Dániel Taylor is a mixed media digital artist with surrealism at the heart of his projects. He’s worked with clients like Adobe, Marvel, Mondo and many others.

A NEW BEGINNING by Dániel Taylor

Can you begin by introducing yourself? Where are you from and which mediums do you work with?

My name is Dániel Taylor and I’m from Budapest, Hungary. I’ve been working as a freelance illustrator since 2015. At the beginning of my career, I pretty much only did photo montages with some mixed media added to them, but I slowly dived into 3D. Most of my current works have a 3D base, but I use toon shaders and a lot of drawings on top to make the look more 2D in a way. Recently, I started experimenting with some minor animations for my art and creating the sound for them as well. Music is especially a fun process as it’s a bit of a different creative outlet compared to illustrating.

Was creativity encouraged in your early life or were you often pushed by your surrounding to do something more traditional?

When I was a kid they “let” me do art and play my guitar, but for the most part everyone saw these as hobbies. At the time I think this was the way I thought of it as well, kind of like an escape from everything. It wasn’t until I was 20 when I started thinking that this could be a cool way to make a living. So I pushed myself, got some pretty good responses from people I don’t even know and eventually grew a following on social media. This made me a bit confident that there’s something to it and decided to pursue this career completely. It was a bit risky but luckily it worked out in the end.

What are some of your early influences that guided you in developing your own style?

Some of my influences are old comic artists, anime and 90s cartoons. For my style and themes, I think my biggest influence is Moebius, but as a kid, tons of concept artists inspired me to pursue art in general. I know this isn’t a big deal for some, but it’s such an amazing feeling for me as a lot of them even followed me on social media or we chatted briefly. A great example that happened not long ago is that Darek Zabrocki decided to follow me on Twitter. In 2014, when I was still learning the basics of drawing, they had an art stream where you could send in some of your work, they’d give you some notes and even paint over it. Darek was the one who did this with my artwork and the fact that he decided to follow me is such great feedback. Some other artists I’d like to mention are Dave Rapoza, James Jean, Kilian Eng, Dan LuVisi, Henrik Uldalen, Raf Grassetti, Piotr Jabłoński & Kidmograph who all inspired me in some way.

Can you tell us about your experience with NFTs and crypto art so far?

I found out about NFTs from my art friends last year, around August I believe. Although I did find some emails from 2019 that I got from Makersplace about an invite to their platform, which unfortunately went into my spam folder. For me, it was really hard to grasp the technical parts and all the expressions. “Mint” was only a plant for me, I didn’t understand what Metamask was or what the blockchain does. It was just all too much, but I took my time to look into it as much as possible. As I said, I heard about it back in August, but only minted my first work on SuperRare in January. But truth be told, this was also because the onboarding took a bit of time as well. I always used social media to promote my print or merch drops but the level of support I got from NFTs isn’t even comparable to that. It’s amazing to see so many artists are finally getting what they deserve for their hard work and can make a living out of this.

How does this new world change your perspective on what is possible for up and coming artists where they intersect with technologies?

I can say the most clichéd NFT thing there is, that the community is just amazing. Seeing artists supporting other artists is just heartwarming and (most of the time) there isn’t any bashing each other, it’s just constant love. I also feel like every artist gets a huge chance to make a decent living out of this. One sale can make a massive difference to someone and it can be a life changing experience as it can boost them further into their career. Most artists have to give up art after a while – especially if they’re in a country where they’re extremely underpaid – and have to start working something totally different to earn some money.

What advice might you have for people on their creative journey?

Just do what makes you happy and try not to be too hard on yourself. Have fun creating and if it’s a burden most of the time, you might be doing something wrong, but it’s never too late to experiment.