We were lucky to catch up with Seung Yon Lee recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Seung Yon, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

The first time that I wanted to pursue a creative or artistic path professionally was when I started my own artistic work. Just like other people, it started from drawing doodles in a sketchbook. Everyone enjoys doodling, but if you like this and start dreaming of your future with this, it means you’re destined to be an artist. But just because I decided this doesn’t mean I’ve been running straight to my dream of becoming an artist. When I became a middle school student, I couldn’t help but think of realistic problems. It was the original question of whether I could make money and live a good life as an artist. In my puberty, I decided to give up this dream. Because I had heard that many artists suffered from hardships, and that made me scared. Over the years, I put aside my dream of being an artist. It was when I was 21 years old that I brought up that dream again. That’s when I realized no matter what people do, they have to do what they are happy about. That’s when I decided to pursue an artistic path professionally.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a 3D artist who likes to bring 2D worlds into 3D. I got into this industry by entering the art college. During my college life, I learned about 3D skills, and it made me decide to be a 3D artist. Before I entered college, I just randomly thought that I wanted to be an artist, but here, I was able to learn about various parts of art. I could learn about storyboarding, camera layout, animating, 2D animation, and 3D animation. All of these learnings gave me a chance to think about my future job in more detail. The reason that I decided to be a 3D artist was because 3D art made me happy. I have never got tired of 3D art. When I realized that I enjoyed 3D art, I thought that this was the industry in which I could spend my life. What I especially do as a 3D artist is to make 3D characters or environments. I’d like to make characteristic things rather than realistic things. Making an unreal world gives me an imagination of a different world. Recently, one of my projects won lots of animation festivals. As a 3D artist, it always makes me proud of my works and myself. Not only this but also many projects that I work on in the company makes me happy. Especially, when my friends said that they or their family enjoyed one of our games. I also enjoy my personal work. I like to bring my favorite 2D artworks into 3D.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

To be honest, I think NFT has a more dangerous side. I’ve seen examples of artists around me suffering from NFT. In particular, NFT has seen many cases where the person who registers first has the right to steal his or her work from others have been stolen by others. As an artist, I also have got a lot of DM about NFT. Well, those people were talking nicely on the DM, but in the end, all of these people were scams. If you’re an artist, I don’t deny or affirm when you make your work as NFT because it’s your own choice. But if someone approaches you under the pretext of NFT, I want to say be careful. We have to protect our art. Never let anyone else make your work as NFT. As of now, there are many people in the art world who have been affected by NFTs. And most of it is about copyright. For artists, their works are like their own children, and I hope there are no more artists who are harmed by the dark side of these NFTs.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Copyright and money are the best ways to support artists in society. Thoroughly protecting artists’ copyrights is always a good motivation for artists to work with the idea that they are protected. Also, it is important to pay a fair price for the artist’s work, not to lower it at a low price. I think that in order to break the preconceived notion that “artists can’t make money,” society should actively pay a fair price for the work of Asists. No matter what the work is, it’s not easy to make. In society, I hope that the passion and effort of artists for their work will be given a price that they can satisfy.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yonleeart.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/3d_ylee/

Image Credits
3D art by Seung Yon Lee