Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jenny Li. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jenny, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I’ve known since I was a baby that I wanted to be an artist. As I grew older, there were times were I considered pursuing a different, more practical career due to parental and societal pressures around being an artist. When lockdown started was when I solidified my decision to do art professionally. I took the time I had in quarantine to build a strong portfolio.

Jenny, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am currently a visual development artist for the animation industry, with a focus on environments and backgrounds, as well as a freelance illustrator. For my full-time job, I help conceptualize and design locations in movies, TV shows, and games, and I am currently on the upcoming DC show Creature Commandos. Some projects I have worked on include Mortal Kombat Legends: Cage Match, Velma, Babylon 5: The Road Home, and Praise Petey. In addition, as a freelance illustrator, I sell a lot of my personal art (which I draw for fun) online and at conventions in the NYC and LA areas, such as New York Comic Con and LightBox Expo.

I used to also be a professional pianist, but now I play for fun to focus my professional life on art. I’ve done performances with the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and TwoSet Violin.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Throughout college, I’d never gotten a single internship or job in the animation/illustration field, while others in my class were able to get positions at prestigious studios and companies. I was ready to give up on art and accept that I was never going to get a job or become successful, but while I did start preparing for a backup career path, I continued drawing and building my portfolio as best as I could. Halfway into year 4, I finally received my first internship offer at a small studio for summer 2020. I was so excited—it was my first opportunity! But a few weeks later, Covid started, and the internship was canceled. I was back at square one again.

This time, however, I decided to fully focus my efforts on art. As lockdown began in March, I began teaching myself watercolor—I painted every day, with hopes of strengthening my fundamentals and creating a portfolio good enough for the industry. With consistent posting on social media, I managed to build a decent following, enough to get a constant flow of commissions to pay my tuition for my final year of school. As my understanding of composition, color, and light deepened through practicing traditional art, I began to transition into digital art, slowly shifting away from commissions and toward bigger industry gigs. By the time I graduated, I finally found a full-time job in the animation industry.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

In the animation and illustration industries, getting a degree from an art school is really not important at all. While I did go to art school, I would actually call myself self-taught, as I found that it ultimately wasn’t helpful at all in the process of developing my skills, building my portfolio, and finding a job.

I find online resources such as Schoolism and Warrior Painters much more helpful than what I learned in school (and much more affordable!). From these online classes, what I find the most helpful is watching demos and seeing how the artist applies the principles they taught us in their own art. My favorite artist demos to watch were Kat Tsai and Zac Retz, both with incredibly different approaches, but I was able to learn both of their methods and ultimately apply the aspects that flowed with my style.

I was lucky in that my program was five years long, and most of my friends graduated a year prior. It was thanks to their job searching that I was able to get a head start before I graduated. They discovered organizations such as Rise Up Animation, Women in Animation, and Asians in Animation—all of which offer incredible resources such as mentorships, panels, networking events, and meetups.

Contact Info:

• Website: dewpearlart.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/dewpearl_art
• Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/dewpearlart
• Twitter: twitter.com/dewpearl_art