Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Chung
Hi Dan, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Like so many others, I came to LA for the film industry, and then, like so many others profiled in Shoutout LA, I pivoted my way left and right into narrower and more specific artistic endeavors, looking for stability and creative fulfillment. Never did I think I would end up in one of the niches I am in now though: I am perhaps the world’s only one-stop shop for delivering media (broadcast quality video or print-ready images) of custom designed one-sixth scale action figures, usually of celebrities whose hectic schedules and lifestyles can make collaborations logistically difficult for the companies and agencies who’ve signed them on as brand ambassadors.
So yeah, I create (sculpt, cast, paint, sew) hyper-realistic barbie-sized dolls of celebrities or TV/movie characters, take pictures or video of them, and then send the sweetened digital deliverables to my clients, who often are movie studios or ad agencies, but sometimes just private collectors after something that was never mass-produced.
I’ve created figures of musician Travis Scott for his Rodeo album cover and “90210” music video via Sony Music/Epic Records; of Michael J. Fox as “Alex P. Keaton” for Apple Studios’ 2022 Ryan Reynolds/Will Ferrell comedy SPIRITED; and most recently, of Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg for 19 Crimes/Wine Treasury Estates through Crispin (formerly Observatory Agency) as Snoop went to market wine during his travels to Paris for the 2024 Olympics, among others.
Pretty unanticipated stuff for someone who majored in economics in college, collected a Masters degree in filmmaking along the way, and worked for a large property management company to pay the bills. Luckily, I’ve always loved art since childhood – drawing, painting, sculpting in my freetime whenever possible – and so I had acquired enough know-how to fall into this type of “work” (if you can even call it that)!
The other creative niche I find myself in, weirdly enough, is faux finishing exotic wood grain, like Brazilian Ipe, onto faded, weather worn gates, fences and siding for clients who love the look but hate the regular costs of maintaining that look. Simulating the grain convincingly isn’t easy, but compared to duplicating famous oil paintings, isn’t too hard either.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
As it often is for many artists, the greatest challenge has been in having to think outside the box to align all of the creative effort into a viable, worthwhile pastime. Truthfully, I am still working hard at that in different ways. There’s a concept my cousin Mark Chung, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, imparted about “talent stacking”, which is essentially about putting as many of one’s skills, talents, and abilities into a single endeavor, with the net result hopefully being that the stack towers over the competition. So even if you are not anywhere near the best at any one particular thing, with the right kind of ingenious talent stack, you may nevertheless become a giant in your field.
This philosophy is why I am also working on a spec TV show about the wonderful team of artists at my figure-making studio – leveraging my background in film/tv with the arcane expertise of 1:6 scale figure creation into an ASMR-driven maker reality show.
Another obstacle that I wrestle incessantly with, as perhaps many other artists do, is the sort of adult ADHD that accompanies the tendency to follow one’s artistic vision from moment to moment. While it can lead you to break new ground creatively, it can also leave a wake of nearly but not quite finished projects, like an indie feature or a youtube channel in my case.
Please reach out if you’re a fellow artist who has successfully navigated these kinds of waters; I’d love to hear from you on how you did it!
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
There are so many inspiring stories collected in the Shoutout LA series, each with their own individual details about how it all holds together. For me, the life of an Artist/Creative is held together by staying productive and keeping the creative juices flowing. As some ideas percolate, others are germinating, and some are rendered into fruition. Financial planners will tell you to have multiple streams of income to maximize security, and I think that’s true for artists trying to find creative success as well.
Aside from the hand-made custom 1:6 scale action figures which has gotten me the most attention (like being recommended for this ShoutOutLA profile, lol), and the spec TV pilot I mentioned earlier, there’s an even more ambitious undertaking I’m working on completing, which is an indie feature film about time-travel, loss of a parent, and overcoming grief to be able to commit to love again.
Today, though, as I write this, I’m working on an oil painting commission for a couple commemorating their 10th anniversary…. Tomorrow, I’ll be helping client friends paint their house… faux finishing a fence or two while I’m at it!
I should probably also mention for those wondering, I stabilize the risky, unpredictable life of an artist with the mundane practicality of working in real estate. I was a property manager decades ago, invested in my first property (a tiny duplex out of state that I could just barely afford) in 2005 and took it from there. (Did you know the aggregated savings from cutting one’s own hair for decades, if invested into a down payment for a cash-flow positive property can appreciate enough to provide considerable security later in life? Ask me how I know! (Or better yet, wait for me to release the youtube video detailing the how-to of it all, of which most I’ve already shot! I promise to get to it after finishing the edit of how I faux finished the exterior of my house, constructed in 1964, into resembling something built this decade!)
How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
You can find what I’m currently up to artistically on Instagram: @dchung_art
There’s also my website if you want inquire about commissioning a 1:6 scale figure: dchungfigures.com
And if you’re willing to dig through mountains of videos of my girls playing volleyball and basketball for timelapse videos of me duplicating famous masterpieces in oil, there’s my youtube channel: @zhongdaoyan.
Or if you want your grey or brown, weathered or painted over, gates refreshed with a vibrant faux finish, you can also reach me by plain old email: [email protected].
Look forward to hearing from you!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://dchungfigures.com/
- Instagram: @dchung_art
- Youtube: @zhongdaoyan
Image Credits
Lily Liu Chan
