Today we’d like to introduce you to Amy Nguyen.
Hi Amy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I grew up in a Vietnamese household with my parents and two older brothers. During my childhood, my family had moved around to various cities in the Bay Area. This also means that I had to transfer schools often, which was pretty dreadful to me as I was very timid and did not enjoy socializing. I often followed my two older brothers around and never had any personal interests during the time. If one wanted to be a dentist, I also wanted to be a dentist. If they wanted to play a new game, I would want to play that same game. We did a lot of things together and often had game afternoons where the siblings would sit by the computer to play flash games.
The summer before third grade, my family was visiting a relative’s house. My older cousin at the time was doodling cute characters on her tablet. At first, I was too shy to go up and take a look, so I kind of just watched her from a very far distance. She noticed quickly that I was lurking behind her and beckoned me to come closer. I warmed up quickly to her and became super chatty and curious about how she drew things. Drawing things from imagination was so fascinating to me. Before we left, she had drawn a character for me on a piece of her sketchbook paper, which became an inspirational doodle that started my whole art career.
From that day on, I was determined to draw every day. It would be anything, from animals that I liked to characters from my imagination. I always drew on the back of my old test papers, my math notebook, and anywhere that I could put a pencil to. My mom saw how much I was drawing and brought home colored pencils for me to add color to my work. Dad had also introduced me to different papers and materials that could help me with my art. There was one time where I would get up early in the morning (around 5 AM) to work on a drawing that I’ve been coloring for the last few days. My brother had woken up a few hours later and asked if I had breakfast, to which I told him I would eat later. He saw that I wasn’t getting up and had no intention of eating any time soon. So, he took my drawing and told me that if I didn’t get up to eat, he’d rip my drawing. I was frantic and started bawling my eyes out, and immediately got up. Of course, he gave my drawing back and sat down to eat breakfast with me. We laugh about it now, and I try not to skip any meals when I get too into art.
Around fourth grade, I stumbled upon a social dress-up game called TinierMe. The whole premise of the game is that you have a Selfy, which is your character. You would go into town to talk to new people and could share images on your blog and public threads. It was like your modern-day social media today, except with the game aspect of being able to walk around town and play mini-games. TinierMe had an amazing art community that always shared art of their own characters or other players’ characters. I wanted to do the same thing by drawing for others, and my fourth and fifth-grade lunch breaks would mainly consist of me drawing requests of other characters (of course, not forgetting to eat first). I loved drawing for others! Every new person that I met was always so supportive and was always so happy to receive my art. It made me feel warm inside, and from that moment, I knew I wanted to keep drawing for others. Until the game’s closing, I had drawn over 100 characters for different people I met online.
Throughout middle and high school, I continued to dedicate myself to sketching or drawing something every day. During sophomore year, a streamer couple had reached out to me, asking if they could commission me for some of my work. At that point, I never really thought about the future of my art career. But seeing that freelance work was possible and there were people interested in my art, I became more confident in myself. The streamer couple were nothing but supportive the whole time despite all of the mistakes I made along the way. After that project, I continued to do commissions as well as my own personal art on the side.
After graduating high school, I attended Laguna College of Art and Design as an Illustration major. I learned a lot of technical skills, which vastly improved my art, and I also met amazing artist peers during studio classes. After college, I was able to land the job at GungHo Online Entertainment as their graphic designer, which is where I am still at currently!
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
I think the most stressful time for me was during college applications. My senior year of high school, I had taken a few art elective classes. The teachers would check in on all of the students to ask them what their aspirations for the future were. I told them that I wanted to go into an illustration major. They had asked to see my current portfolio so they could give some feedback. Well… I didn’t know what a portfolio was at the time. I had no idea what I needed to apply to art colleges, aside from the SAT scores and your high school diploma. Actually, there were three students in the class that wanted to do art but had no idea what they were doing, including me. Apparently, it was the first time in their whole teaching career that they’ve seen something like this. But my teachers were extremely patient and pushed me to develop my portfolio, giving me the guidance and resources that I would have never known about. From the beginning of my senior year of high school until February (when applications close), I spent a lot of my time after school and over the weekend building my portfolio. Since I drew every day, I had a lot of personal art to choose from. The only areas that I was missing were the technical drawings. I went to workshops, figure drawing sessions, and portfolio reviews during that half-year grind.
