We meet Alex at TY brewery in Shinagawa for a quick sample of the beer before heading to his studio.

Alex and a few other artists have rooms here, with a gallery on the top floor. It's all in a building still under construction, with exposed wires and other cool things you could injure yourself with. He gives us a quick tour of the place and we head to his room for a chat.

Alex tells us he never thought he'd end up in advertising. While at art school, his mates and he would laugh at anything from the industry. But a turn of events landed him a gig in adland. What's worse, he excelled at it, making a name for himself in Singapore and then Japan.

All the while, Alex continued to pursue his first love: drawing. He thought he was quite good until he took part in a joint exhibition in Japan and discovered, to his horror, that there were scores of artists like him.

Around the same time, he also came to the realisation that his work resembled that of Yoshitomo Nara.

Alex was determined to find a more unique style but didn't know where to start. He had a little help from Francis Bacon, reading an interview where the artist had said that two or more characters in a painting is a story. Alex had only drawn single figures until then.

The subject of fighting intrigued him. Wars were thrust upon people, but these fighters chose to bloody themselves of their own accord.

Alex started going to tournaments. He studied the fighters, took photographs of their movements, memorised their expressions.

When painting, Alex starts out with a rough sketch and adds layer after layer of detail and movement, sometimes working on a piece for well over a year.

The resulting artworks are stunningly intricate. You can feel the tension of every muscle as one fighter lays into another, arrows emphasizing the force of impact and its crippling effect on an opponent.

Painting like this is hard work and Alex motivates himself in the form of motivational notes stuck to the walls of his studio.

His number one goal is to live comfortably as a painter.

Alex has been working on a children's book of late, called Moop the Monkey.

He talks excitedly about this new project and tells us he plans to promote it in a few different places. He also wants to have an exhibition of the Conflict in motion series soon.

Violence and innocence. Fine art and illustration. This man can clearly do it all.