Meet Ray Suda | Illustrator & 2D artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ray Suda and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ray, why did you pursue a creative career?
Looking back, art and drawing was the only thing in life passion and hobby that I have had so far that I refused to give up on.

Just like many other artists, I started doodling when I understood how to hold a crayon, and I loved it with no condition. I left drawing for a while when I moved to Hong Kong from Japan, and made friends normally and played outside just like any other children until I got into primary school.

Being a mix-cultured kid, I faced my first obstacle in making friends in a Japanese dominant primary school and Japanese community in Hong Kong.

Don’t get me wrong, I got teased here and there for being just a little different, but I was never bullied. The problem was that I had nothing in common with the rest of the Japanese kids in school. They read certain magazines from Japan, watched shows from Japan (their parents paid for cable that will connect to Japanese tv, or simply their grandparents sent VCDs every month), while I read anything that I felt interested, and watched anything that was on local TV in Hong Kong. I was not up-to-date with the trends in Japan, so I had a hard time trying to join any conversations or even start a conversation with my fellow schoolmates. What really helped me make friends was drawing.  Because if I didn’t have anyone to play or chat with, I just sat on my desk and drew. People then become interested in what I am drawing, and I will have a good conversation topic. If they are not interested, that was fine by me because I can just continue to draw and be that student who is always drawing during breaktime.

Time passes and I got friends that wanted me to draw some characters from anime or manga. That is around the time I started thinking about the possibility of pursuing an artistic career. At first I wanted to be a manga artist, little did I know that I have no patience to produce more than 18 pages per episode and all the other hustle and hard work you will have to go through as a manga artist. But knowing that my drawing makes someone happy really made me motivated and kept drawing.

By the time I had to transfer to an international school with all native English speaking kids, I felt like I was put back to square one. tried to be exposed to all the things that are considered trendy in an international school, but it was getting harder for me because I genuinely was not interested in what other kids were interested in. I was never interested in sneaking out of my house in the weekends to go partying with fake alcohol drinks, and I was not interested in the late 2000’s Youtubers who did vlogs about their lives in either the US or UK. I purely just found it more enjoyable to stay at home and either talk with my family or read more manga and draw.

During my school years before college, I had a lot of after-school lessons. I learned piano, few types of clarinet, saxophone, tennis, went to a Japanese tutor, did extracurricular activities to pass high school, by passion etc. The studio art time on Fridays after school in a nearby art studio where the teacher was usually too busy teaching toddlers how to draw with crayons, was the only after school activity in the whole week which I didn’t want to miss. Since my parents both knew that I was going to pursue art, they were very supportive and only told me to do my best to pass high school so that I can go pursue my dream career. Even during studying for high school graduation exams, I would bring out my sketchbook to draw, and my parents never scolded me for drawing instead of studying because I assume they trusted me in my own decisions.

I think being able to pursue my true passion is a great privilege. I take my creative career as a form of giving back to drawing and art itself. Without drawing, I wouldn’t have had anywhere to go back to and I wouldn’t know all the beautiful and exciting things that I enjoy now. Having my passion as a career sometimes makes drawing very painful and stressful, but at the end I still pick my pen back up and start drawing. Even one day when I finish my career and accomplish most of my life goals and feel somewhat empty, I’m pretty sure I will unconsciously pick up a pencil and start drawing again.

Please tell us more about your work. We’d love to hear what sets you apart from others, what you are most proud of or excited about. How did you get to where you are today professionally. Was it easy? If not, how did you overcome the challenges? What are the lessons you’ve learned along the way. What do you want the world to know about you or your brand and story?

I think what makes me the artist I am now is always rooted in the multi-cultural environment I was raised in. I was raised as Chinese-Japanese in Hong Kong, and my dad’s family motto is always to “learn and take the good parts from different cultures.” Taking good parts from different cultures required myself to be very open-minded, adaptive and versatile, and it also needs a lot of analyzation to really think through before making decisions. Even for my artworks, I always try to keep myself adaptive when it comes to working for very different types of projects. My comfort zone is usually cute and poppy type of drawing, but I also enjoy doing something that is more semi-realistic and cool.

