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

Jie en, appreciate you joining us today. Looking back on your career, have you ever worked with a great leader or boss? We’d love to hear about the experience and what you think made them such a great leader.

I first met Jenny Jiao Hsia post graduation. I had moved to New York a month prior, my situationship had just ghosted me, and I hadn’t spoken to anyone in a week. We were Twitter mutuals and she posted that she’d be doing a talk at Baby Castles. It was obvious even to myself that I needed to get outside, so I decided to attend. When I got there, I awkwardly stood to the side waiting, but eventually approached her to ask when the talk was beginning. We hit it off and planned to get food afterwards. Jenny ended up changing the trajectory of my life. She introduced me to the indie game industry by landing me a project with her friend, while secretly(?) trying to hook us up, which worked. Years later, she brought me onto her game Consume Me, where she became my boss. Jenny often introduces me as the better artist on the team, but her title is far more impressive, as the person who got me a job and a boyfriend.

Of course outside of her altering my life, she is an extremely perceptive boss – able to pinpoint my strengths and weaknesses, and lead me in a direction of progress. She thinks about where I am, and which tasks to assign me to help me grow. Jenny is also really good at describing and setting up rules in a way that helps me maintain the established style, while letting me push the boundaries (ex. the brush cannot be smaller than 2px). She also pushes me to try methods that I wouldn’t have originally known about or tried. I often think about where I would be without her.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I took many art classes growing up as I was privileged enough for my parents to humor my interest in art. Funnily, they didn’t actually want me to pursue it as a career, but when the time came, I couldn’t see myself doing anything else. After I graduated, I actually wanted to work in editorial illustration, but had a hard time breaking into that role. Thankfully, eventually I was able to enter the indie games community by pure luck, through Jenny.

I’m so grateful Jenny saw my potential to fit in the indie games industry, because I wasn’t aware of that as a direction at all. Since then, I’ve also picked up 3D modeling – I had tried learning it a couple times, but it never stuck until the third try. It definitely took a lot of patience to figure out a lot of basics, and even now there are plenty of things I don’t know how to do. For a while, it was difficult to connect my 2D style to my 3D style, but when Jenny brought me onto Consume Me, she taught me a process (drawing texture maps first, then cutting shapes out of the illustration to form the models) that created a more organic result, as well as deepening my understanding of UV maps.

After introducing 3D modeling into my skill set, I feel like I can understand spaces even better than before. Knowing the pipeline and what’s needed for 3D modeling is also helpful when designing and drawing concept art. I’m also so good at cluttering up backgrounds and making spaces look lived in and messy in a realistic and human way. I love interiors, and thinking about how to make a space cozy in real life, and in my work.

Other than background illustration/modeling, I also enjoy designing characters based off of a vibe or description, which is what I did for a previous project Tender: Creature Comforts. Also currently enjoying making random background characters in Consume Me.

I also just really enjoy when someone tells me what to draw and I make a pretty picture. Like, I can put anything you want in a drawing…I love personal commissions.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I originally created my art Instagram account around 2016. It took some time coming up with a handle that would be easy to say, and consequently easy to remember. I think I wanted it to sound sort of trendy, but also with things I like…frogs…mushrooms…and came up with “frogfungus”. I started with a couple posts of sketches I already had. As people always say, it’s so important to keep posting, which I was able to keep up easily while I was in school. I just posted my homeworks from every week, around 3 posts a week, which grew my followers steadily. I think I had one post that did pretty well, and eventually hit 1k followers, which was not a crazy amount but decent at the time. From there, my followers started growing more consistently. I haven’t been keeping up with posting and have definitely gotten a bunch of unfollows, but I hope I can get back to it. Thank you to everyone who has continued supporting me!

It’s important to notice what kind of art gets the most interactions. I think fanart is generally a pretty good way for people to see your art. People love to see things they recognize. But it’s only fun if you’re enjoying whatever you’re making fanart for in my opinion. Enjoy can be taken loosely though – for example, I didn’t play much of Elden Ring, but made fanart because I really loved how Torrent looks. Though actually that drawing didn’t do that well…so maybe they knew…Anyway, I think there are other things people like to see. Tigers are very popular. And cows…I think when I was trying to hit 10k followers, I just drew this massive chunky cow and it got so many likes! It lowkey felt cheap, and it definitely isn’t my favorite drawing, but it really worked.

Also this is just my theory, but I made sure the people I followed were also artists and creatives. I think that helps Instagram associate you and recommend you to people who follow artists. I would definitely make a separate account for posting your art.

I’m talking about Instagram here, but I generally feel like the advice is similar on other social media sites. I think the visibility can be different for sure, but I was posting the same thing on all sites when I was the most active, and I do have a similar amount of followers on Twitter and Instagram.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I don’t want to undersell the role that luck and privilege has played in my career. My family was willing to financially support what many see as a path that can only result in a hobby, allowing me to go to one of most expensive schools in the US, and eventually supporting my life while I pursue an artistic career and make no money.

This was definitely something I struggled with for a long time. My parents initially gave me some pushback for my choice (because they rightly feared I would make no money), but I stubbornly believed that I could be different. I immediately failed to prove them wrong. There was never any question on their part to continue supporting me; it was established silently without any “I told you so” that I worried they must have been feeling. As time passed, I felt immense pressure to find a lucrative job and reverse all the money I’ve taken from them.

Understandably, there’s a lot of stigma towards people who have parents with the ability to fund their lives. I really struggled with the perception that my situation meant I was lazy. But to me, it felt like no matter how diligent I was, I couldn’t get a creative job. Not that I was that diligent. Like, I am kind of lazy. Anyway, even when I did eventually get a job, it wasn’t enough to stop receiving support from my parents.

For a while, those were the two main forces causing the shame driving my creative journey. Unfortunately, shame as a motivator does not work well for me, and I have yet to come upon any money or success that can begin to make my parents investments worthwhile, or more importantly, prove everyone wrong. To an extent, I’m still growing out of that mindset, but over time I’ve learned I better be making the most of my privilege than feeling ashamed of it. There’s definitely a lot of regret towards my past self for wasting so much time just feeling bad about myself.

I think my driving force now still includes a bit of those feelings, but largely, I just want to grow as an illustrator, and make art that people can connect to. I am so thankful for my family’s support for allowing me to pursue that while taking care of myself properly.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jieenlee.com
• Instagram: @frogfungus
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/jieenlee/
• Twitter: @frogfungus
• Other: Tumblr: @frogfungus

Image Credits

Jie En Lee