Rising Stars: Meet Ben Li of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ben Li.

Hi Ben, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I graduated from School of Visual Arts in NY for animation in 2008 and started working in film and animation since then. I’ve transitioned from being an animator to storyboard artist and now studying visual development and painting. I find learning keeps my creative drive active and having a student mindset enables me to go further in my craft.

I’m also a distance runner having completed 35 full marathons, and have been training Muay Thai for over 4 years.. I find fighting and training the body help building discipline, patience and resilience that benefit life.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Absolutely, things don’t always work out and some times don’t even make sense. And that’s ok! What I’ve learned is to control my response to the outcome in a positive direction. So many times, having a negative response only make a negative outcome even worse. But on the other hand, there were times where I turned a bad situation into a positive opportunity. So it all depends on how you look at things. I’ve been fired and hired on the same day for an example. Not having a job doesn’t mean not having things to work on, finding a meaningful pursuit can be more rewarding than a paycheck.
Learn to be kind to yourself and having the patience to figure things out is a good way to live.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I specialize in visual storytelling in animation. Some of my notable credits include, Black Dynamite, Scavenger Reign, Invincible, Blood of Zeus, TMNT2012 and Castlevania. I animated a lot of action sequences with Titmouse studio in my earlier years and went on to become a storyboard artist.

What I like to do often was taking the longer route to draw each movement instead of relying on certain shortcuts in an action scene in order to get the result I wanted. I was pretty obsessed with action animation for awhile, but it also got to the point where working 10+ hours a day was not healthy at all.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
depends on how you look at it. In the overall perspective, it’s very interesting how certain events played out – the good AND the bad luck. At a point where I quit my job out of not getting promoted after 2years of working there only to find out the studio shut down a few months later. Doors closed but through good will and timing, I found a job at DreamWorks in a few weeks.

After the pandemic, work became scarce. I started studying fitness and health and became a certified personal trainer under NASM – National Academy of Sports Medicine. I was also training Muay Thai 2-3 hours a day on top of running 30 miles a week. So imagine if I were still at the cubical drawing all day, I’d never gotten abs!

In the first year of training, I’d just get beat up in sparring and had so many bruises, and few black eyes. Muay Thai is no joke! Getting kneed in the ribs or getting legs kick in during hard round was both exciting and nerve wrecking, You have to learn to take hits and also hit back and not give up until the bell rings. I’ve made new friends with fight champions and even designed their walk out t shirts. It was a great time going to fights and walking into the ring along with my teammates. Even when fights don’t go our way, we still celebrated together.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://cara.app/betterlineworks/portfolio
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betterlineworks/