On top of building my portfolio, it was hard to convince my parents to let me go into an art career. Being the youngest daughter was definitely a struggle. My parents were always more of the overprotective type. When I first told them I wanted to go into art, they didn’t take it too well. I know it was out of worry since no one in our extended family had gone into a creative field. So, they were concerned about how I can make a living out of art and live well alone. From the outside, it probably seemed like art was simply a hobby to me as I never took any extracurricular activities for art. But out of everyone around me, I wanted my family to understand at least a little bit of what I do and be able to support me without any worries. So, on top of building my portfolio, I spent my senior year showing them what I do with freelance work on the side. I signed up for a lot of workshops and figure-drawing sessions as well. After I was accepted into college and moved out, they’ve been nothing but extremely supportive emotionally and financially.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Currently, I am working as a graphic designer at GungHo Online Entertainment. GungHo is a Japanese video game publisher and developer who are also the creators of Puzzle and Dragons. I had actually played Puzzle and Dragons for more than 6 years when I was in middle and high school, so it was super thrilling to be able to work on the company’s games. I am part of the marketing department, mainly working on social media graphics for all of the games under the America branch. These include social media banners, stream overlays, merchandise creation, and meme content. Occasionally, I get the chance to do some promotional illustrations for our games. I really enjoy working on all the different games and their brands, as well as collaborating with external games and series that I would have never thought of working with. On top of that, I get to work with some of the funniest and sweetest coworkers in the marketing department.
Outside of my job, I do my personal art on the side with the occasional clients who support my work. My work mostly consists of food art, mascot art, or fan art of characters that I like from games or series. In terms of style, I would say my strongest point is my painterly style and the use of color. I’m the type of artist that likes to go with the flow rather than plan things out in the beginning. After my rough initial sketches, I immediately jump into planning out the color. Once I get all the lighting and color values the way I like it, I start painting directly over everything. This method prevents me from getting too stuck trying to plan one area of the illustration and makes things fun as I can fix and render out parts as I go.
I try to learn or work in different media once in a while to keep myself from getting burnt out outside of my usual illustration process. A skill that I have picked up recently is motion graphics. I actually first picked it up as an elective in college that could fill for my credits. Motion graphics wasn’t the most interesting to me at first, and I ended up struggling a lot in class trying to learn the program. Now, I love to incorporate it into both my illustration and design work! It’s a different kind of thinking that you need to have for motion graphics, as it’s more illusion based when you try to animate 2D assets. How do I make a flat image have depth? A lot of motion graphics is trial and error, but I find it so fulfilling seeing things work out after hours of struggling with the keyframes and the meshes. I also enjoy setting things up for print and creating physical items. Sometimes, when I’m not busy, you can probably find me selling merchandise at conventions and events.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts, or blogs that help you do your best?
I think the two most comforting things for me outside of work are food and animals. I’m currently living away from home, but my family has two dogs at home named Charlie and Bean. Both are chihuahua mix breeds! I have a soft spot for Charlie, who’s been with our family ever since I was in elementary school. Whenever I was feeling down, he would always quietly sit next to me and look outwards as if he was guarding me. He’s an old man now, but I’m happy to see he’s still as lively as he was before whenever I come home to visit. On his birth certificate, his full name is Charlie Nguyen. Aside from my pets, I love looking at funny or sweet animal videos if I’m feeling a little bit down. Never fails to make me smile!
The other thing that keeps me going is food. My mom had always cooked my family food growing up, and I had always brought lunch boxes to school. After I moved out of the house, my mom made sure to teach me some of her recipes. Living away from home, I definitely felt homesick at times when I couldn’t eat my mom’s homemade dishes. But I always call home to ask her for her recipes. On vacation days, when I come back to visit, my parents never fail to feed me well and cook extra for me to bring back to my apartment. Sometimes, when I get lazy to cook, I enjoy trying out different local cafes and restaurants. Food has always been a big part of bonding with my family, which is why it’s such a big comfort to me. I also love drawing food, and it motivates me to eat healthier.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://yuikumaa.art/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yuikumaa
