Meet Chonlawat Thammawan | Technical Animator at Magnopus

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

Hi Chonlawat, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I have been drawing for as long as I could remember, not just drawing but anything crafting related is something I really enjoy since I was a kid, I always find myself in the zone doing these hobbies for hours while other kids are playing in the field. Though doing art as a hobby and doing it for living is a whole different thing. Doing art as a hobby, there is no right or wrong way to do anything, but as soon as money is involved, suddenly there are many rules and restrictions, since it is no longer just about how you express yourself anymore. For some people, it could become really frustrating. A lot of people I know that enjoy art will try to keep it as a hobby due to the fear of losing that joy once they do it for a living.

But for me, the best thing about working in the creative field is that everyday is the new challenge, I will have to deal with different projects that have different styles, dealing with many clients that have different needs, coming up with new solutions for the new technical issue. Growth is something I find really important about my career so having to tackle new challenges and get better at what I enjoy doing everyday is one of the big reasons I pursue an artistic career.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am currently a technical animator at a VR/AR studio, I am mostly responsible for creating an animation and rigging up character models so they could be animated. Though my title may sound specific but in fact I do a lot of different things including drawing and modelling, being very flexible is something my team really loves about me.

If you are at an art school, there is one question that people often debate about, which is to specialize in something, or to be more like a generalist that knows many things.
The idea was that being specialized at something will at least make you good at something and able to compete in the industry once you graduate, while being a generalist you won’t be able to have a portfolio that could compete with a specialist. So I would meet a lot of students who would not take class that they knew is not their focus, or completely ignore the class or don’t put any effort into their homework. I never really thought about it so much, since I am studying abroad everything is very new to me and not to mention how expensive an art school tuition is, I never would shut myself from learning all these skills. So I try to learn as many things as I could, even something I thought I would hate. The crazy part was the two subjects that I thought I was absolutely not going to enjoy, ended up being the two most enjoyable fields that I am currently doing it for living.

Once I start working professionally, I realize that knowing how to do many things directly influences how well you work in a team environment, which is what you will be doing most of the time. I am working with many other artists and engineers everyday, knowing how their field works at least on the basic level will help unblock and foreseen issues early. All these skills influence each other in some way or another, so I would definitely recommend art students to be more open to learning new things in school. School is the best place to be a sponge, not taking advantage of that would be a waste of opportunity.

One thing I did during my highschool time that led directly to my interests in Digital art was that as a kid I loved to create a character mod for an old video game called “Getamped”, and one of the key features of this game is you can share your character skin mod for other people to use. The mod I created was like an appearance of the character you control in the game, like an avatar of yourself which could resemble anything. I did that for over 5 years and created over 200 skins that I shared to the public for free, because I enjoy seeing many people using them in the game. This hobby of mine is how I started learning digital art and photo editing and Even my English skill as well since I was trying to share my work to a larger audience which required me to speak and write in English. I highly encourage people to have creative hobbies or side projects outside of work that aim to improve their skill and use this as a chance to introduce themselves to new challenges. Your day job may sometime not giving you the
Improvement in the direction you were aiming for, side projects is where you have freedom to choose whatever you want to be working on with no time limit, some of the side projects I worked on took from 2 month to one year time span, you can take a break whenever you like and work at your own pace. Every time I apply for a job application, a side project or your hobby project are always the highlight that was brought up in every interview and is usually what represents you most in the best possible way. My side projects currently are usually a character rig that I would share on the internet for people to try out for free, character rig is like a digital puppet where animators could use to animate. I could technically charge people money for this but what is more exciting for me is to see more animators having access to the rig and see what they come up with which is funny because it was very similar to what I did as a kid as I mentioned above.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I am currently living in Korea town. Funny story is, I am quite an introvert myself so I really like quiet peaceful places where I can focus, so I thought when I first moved to Korea town for my new job, I would definitely hate it here. But now that I have been here for a while, I really like it here. There are so many food option in Korea town and many small shopping mall area where people would gather, and they all open very late as well. Before Covid these restaurant would open until 2 am. Some night when I was working late, I would walk outside just to grab myself a bubble tea past midnight. Wandering around at night is definitely a little scary in the city, but since most restaurants open very late, there are always many people around. I felt a little safer.

My favorite place that I like to bring people to is definitely the Korean BBQ restaurants, there are so many Korean BBQ places here, there is one in almost every other block and me and my friend would love to try different places out. My favorite thing about Korean BBQ is how engaging it is as a meal, you would see the food being cooked in front of you, while you have a conversation with friend you haven’t met in a long time, people would sit there and continue eating and talking for over an hour, so it is a perfect place to bring people to.

Beach is also my favorite place to be, one thing I really enjoy doing when I feel overwhelmed by life is to have beach therapy. By beach therapy, I mean going to the beach and just sitting there and stare into the horizon, I like to do that with a small group of friends or I would even do it alone since the goal of this trip is to reconnect with yourself and let your mind relax and just let the world spin. LA has many beaches that suit all activities, even for an introvert like me.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I want to give a shoutout to Magnopus, the studio I am currently working at for allowing me to be part of many cool project and work with many talented team member. I like that the studio is always very optimistic and is willing to explore the new technology and how people connect. The world is changing and people are now more distance from each other. We need this technology now more than ever and I am excited to see how the studio will benefit the world in the near future. I would like to also mention how well the studio support their employee during Covid situation, and work hard to quickly set up the work from home workflow so we could be safe working from home.
And I wish everything could go back to normal soon so I could be at the office and work with all my favorite people in person.

Website: https://takbubumen.wixsite.com/chonlawatthammawan

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

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chonlawat-thammawan-9635875a/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mega_bubu

Image Credits
Takki Control Rig costume Photo: Carolina Rizzotto Magnopus Streaming CharityEvent Photo: Carolina Rizzotto