Meet yoli Shen | Concept artist

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

Hi yoli, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking
I personally view risks as opportunities. I changed my career directions 2 time in the past. I entered the industry as an 3d animator then I worked as producer then I am now a concept artist. Especially when I decided that I wanted to be a concept artist, there are chances that I can never succeed. I didn’t have good foundation, neither extensive drawing nor painting experience. Not to mention that concept artists’ position is a highly competitive role.
I feel the key to conquer the inner fear of the risk is to set short term/easier goals. When I am continuing to improve, I can keep the track for a long time.
Risk is nothing but the fear to risk which prevent you from doing what you want to do is the key point.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Not like most of the concept artists, I came from background of game design. I graduated from Entertainment Technology Center of Carnegie Mellon University. I am the only concept artist in my graduate year. In the process of achieving master’s degree, other than a co-op of concept artist intern in Heavy Iron Studios, all my academic projects were design heavy. I mainly functioned as game designer in my team projects and at side did some art support. I also did independent study combining level design and concept design together. This was aiming to understand the industry pipeline better.
So, because of that, I feel I can understand projects’ design need easily and understand the designer’s struggle and difficulties.
When I have time, I participate in different forms of game jam. I really like game development process.
Talking about to become a concept artist, I feel no one would say it is easy. But to my personally experiences, I feel it was hard but looking back everything went smoothly. I mainly took online art classes. The main one I took was John Park’s mentorship. I focused on realistic environment design and did most my portfolio work under his supervision. After that, I found my intern in Heavy Iron Studios. I graduated then found my first job in Hi-rez Studios.
The most important thing I learnt is that, keep drawing to solve your problems, not repeating your mistakes.

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.
I am located in Pennsylvania. If my friends come in winter I will take them to skii resort and have some fun over there. If they come to summer, I will take them to do plein air.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I would like to shoutout to Jinzh . (https://jinzh.artstation.com/) When I started learning concept art, he told me to focus on design and ideas. That is the key to become a professional concept artist. He saved me a lot of time from putting time on no so crucial part of art.

Website: https://yoli.artstation.com/

Image Credits
Huijun yoli Shen