Kent Benson, Illustrator
Hey! I’m Kent Benson. I joined Games Omniverse in December of 2014 as an inker, but have since dabbled in a bit of the concept art part of production. As of now, I am 25 years old and a proud resident of Milwaukee, WI. Last year I started my career in the games industry by accepting a temporary quality assurance position out in Las Vegas, NV for 2K Games,which ended up being a fun and illuminating experience and thankfully, wasn’t my last.
My first passion was art and illustration, which I practiced and improved from childhood all the way up through high school and college. I prefer to design characters, but I’ve occasionally worked on landscape design and even some graphic design. Not long after I discovered my love for visual art as a kid, I began to flourish as a reader and from there I took to writing. I pursued writing through high school and college and eventually earned my degree in Creative Writing and Digital Art. To top off my artistic passions, I also enjoy singing. I sang in choirs for as long as I was in school with my proudest achievement being my solo as the usher in my high school’s production of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Trial by Jury”. Outside of my class work, I would occasionally blog about games and the few trips I took to PAX Prime in Seattle, WA where I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in writing for the game industry. Over a year ago, I took up writing and editing for GuildMag, a fan magazine and blog for Guild Wars 2.
I love games, especially games with elaborate dialogue and narrative. I’m a big fan of in-depth character customization in both visuals and storytelling. It’s no secret that I love most Bioware games and a few MMORPG’s for these reasons. In recent years, I’ve given more love to turn-based strategy games and indie games with fun, quirky mechanics or emotional and empathetic narrative experiences. I’m also a “bit” of a superhero/sci-fi/fantasy geek. I wasn’t raised on comics, but I watched (and still watch) cartoons (Avatar, Young Justice, Star Wars: Rebels), live-action movies and TV (Arrow, The Flash, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D). I’m just now starting to pick up comics for the first time and my favorites titles right now are the new Ms.Marvel series and the new Star Wars: Kanan – The Last Padawan series.
I could go on, but I feel I’ve shared enough for now. TTFN!