus side it taught me about appreciating the little things, things like the beach and hot weather that I hardly experience these days I took to granted, I lived a way more natural life back there then I do now

Q. So did you always have a drive on the island to create or did that not really hit you until you moved to London?

A. " I've always had relations to the UK as my mom was born in london, family issues between my parents meant we were moving back forth between places till we stayed in london in 2008 for good without my dad, it was around then my ideas for art and creation as a whole started taking place, it was a good distraction to just draw and show my mom too, I think being so young I believed drawing for people and making them happy for that second would fix their other issues lol sorta sad to think of but it's what lead me on to keep creating - weirdly enough it wasn't until I left the island that I realised how beautiful my own country was"

Q. Can you explain to me how you started getting into digital designs and how that path has led you to where you are today?

A. "Without being too grim, My dad passed away in 2011 and this was around the time that online gaming started to boom, I had a good excuse to stay inside as it was the thing to do during summer, those times every kid was locked inside on modern warfare 2 with their friends, but for me I guess I was looking for somewhere i could lose my problems in, it's where the name Caesar comes from. I started out just making the usual terrible banners you hear about from kids who started off in the same place as me, gaming really was the door opener for my career. Being self taught too I liked seeing growth in my work without the help of others. In 2013 I decided I wanted to take design more seriously which was around 16/17 years old. I started looking at sites like behance and reading books on design, it hit me really hard that this banner stuff I had fun doing when I finished school could actually be a career for me. Since that day I worked endlessly on composition and photomanipulation as thats what really stuck out to me in the digital field, I was fortunate enough while studying to get offered a job by GFuelEnergy in 2015 where I worked for 2 years further perfecting my craft and networking in America. That being my first taste of the industry I knew I could do this for the rest of my life, on the side I took on as many clients as a could to further spread my name, over the years social media has really been the helping hand in all my ideas and ventures. In early 2017 I dropped out of university to pursue design full time. So basically after taking the leap of faith and dropping from uni in early 2017 I went full time with 2 undisclosed enterprises which I work a salary position for and in july 2018 I started my art and clothing distribution company called Thunderground.

Q. So I’m sure you have accomplished some goals as an artist but is there any goals you may have now that you are looking to conquer?

A. "On the side I part run and manage Soargaming where I am the creative director and of course I'm in locations where I met Cris "CG" - my main goal right now is just growth as a person and for my personal brand, I've dabbled in all forms of graphic design and when it comes to my goals, it seems like everytime I achieve it never really hits the spot."

Q. How did you get involved with SoaRGaming and LocationsUnknwn?

A. "Soar gaming I joined as a visual designer in 2014, I met the COO in 2011 when I first started, he was the first dude I met online and we started together so it felt right in 2014 to be part of what he was working on. During that time I met Nikita who is another creative in locations (2011) we designed banners together. Nikita and I have always stayed in contact, I was attending the same university as him before I dropped out. When I saw he joined Locations It was a good reason for me to group up and bring my work to the table for Cris to take a look. I joined the same afternoon. Fast foward now I'm part of management in Soar and I run everything visual within the organization."

Q. What is the Idea behind Thunderground?

A. "The idea behind Thunderground was to create a platform where I can distribute my art through more than just a post on social media, I plan to create stories that present themselves through different mediums such as canvases/posters/clothing/assets for other creatives. I hope to make it an exclusive place for collaboration on a larger scale. To better answer the question I'm designing everything and creating everything."

Q. So do you plan on staying in London ? Or do you want to move to somewhere else eventually?

A. "Right now I plan to solidify my personal brand more, I wanna have a great foundation where my family is even if it comes at a slight sacrifice - but eventually I hope to move to the US as its where 99% of my work stems from."

Q. If you could tell people who are debating following their dreams, what is some advice you would give them?

A. "To anyone debating following their dreams, I remember a teacher once told me "theres nothing more expensive then a closed mind and a missed opportunity" (probably stolen right?) but that kinda stuck with me and made me realize that regret is the only thing worse than failing - alot of people are worried too much about what will happen, I believe if you're realistic with yourself and evaluate your circumstance you can achieve anything you want. "

There is a very high chance that you have already seen some of Caesar's work, but incase you haven't we are going to look at a couple of Caesar's favorite pieces.

If I could pick one word to describe Caesar's works it would be epic, and not the kind of epic like the lame way everyone used it in 2012, I'm talking about epic as each piece of art has such a big profile and creates its own world. The image is so clean and sharp and is able to portray an atmosphere without even having any colors besides black and white to compliment the image. This design to me looks so realistic, I find my gripe with graphic design is when certain elements don't seem to blend with the image. (I'm very guilty of this, I understand how hard this can be because I still struggle with this a lot, so no shade to anyone.) That is where Caesar succeeds, his designs look so well put together almost as he just took a picture, not meant to be disrespectful as I'm sure many hours where put into this design, the comment is to show how natural I think this looks.

You Can View these pieces in the Burbs Gallery.

This looks like a cut-scene from the newest God of War game because of how high definition the picture is. plus I can honestly see Caesar on a world stage like that with his art because of how high quality it is. The detail in this image Is truly incredible if you analyze it and the amount of time spent on this design can only be guessed because I'm sure this took countless hours. The vastness of this design is insane. After looking at it for a while you start to realize how massive the scene is.

When we talked to Caesar, he was someone who was more than willing to share his journey along with taking the time to give us thoughtful and detailed answers. We talked about more than just what is included in this interview and his kindness, genuine responses, and passion truly showed throughout the time spent messaging back and forth. Caesar is on his way to building his Digital Empire, and shows no signs of slowing down. This is a designer we truly believe will be known on a first name basis very soon. Thank you to Caesar for all of his time and for giving up a great interview.

Follow Caesar on his Social Media

Twitter | Behance | Instagram | Youtube | Website