We were lucky to catch up with Sang Lam recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Sang, we’re so appreciative of you taking the time to share your nuggets of wisdom with our community. One of the topics we think is most important for folks looking to level up their lives is building up their self-confidence and self-esteem. Can you share how you developed your confidence?
My confidence increased when I started to figure out my art style. I had tried out tons of different work flow, process, and medium to find what I enjoy most and what I am best at. Everyone’s style will constantly be evolving. But I believe when you know what your strengths are, you’ll be more comfortable and more confident with your work.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a Vietnamese independent artist selling casually cute merch and apparel, as well as slice-of-life landscape illustrations. I work as a background painter in animation and in between projects, I exhibit at conventions and work on my Etsy shop. I enjoy creating cute art that make people happy
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Having good time management skill can be extremely helpful when you are an independent artist since you are wearing multiple hats. On top of being an artist and consistently creating new work, you have to keep track of the business side like lining up the next freelance projects or applying for upcoming conventions, keep up with social media, dealing with production, figuring out traveling and lodging logistic for conventions, etc. I find having an updated calendar and google sheets for conventions, inventory, and finance very helpful.
Being flexible and patient are also invaluable considering how many issue can comes up last minute like projects canceling, flights delay, lost luggages, stolen merch, receiving bad quality products, bad placement at conventions, etc. It can get very stressful when things goes wrong, so you just have to handle it best you can and not let it effects you too much. You can also ask for help in artists community groups on facebook or discord. Joining these groups can give you great insights on how you can deal with some of these situations
We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I personally think it is important to find your strength and hone in on it to make yourself stand out before working on other areas. From my experience, having a cohesive and strong portfolio is what bring me onto animation projects and getting me into conventions.
Once I was brought onto an animation team as a background artist, I find that there are many opportunities for me to work in different styles or improve in areas I’m not as confident in like working on characters or props. But I needed a consistent background portfolio first so animation studios know what they are working with before hiring me.
Being consistent with your style at convention also help bring in the right audience since your booth looks very cohesive from afar. You can always start improving weaker areas after having a consistent body of work.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://sanglam.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanglamart/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/sanglamart
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz00FVfaloqPFbgu7sXwi2g
Image Credits
Sang Lam
