Meet Kamilah Wong

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Kamilah Wong. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Kamilah below.

Kamilah, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

I think within the artist community, lacking confidence and self-esteem is a very common problem. Art is all about putting ourselves in our work, so when our work gets critiqued, it feels as if they’re critiquing us as a person. Advice I’ve heard a lot is to separate yourself from your work, which is easier said than done. But maybe because my work contains a lot of fantasy and rather than personal anecdotes, I take inspiration more from other media that I enjoy; I think the way I create has already given me enough distance from my work to not take everything too personally.

Despite that, it’s still hard to hear negative feedback, and it’s easy to fall into the rabbit hole of comparing myself to other artists, and feeling inept. Talking to fellow artist friends and hearing that this happens to everyone is reassuring. Rather than saying I have confidence in myself, I believe in my stories and I’m determined to tell them.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I work as an indie comic artist, and am currently working on a serial webcomic on Webtoon and Tapas, and just crowdfunded my first graphic novel. I have a lot of stories I want to tell, and now with one graphic novel under my belt, I’m hoping to kickstart more projects and get my story in front of more people!

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 the qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that impacted me the most is reliability, consistency and resilience. I think it’s very important to be able to meet deadlines, and doing the thing you said you’d do. Being reliable and consistent with posting/updates is very important when the relationship between the artist and the consumer is trust based. This career path includes a lot of rejection and negativity, so if you’re not resilient, it’s easy to give up halfway. Being able to bounce back and keep going despite everything is a great quality to have.

Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, I try to break my task into smaller, bite-sized pieces. That way, the task feels less daunting and more easily achievable, and it’s more satisfying when I finish one of the smaller tasks. I’m pretty bad at taking breaks when I need to, but there are times when I just can’t focus so I stop my work and go do something else. I recently bought a piano keyboard, so it’s a nice way to do something still creative but not specifically drawing. Gaming with friends is also something I do whenever I just want to take my mind off work. Breaks are definitely important and taking a quick breather helps me refocus.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kamilahswong.carrd.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kamilahswong/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kamilah-wong-3460371b4/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KamThings