We recently connected with Max Liu and have shared our conversation below.

Max, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

The most meaningful project for me is not a job-related one, it’s a personal world-building concept art project done this year. The name of it is The Sky Searchers. I was always thinking of building up a fantasy world from my imagination, visualize it, and see if there are any possibilities to further turn it into a game or just a demo. The whole project was done outside my work hours, late at night, or during weekends, it also helped me realize I could have utilized more of my spare time to engage myself in art.

With a post-apocalyptic style, the entire world in this world-building project is set to be shrouded in poisonous gases and thus the survivors have to take shelter in the highlands. The story can be considered a Hero’s journey, and in our main character’s journey, I picked three different locations: a starting point and two midway places of interest. I meticulously designed and visualized each location through a series of digital images, aiming to make these images as narrative as possible, allowing viewers to better understand the hero’s emotions in those moments.

The project means a lot to me, for it’s my first time finishing a huge concept art project from scratch. The design process was challenging, but it brought me a deep sense of fulfillment when I successfully brought to life scenes from my imagination. I also further developed my concept design flow and tested some new technical methods, which are also beneficial to my work projects. Moreover, I had the invaluable opportunity to receive guidance from the renowned concept artist James Paick during the creative process, who provided me with valuable suggestions and feedback.

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 began my journey in art and painting during my childhood, and it naturally evolved into my career as I grew older. As a huge fan of Japanese anime, I initially set my career goal to be an animator, but while I was learning art, I found that concept art or entertainment design fascinated me more because I could combine my artistic sense and rational design process. Career-wise, I was thinking of getting my first job as a concept artist in a film or game studio. After I earned a bachelor of art degree in China, I came to the US in 2018 to pursue a higher level of education.

Being a hobbyist in art may sound fun for most of us, but getting into the art industry and earning yourself a living through creativity is another matter. In May 2020, I finished my studies at the School of Visual Arts in New York and started looking for concept artist jobs. Times were extremely tough then because of COVID-19: Many game and art studios were facing financial difficulties, resulting in reduced hiring. In this seemingly bleak scenario, securing my first foothold in the industry appeared almost impossible. My only course of action was to continue building my art portfolio and relentlessly send out my resume, alongside thousands of other applicants.

Things seemed to change after one day I found one of my LinkedIn posts showcasing my recent design work that received more than 40k views. People started to message me asking for collaboration, freelance work, or some art help. I was excited as if I’d been waiting this time for too long to earn myself a living from my artwork. This marked the beginning of my creative career. In the next year, I got my first full-time job offer from a game studio and now I’m working as a concept artist at Ubisoft.

The project I’ve been working on with my amazing team and coworkers over the past year is an upcoming shooter game, a Ubisoft original. So in this game production pipeline, my role is to do character design, prop design, and sometimes environment design and paintings. Since the concept team is playing a supportive role, what really matters in our jobs is understanding the entire art team’s needs and trying to meet them with our design services. What I have gleaned from my job thus far is that when it comes to concept design, precision and timeliness sometimes hold more weight than producing something visually striking that doesn’t align with the project’s requirements.

Throughout my creative career, one principle I always bear in mind is to never cease learning and never linger too long within my comfort zone. I attended some online concept art classes from time to time since I graduated and I just finished the latest one this July. Every time I finished an online course, there would be more or less some improvements in my design mindset and art skills. And these are also great chances for me to get inspiration from my talented instructors and classmates.

In terms of comfort zone in art, it’s easy for artists to do what we already know will lead to some level of success, which is what I’m trying to avoid. The art industry is big but to some extent, it’s quite small, it’s easy for one to get lost, follow those trends, or not take risks to do something different. Like many aspiring concept artists, I initially focused on creating epic, realistic images for my portfolio. After doing things like this for a portfolio purpose for a while, I realized this can’t really bring me joy and fully express myself. I then started doing something more narrative and finished my personal storytelling project, The Swamp Fear in 2022. Now with that in mind, I’m currently trying to push my art style to a more simple and abstract form, I’m also doing some oil paintings after work.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I believe it’s a bit early for me to provide “in-depth” opinions on this matter, but as a concept artist working in the industry, a stable and robust economy holds significant importance for creatives.. As the global economy not doing quite well now and in the past few years, we have seen many companies and studios have some massive layoffs and this brought huge anxiety to the artists working in the industry. People no longer feel confident about their job security and many beginning artists find it extremely hard to get their first step into the creative industry. Whenever I check my LinkedIn page recently, I see a lot of talented artists posting their portfolios over and over again, asking for a hire. This is kind of reflecting the state of the whole creative industry right now, which makes me feel sad about it.

Regarding educational institutions, I believe it would be beneficial if they could offer students more practical insights about the art industry before they graduate. Because there’s always a huge gap between schools and the industry, schools can’t be over-optimistic, they have the responsibility to let the students know how the industry is doing right now, whether is it still growing fast, and if there’s still a huge demand for artists. Over the years I have seen many recent graduates rushing to the art industry and found that it is very competitive and the actual demand for creative roles is much lower than they thought.

Looking back, are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Since I’ve been living in New York City for almost 5 years, I was often very busy at school and rarely went to visit any museum or art exhibition. What I’m feeling now is that this is a huge waste of the amazing art resources in NYC. This year I started going to local exhibitions and galleries which gave me so much help and inspiration for my art career. I’ve also started doing some live sketches and oil paintings in downtown New York this summer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.maxliuwendy.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maxliuutada/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chong-liu-6b4753169/

Image Credits
All Credit-Max Liu