Meet Moon(Yuezhu) Wang: Animator&illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Moon(Yuezhu) Wang and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Moon(Yuezhu), we’d love for you to start things off by telling us something about your industry that we and others not in the industry might be unaware of?
Many people may probably think it’s easy to make animations, but it’s not, especially when we’re talking about traditional hand-drawn animations. I remember when I first showed my parents a 1-minute 2D animation short I made at school , they were curious if there is more? I can actually understand their doubts, because before I stepped into the field of animation, I also thought it could be done easily with just a few strokes. However, now I realize that it is difficult to maintain the continuity of the characters in animation. How to make moving objects look realistic and exaggerated does require the accumulation of time and skill. Sometimes I can only complete the animation part of 2-3 seconds a day, so you can imagine that if you want to make a 2d animation feature independently, it will take years. And this is why 3d animation movies are the mainstream so far.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I’m still learning to be a good animator and illustrator, so I cannot say I’m already better than others. And I think art is a process of continuous input and output, especially in animation. Every day many excellent artists all over the world post a lot of gorgeous drawings and films on their social media. Each time I see their works, I just feel that I still have too much to learn. As an animator, I have to learn more, or master more drawing styles, otherwise it’ll be easy to get knocked out in this industry.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I’m now living in LA, so I would definitely bring him/her to LA. I would first invite him/her to my school, CalArts, where I used to have classes, and we can have a tour by car due in the campus to the pandemic. CalArts is located in Valencia, so we can also hang out in the town for the rest of the day. There are also many beautiful mountains in this city. I will probably take my friend to climb the mountains if he/she is ok with that. We’ll be away from the crowds while enjoying nature. The remaining days are for the downtown. LA downtown has many good art galleries and museums to visit, and many delicious foods to enjoy. But we’ll see if they’re open at this particular time. The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I really want to shout out to my school, CalArts. It took me into the world of film and animation. The teachers there are great, enthusiastic and talented. They have always encouraged me to create the stories and characters I want in my heart. We all know that it is difficult to be honest with ourselves and our works, and this is where I have always been puzzled and painful. I can’t say that my studies there have always been pleasant and successful, because I always get advices from teachers and classmates and then deny myself, and then admit myself. The process of animation production is repeated in this way and it is very hard. CalArts helps me to understand that.

Website: https://yuezhuwang.wixsite.com/website

Instagram: @moon_wyz