PHASE page 3

Now most of my life I've been second best at what I do. At school I was the second best artist. As a martial artist I was never the best in the class. I struggled against faster, stronger, more talented training partners and opponents.

What I've found though, is that anything that comes too easily gets taken for granted.

The premiere artist at school, effortlessly drew anything and everything with a style and ease that eventually led to boredom with his talent and the art of comics. As a martial artist people found the victories too easy and the loses to infrequent.

Unfortunately I put in way too much work on both these disciplines just to be mediocre to stop. I really just reached the point of no return and had to keep going forward. The funny thing for me is that when I put that much work into something I don't want to be seen as a rip-off of something else. I want to be recognised as unique. Eventually these things also paid off: a gig with Top Cow and an International title.

So when I found I was crap at acting, I just hunkered in and did what I always did: I studied and practiced my ass off. For me all these skills are about creating a mental framework that all this plugs into. You see the situation enough times you start developing trained responses. I guess that's what I did with acting. I watched performances with similar characters, I mimicked them. Then I did my own take. I created the situations in my head. I rehearsed the material over and over again to create an ease and insight into it.

I did end up working with Nicole (pictured here) and it was incredible watching an adept actor work their craft. She did a spontaneous take of my role and the conclusions, responses and artistic decisions she made covered everything I had done in the weeks leading up to our meeting and went several steps beyond. I was floored, and it showed me where I was going.