Wednesday, April 20th 2005 - 08:14PM :

IMAF Win!

2004 saw the introduction of IMAF - the International Anime and Manga Festival held in London. A big part of the festival was an art contest and exhibition with a total prize fund totalling $75,000. I decided to submit my Sosuke character, which ended up winning me a prize for best character design for a teenage target audience There was a lot of great art on show at the exhibition from a variety of ages and abilities. I'll definitely consider contributing more of my artwork for future IMAFs and hope to make another visit to IMAF in October 2005.

Below is a draft press release detailling my win:


KITCHEN DESIGNER WINS INTERNATIONAL
MANGA AND ANIME TALENT PRIZE


Ben Krefta, a kitchen designer and freelance artworker from St Mary Hoo Kent, has won a US$5,000 category prize in the first-ever annual international competition to identify the best in Manga and Anime talent in the world.

The Teens Character Design prize has been awarded to Ben for the creation of Sosuke, a thoroughly ‘cool’ Japanese/Korean guy, an artist in his own right. Sosuke spends many hours working on his artwork and original comic book stories, and producing caricatures in the mall rather than doing his homework.

The competition has been organised by IMAF – the International Manga and Anime Festival, which is an annual event held at London’s County Hall, held for the first time in 2004. In all, ten winners have shared $75,000 in prize money for their outstanding work.

Ben says that he’s pleased that the Anime and Manga scene is getting stronger every day, and that it has lead to a competition such as IMAF’s.

“Sosuke is one of my favourite works to date – it took many hours of planning and refining so I’m glad it has won the prize. Every part of his design contributes to illustrating Sosuke’s personality, and personality should always be a key factor to consider when character designing.

“Winning the prize has made me think I’m getting closer to producing artwork of a standard which other professionals can recognise as quality.”

More of Ben’s work can be seen on his website www.organicmetal.co.uk

According to Dr Andre Singer, of the competition organisers, many of the entries received for the 2004 competition were of a strikingly high standard.

“We were delighted at the level and quality of the work for this, the first international competition of its kind.

Plans for the next competition are already underway, and we’re looking forward to launching this and the International Manga and Anime Festival 2005 at County Hall later this year.”


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Issued on behalf of IMAF