Meet Aubrey Kim | Visual Development Artist

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

Hi Aubrey, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
Hi! I’m Aubrey Kim and I’m a visual development artist working on animations and games. I liked drawing since I was very young and it made me become an artist naturally. At first, I pursued art because my family and friends liked my doodles. Gradually, I became interested in expressing my favorite things through drawings. As an amateur, it was only a hobby but the more I did art, the more I wanted to study art deeply. The aspiration eventually led me to move to an art college in San Francisco to learn academic art.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Oh, I love this topic and I can talk about it all day long! What I’m most proud of myself for is definitely my endless passion for creating art. It’s certainly interesting to create the world and characters within my favorite subject and lead things with my characters’ eyes. I spend about two-thirds of the day expanding my imagination but it never bores me and I almost refuse to sleep every night to do more art.

Of course, it was hard to get to the point where I could make the art I wanted. The process of constantly accepting a lot of information at the art college was not an easy task for me as a beginner. No one taught me how to separate myself from art which made my life difficult for a few years. Also, there were times when I hated paintings because I was stressed out comparing my art with other people’s work. So how did I break through this terrible situation? Different people have different ways of solving problems, but in my case, running away from the problem was ironically the answer.

I put down my passion for art for a while and started focusing on developing games for about two years. In the process, I had to learn non-artistic things such as coding and marketing and realized that doing them involves the same process as doing art. By acknowledging that everything has steps to achieve results and that it takes a lot of time to do so, I was able to learn that there was no secret recipe to create good art. Since then I have always reminded myself of the importance of having a checklist and not being impatient.

The failure and frustration made me who I am today and I am VERY happy about it. As a plus, the game I worked on during the dark time grew bigger and became another passion project of mine.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
As a current San Francisco based artist I don’t have much memory of LA. However, visiting Universal Studios Hollywood to see props and sets used in the film industry was a special experience to do in LA. I consider the amusement park as a place where I can see ‘good’ art and entertainment so I loved every moment I spent there. Whenever I see good things I think of my sisters, and Universal Studios was a place that made me think that way. My younger sister has never been to America yet and I can’t wait to invite her to come over to experience all the wonderful things here!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Genuinely, all my artistic activities were possible because of my beloved family and so I send endless thanks to them! I am always grateful to them for constantly giving me the confidence to succeed as an artist. They also inspire me in many ways, not just in terms of emotional support. Everyone in my family loves to attend art activities such as opera and museum visits together, and it certainly helped me broaden my artistic perspective since I was a kid. Especially when both of my sisters are working as writers, it is hard not to learn new things from them every day. Basically, My family teaches me how to see the world from different perspectives.

Website: https://aubreykim.com/

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

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aubrey-kim/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/aubreykimart

Image Credits
@AubreyKim2023