Meet Luca Vitale

Today we’d like to introduce you to Luca Vitale.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Luca. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was born and raised in Milan, Italy. The city has experienced a second renaissance in recent years but it was a pretty dysfunctional place in the 80s and 90s when I was living there. As a teenager I was very involved in the local punk scene and consumed a lot of the underground music, art and comics that came with it. I could not see a way to support myself using those interests so when the occasion came (in the form of a scholarship) I moved to NY to go to SVA and study animation. I wanted to stay in the US after graduating but finding a studio willing to sponsor a visa when you have no work experience is hard so I moved to California because I knew there would be more animation work there. Within a couple of months I was lucky enough to get hired by a studio and get my visa sponsored.

I was mostly a 3D animator back then working on TV shows and videogames. I learned a lot from my colleagues but I wanted to draw more and have a more creative role so once I started freelancing I slowly moved away from 3D animation to cel animation and eventually concept art and art direction. The shift took patience and a number of years but it was important for me to work on projects that fit my aesthetic and the visual language I am interested in exploring. I think it is also important to never stop producing personal work while working as a commercial artist, that`s how you`ll eventually be hired to do what you want and also the only way to keep feeding and cultivating your creativity which is really the only reason to do this kind of work.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
There is no such a thing as a smooth road, everyone experiences ups and downs. Not to be redundant but a big challenge for foreign artists working in the US is being able to consistently obtain visas year after year and even more so under the current climate. If you are in that situation right now my advice is to reach out to as many friends and studios as possible, you`d be surprised how much people are willing to help.

It also took time to feel confident enough to pursue what I actually wanted to do and I went through different roles within film production before landing on what I`m doing now. This kind of work is quite technical so once I made the decision, I had to build my skills which largely had to happen during nonworking hours, mostly evenings and weekends so you have to be willing to sacrifice a big chunk of your free time if not all of it. Basically you have to love it.

Lastly, it takes time to understand that to be true to yourself creatively you largely have to turn inward rather than outward which of course implies trusting yourself, never an easy task.

Please tell us more about your art.
I work as an art director and designer for animated film, games, commercials and TV shows. In recent years I`ve also been developing narrative projects and pitching them around. A lot of my work is informed by my history and passions so I guess it feels deeply personal, at least to me. It is hard to speak about your own art without sounding like an asshole but I heard from people that they see my aesthetic as playful and rebellious which probably comes from my lifetime attraction to both pop and youth cultures. I`m also a European living in the US and spending a few months every year in Asia, so that has an effect on my work as well, I integrate influences from different cultures, hopefully celebrating both the diversity and the things we have in common with one another.

I think it`s easier to speak about where we want our work to go in the future then about where it is now, that`s largely how the creative process works. I would like to progressively move away from the more commercial projects that revolve around a product towards doing mostly work that can (in whatever abstract or direct way) contribute to extend and reinforce the connection between people and promote a message of altruism without shying away from the ugly and messy bits of our collective experience. Pretty sappy, I know.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would probably not go to art school in the US. All the skills I use now are self-taught so I would pick a more academic major like literature or philosophy and teach myself art or skip college all together.

I would draw more when I was in high school and I would start studying either Chinese or Japanese at a much younger age when it`s easier for the brain to absorb complex new languages.

I would also try to be less self centered and nicer to some of the people I shared my 20s with, but that’s probably what everyone says in hindsight.

Contact Info:

• Website: lucavitale.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/luca.vitale
• Other: https://www.artstation.com/lucavitale

Image Credit:
Luca Vitale

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