Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrey Szeto.
Hi Andrey, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I was born and spent most of my childhood in Hong Kong. Friends and families around me have always thought that I am talented in art ever since I was young, but pursuing art as a profession has never really been an option in Chinese culture. Inspired by my father’s manga collections and the video games I played, I would make up stories of my own and try to draw out my imaginations. While I’ve been drawing since I was five or six years old, it was nothing more than a casual hobby I would do on my free time. While the major subjects such as languages, science and mathematics are highly valued in the education system and takes up the majority of a student’s time, it is very common for Hong Kong students to pick up a sport or a music instrument as extracurricular activities. Art on the other hand, is usually viewed as a hobby and not valued as highly in the education system. Hence studying art seriously never came across my mind even when I have a huge passion in it.
Things took a turn when my mother got a job offer to work in Singapore. We moved to Singapore as a family when I was 14, and I spent most of my secondary school years there. Thanks to a more westernized culture, I was exposed to more resources related to art and design and different career path related to them. Most of my friends were really into video games back then, and I was no exception. Among the vast variety of games, I love RPGs the most for how they can not only tell but let the players experience the story themselves. I still remember how emotionally invested when playing through RPGs like Assassin’s Creed, Crysis and Final Fantasy’s stories. So, when I learnt that there are concept artists that create production paintings for games, I knew I’ve found my calling. I started to take art classes in my high school, and those were the classes I spent the most of my time and effort in. When I felt the classes weren’t satisfying my needs I would go to library and bookstores to look for art fundamental books or stay in our art classroom till the school closes looking for online resources and tutorials to learn how to draw and paint.
When I graduated from my high school, I decided to chase my dream and apply for art college. My parents had their doubts as none of them have an art education background, but I am grateful that they have been very supportive of my decision. Among those artists and designers I admire, such as Syd Mead, Craig Mullins and Feng Zhu, many of them had an education from Art Center College of Design. I wanted to follow their footsteps, so I prepared a portfolio and applied to the college’s Illustration program. That was how I arrived in LA. True to its reputation, the four years I’ve spent in Art Center was some of the most laborious years in my life. While the time there was full of hardship, I enjoyed every moment as I was chasing my passion and doing what I love. I graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the illustration program, and now I work as a freelance Concept Artist.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
While I am fortunate that my life have been fairly smooth compared to many of my peers, it certainly has bumps along the way. One of the major challenges I think is I have to be self-dependent on learning. Being the special snowflake in the family means I have to find my own path on many things. While many people around me are great life mentors, most of them don’t know much when it comes to art careers and could offer me very limited help. Especially before I came to the States, I often encountered art-related problems that no one around me whom I could reach out to for an answer. Instead, learning is usually a lengthy trail-and-error process, where I try to look for specific tutorials from books and internet to solve the problem I was facing at that moment. For example, when I first attempted to draw the human figure, I started with learning how to render the individual parts and features instead of the studying the fundamentals of human structure, anatomy, and lighting. I didn’t know if the tutorials’ method was orthodox or not, but I would try them out regardless. While this method isn’t the most efficient way to learn, it did help me to develop a self-dependent problem-solving mindset, which I benefited from a lot in my later years.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a freelance Concept Artist now. My works include designing Characters, Props, Vehicles and environment for entertainment projects. While the subject matters can change quite a lot depends on the project, I enjoy doing Sci-Fi and Fantasy designs the most. As a Concept Artist, I like designs that not only looks novel and fantastic but also contains a level of believability. Similar to many other artist and designers, I always look to nature, history and different cultures for inspirations, as I believe good designs comes from a good understanding of the real world around us. You can often see these inspirations from my works, from environments that are inspired by historical architectures, to vehicles that took inspirations from nature’s form and function, to character’s designs inspired by various cultures. Through mixing things that we are familiar with in our daily life with things that are alien to us is how I come up with my designs. If you want to see some of my work or my design process, you can find out more on my website, I also post sketches on my Instagram and Facebook occasionally.
What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I think curiosity is an important trait to have. It is what drives me to learn about everything around me so I can draw inspiration from a wide variety of topics and not afraid to try new things or experiment with new ideas. while this may sound cliché, but it can’t be more true when it comes to creativity. Very rarely do new ideas get created out of the blue. Creativity is often born from asking “What if…” to existing ideas and scenarios, asking what can be changed and how to change it from things already existed. So stay curious, keep learning and dare to ask questions.
Another trait I value a lot is “attention to detail”. It is a mindset preached by the Art Center education and one that I couldn’t agree more. On the surface, it means one should pay attention to the small details in what we do, such as are things aligned when they should be aligned, are the edges parallel and cut straight when they should be straight. However on a deeper level, “Attention to detail” is a mindset that asks you to imagine and aim for perfection; it is about doing things to the best of your ability; it asks you to not only look at the big picture but also pay attention to all the individual parts that make up the whole. Under such a mindset, I always try my best regardless of how small and insignificant the task seems. It forces me to keep asking myself if there is anything I could still improve on in my piece, and ultimately I believe my works benefit from it greatly.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: andreyszeto.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreyszeto/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/andrey.szeto
