Meet Vanessa Nguyen

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Vanessa Nguyen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Vanessa, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

Art has been a joy and presence in my life for as long as I can recall, but it I never got to really dive deep into it skill-wise until my third year of college where I more opportunity to do creative work within my major, Multimedia Production. From that point, what kept my going was simply the freedom to express my creativity since I had reached a point where I felt a little confident in my skills. When the pandemic hit and a lot of work came to a halt, I was at a crossroads since I had just graduated roughly two months before– that’s when I made to decision to fully pursue a career in art, specifically animation.

To put it simply it was not easy and still isn’t. What first kept me resilient was that I felt like I had a definitive goal; to work in animation as a background painter, visual development artist, etc. when before I was unsure of what I wanted to do. As years went on, that goal was my main motivator which would change over time as reality doesn’t always play out as we’d like. Nowadays, my resilience comes from the simple joy of being able to create art at any capacity. From the beginning, art has been a joy for me and to maintain that feeling is now most important to me–something I hope to keep up with forever.

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?

Hello! I’m an illustrator and visual development artist who has done work for animation, indie games, themed entertainment, and much more!
As an artist, I love being able to create or conjure whatever I like by simply drawing or painting. The most exciting part about it is in the process, even the ugly bits where things are chicken scratch or half rendered. The process of getting to brainstorm, sketch, design, paint and more is such a satisfying and exciting part of being an artist because I get to apply what I’ve learned, but also learn from any parts I may struggle on, even if it can get frustrating sometimes. Being able to apply a really nice color palette or lighting effect just scratches my brain in a good way where I go “aha!”.
Getting to be an artist on various projects has also been a dream and joy of mine, where I get to work alongside artists who are just as passionate about the creative process. The excitement definitely stems from getting to connect with my team members, as well as getting to see the fruit of our labor.

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?

I think my perseverance, general passion for art and previous experience doing other various forms of art and media helped impact my journey as an artist today. I think for anyone pursuing a career in art, perseverance is necessary as it is a fairly difficult path to go down given that stability isn’t always guaranteed and that art itself can be very personal. For me, I had to really keep pushing myself even at my lowest or when things just don’t feel possible, but I persevere because of how much art means to me and how much I enjoy it.
As an artist, I think it’s a given that you should love art to some capacity to really want to pursue it career wise, otherwise I think I would feel rather miserable doing something that I don’t even enjoy! My passion for art stems from since I was a kid where I got to grow up surrounded by several paintings hung up around my home and eventually from the media I read or watched. Currently, I like to watch films and shows, as well as read what I can so that I can continue to expand my personal creative library.
Before pursuing a career as an artist/illustrator, a lot of my career options in my head were more so in the tech or marketing industry (i.e. motion graphics, graphic design, web design). However, the years in college where I took these courses had various projects where I had opportunities to sprinkle a little bit of illustration work into them which always left me with wanting to do more of that each time. It wasn’t until the pandemic and quarantine happened that I decided that I would try my hand at illustration and art full-time.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?

I’m always looking to join on any new projects! I have experience in animation, games, themed entertainment, illustration, etc. and would love to continue that and help bring someone’s project to life. You can reach out to me for business inquires at: [email protected]
You can view my portfolio here: vaninguyen.com
For any NDA or locked work, please contact me through email for access!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.vaninguyen.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanipixels
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vaninguyen
• Twitter: https://x.com/vanipixels

Image Credits

Vanessa “Vani” Nguyen