I believe the one challenge in trying to be as versatile as I can, is draftsmanship. I didn’t have access to a fully functioning digital media until I got into college. I was given a sample Wacom Intuos 4 tablet from an aunt who used to work for Wacom in Japan, but I could only doodle on free software such as FireAlpaca. This made me force myself to be even more comfortable with just pencil and paper, and expressing characters and objects with lines. I was proud of myself when my high school teacher told me that he was envious of my draftsmanship when I free-handedly drew a product in exploded isometric view. Having a comfort zone in lines made my life so much easier as an artist now. I do not require too much time generating my idea on paper, and I can visually communicate my idea in the most efficient way possible. The only hard part in my process now, is researching and building up visual library to make the characters and props make sense and alive, and rendering something that is out of my comfort zone.

Talking about difficulty in my artistic journey, I was just very fortunate to have a very supportive family. Therefore the hardest difficulty I had was fighting against myself in how to get as good as I can with the materials available. I can always wish that I drew more or had photoshop and a good drawing tablet to start doing digital art earlier, but I was happy with what I had. My family supporting my dream was the only thing I needed to keep myself motivated to be better. The rest of the journey was all about being adaptive and flexible.

My career as an artist just started, and if I have anything I want the world to know about my art, is that I enjoy the process of making them no matter how different they can be. Of course there are some things I am more comfortable and experienced than others, but I like looking for solutions and I do my best to make anything look decent or at least make sense.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
When me and my husband used to live in Alhambra, we really liked the area. Alhambra is just below Pasadena, and downtown Alhambra was a great place to walk around. One of our favorite in Downtown Alhambra was Grill ’em All, which is right by the theater. They are a heavy-metal themed burger place with really cool metal music decor inside, and everything in the menu are named after heavy metal bands! I mean, how can a burger place be any cooler than that! Their burgers and fries are awesome and they serve A LOT! My husband and my date routine when were in Alhambra was to watch a movie at the theater, eat at Grill ’em All, walk to Gallery Nucleus for artbooks and exhibition events, and then walk around the rest of Downtown Alhambra before going back to our apartment.

Now, my husband and I are temporarily in Washington State. There are so many parks, shopping centers and great food. It is very unfortunate with the current situation with the pandemic, but when it clams down I would always recommend anyone to stroll around Pike Place for the Pike Place Chowder, or the very first Starbucks for a coffee, or be slightly disgusted at the Gum Wall, and walk around Post Alley for photos. It is a very touristy route, but I remember it being such a nice walk to get the feel of Seattle. If you prefer nature, we also have Snoqualmie Falls, Mount Rainier area, and a lot more that even I haven’t been to yet.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Definitely my parents! Without their support I wouldn’t be where I am now. Being Asian parents, it could have been hard for them when their daughter said she is going to draw when she grows up and never changed her mind. But my parents never even tried to suggest me to get into another career options. Honestly at one point, I got concerned about the fact that my parents were so supportive about me pursuing art. The lesson I learned in my life from my parents is to “do what I can, but with the perseverance to do the best I can.” I can not thank them enough for always being there for me and being the best parents I could ask for.

My brother never made fun of my drawings (he did mock me for all the other things except for drawing) even I did mock him with my drawings when we were younger, so I have to give him credit for that even though he might refuse to take the credit like this. Thanks bud, I know you don’t like me saying thanks to you so I will thank you here instead.

My husband Sam, who is also an artist, deserves credit for tolerating my occasional stress explosions and still giving me unconditional love and support. I am very glad that my husband is someone who can scold me when I am not in the right mindset. Sam is just simply the best friend, partner, husband, and everything to me so I can’t NOT give him credit because he will be sad 🙂

My in-laws has also been very supportive to me during the whole time when I wasn’t able to work due to visa reasons. Not only we used their backyard for my wedding, but also I have been mooching off of their kindness by moving into their house during the pandemic to save money with my husband until we are just a little more financially independent. Thank you so much and I love you all!

Website: https://www.rayshibesuda.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raybeeyan/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rayshibesuda/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/raybeeyan

Other: I also stream sometimes when I feel like it:) https://www.twitch.tv/raybeeyan