Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Wang.
Sean, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Howdy, I do visual development and character design for animation/film and have been in the industry for 4+ years. As a kid, I always loved drawing, but I sometimes joke that my love for art also came from a healthy dose of competitive spite. When I was little, my cousin drew a perfect copy of the Chicago Bulls Mascot for my mother’s birthday and I was so jealous that I ended up drawing every day, and that blossomed into something I actually enjoyed doing. Throughout my childhood, I was obsessed with fantasy/sci-fi novels and consuming popular media such as cartoons, manga, and video games, and that eventually led to my love for stories in live-action and animated movies. I figured out pretty quickly that I wanted to design and draw for film/games.
I attended UC Davis as an art major but graduated early to take some time off before I decided to take my studies further at ArtCenter College of Design. Simultaneously, I stumbled upon Concept Design Academy and took a couple classes that helped me to prepare a professional portfolio. Around that time, I was rejected from my first art internship interview, and it felt rough, but I continued to apply to jobs, and soon I had to get ready for the CTN animation convention. Things were quite tame when I tabled at CTN, so imagine my surprise when email inquiries from Netflix, Sims4, and Dreamworks popped up. Netflix and Sims4 reached out due to seeing my work at the convention, but Dreamworks really felt like it resulted from all the accumulation of my hard work in classes, networking and putting together my portfolio. (With perhaps a dash of good luck.) This allowed me to drop out of ArtCenter early, and I ended up working for my first visual development job at Dreamworks Animation on Guillermo Del Toro’s movie Trollhunters: Rise of the Titans, as well as the TV series Wizards. From there I designed characters, creatures, and backgrounds/props for other animated DreamworksTV series as well. As of now, I’m on the hunt for my next long-term gig.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
This road definitely had a lot of pitfalls, but I think I’m a stronger person for it. I grew up in a very academic school environment, so there was a lot of social pressure to not pursue art. There were moments of self-doubt, how others would judge me, and sometimes I feel like I would make decisions based on if I failed rather than if I succeeded. I chose a highly-ranked public university for my major instead of a lesser-known school with a better art program because I saw it as the easiest way to stand out and the least risky. But I soon realized that kind of mindset can be incredibly isolating, and I was practically going in blindfolded with what the industry required. On top of struggling to network at conventions and reworking my portfolio a few times, I received so many application rejections that I was too afraid to take it any further. It took my mom to finally tell me to stop beating around the bush and to go back to school in LA. I really had to work on having faith in myself and being more proactive, but ultimately, that leap of faith, my mom’s support, and continuously making goals on what would make me succeed helped me to overcome all the rejections and “failures” I experienced before and after. In retrospect, my path would have been a lot more straightforward had I allowed myself to be more direct with my artistic goals, invest more in myself, and not be led by fears of what-ifs.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My first job was more of a general design role, so I am extremely adaptable in designing and painting various things, but my most favorite things to design and paint are fantastical environments and spunky characters. However, I do have a soft spot for monsters. Currently, I’m ranking myself with the most proud points in designing dragons; I got to create a dragon-troll rodent for the Trollhunters movie and then create even more dragons for DreamworksTV’s Dragons: The Nine Realms. From that experience, drawing dragon expressions will always be the funniest thing to me but it has also been extremely rewarding and challenging. I hope to draw even more dragons and monsters for people to enjoy.
Any big plans?
My goals for the future right now is to try to work up to being a lead character designer for a fantasy or sci-fi animated series/movie. I’ve also been returning to my roots in some aspects of my character work and was even thinking of maybe one day branching out into stylized video games. But right now, while I’m looking for my next job, I’ve been brainstorming a mini project for cute character emoji stickers that I eventually hope to one day turn into toy designs!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tanginova.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanginova
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tanginova/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/tanginova
