Devoted Stories #2: RAYMOND YU

Hey there! I’m Raymond Yu, and I am a concept artist based in Los Angeles. I will say it’s been a wild ride during these times, but nonetheless, it’s been a great time working with various clients and studios. I love to tell stories through my design, and I love medieval fantasy and sci-fi. Besides art, I like to workout regularly, and I like to play basketball whenever I have the chance. One of my favorite things outside of all that is to cook and research ingredients. It feels like I am playing a game whenever I do anything that has to do with food. My favorite games are Hades (Supergiant Games) and Valorant (Riot Games).

Give some useful advice to your colleagues who are just starting out in the profession.

My advice to them is to never give up. The art industry is indeed tiring and discouraging at some times, but you need to remember your dreams aspirations since you first started. Get excited about making revelations and breakthroughs as an artist, and don’t stop learning. Also one more important thing that artist forget to do is to have strong work-life balance. If your work becomes your life, that’s when things become stressful.

What do you want to learn next? (in terms of software, engine, pipeline)

I have been slowly getting familiar with Blender a lot more. It is a an extremely intuitive program for artist to use to create blockouts for any of their artwork. I would highly recommend concept artist to start using Blender if they are interested in an efficient way to set up their drawings.

What keeps you going in this mad world?

I believe what really keeps me going in this mad world, is that I truly believe I am privileged to be working as a creative during these hard times. There are people out there struggling to find the smallest of jobs, and here I am drawing and honing my craft as a profession. It truly is humbling to think about the bigger picture of this world, and I push myself because I do not want this opportunity as an artist to go to waste.

What’s your dream project?

My dream project personally would be to work on my own story or game as an art director. For my career, I would love to be a part of Riot Games,and help with conceptualizing for their show Arcane. I have always respected Riot’s art direction with their games, but I realized how much talent that they truly have after watching Arcane. This was their first show as a game studio and they managed to receive so much praise. It would be so awesome to work on a show that truly breaks the norms of storytelling through animation.

Where do you find inspiration?

When I find myself low on inspiration or creativity, I like to take a step away from my workspace and do something different from my everyday (can be going to the beach or hiking). Challenging myself from my daily routine and trying something new has always helped me change the way I think, and I when I make breakthroughs as a person, it excites my mind and my hed comes flooding with ideas and stories.