Our guests Simon Lok and Calvin Liang have a lot of things in common, but the most important experience they share is switching to a fine art career after working in the animation industry for many years. Find out about these two fine art painting masters’ journeys through this talk hosted by Q (Qianjiao) Ma and Nikita Chan.

Guests:

Simon (Saiping) Lok @_simon_lok_ 

Calvin Liang @calvin_liang_ 

Hosts:

Q (Qianjiao) Ma @q_sketches 

Nikita Chan @chanikitaa 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Caroline lights up every conversation with her positive attitude. She’s worked very hard at the things she does and her “just-do-it” spirit pushes her further in her art and life. Working in animation now, Caroline has a very good reason to consume manga and anime to stay motivated!

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Featured Artist: Caroline Chiou @bleachedsnow 

Host: Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Chinese-native Lynn Chen came to the US for her MFA in Illustration, discovered a career path in which she could just do what she liked for a living - making art for the entertainment industry. Now she works as a visual development artist in animation while doodling corgis on the side. Lynn tells us how she got to where she is right now, and also shares her thoughts on becoming a first-time mom.

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Featured Artist: Lynn Chen @lynnchen66 

Hosts:

Michelle Lin @michelleinteal 

Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

What is a climate artist, and what does plein-air painting have to do with one’s journey to creating climate art? Sean has some very insightful ideas about this topic. Switching career from fine art to entertainment, Sean finds LA to be the perfect place to pursue both concept art and plein-air painting.

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Featured Artist: Sean Bodley @seanbodley 

Host: Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

How do concept artists work in live action films? How does it compare to working in game or animation? What are some industry basics that only the insiders know about? In this episode, four concept artists who work at Marvel Studios share their individual trajectories, and chat about their experiences working in live action and beyond.

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Featured Artists: 

Anthony Francisco @anthony_francisco_art

Jana Schirmer @janaschirmer 

John Staub @johnstaubart 

Host: Justina Son @justinasonart 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Eric Prout is a Concept Artist in games and visual effects who also does digital plein-air painting. In this interview, he shares how he got his start as a Concept Artist, his favorite programs to paint in, and tips for outdoor painting with a digital set up. Eric also talked about how he got his first studio job through not having a plan B.

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Featured Artist: Eric Prout @rinthe

Host: Michelle Lin @michelleinteal

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

As someone deeply interested in people, Ramon Hurtado considers himself a “person” first above being the successful artist and teacher that he is. Ramon’s independent spirit and core values have defined his approach to life and style of teaching. Ramon strives to make art education accessible as well as approachable to all and loves to dig up funny anecdotes of artists from centuries ago. It was difficult to fit all that Ramon had to share in this conversation full of fun stories and musings on life from a proud Cat Dad.

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Featured Artist: @ramon.alex.hurtado 

Host: @michelleinteal 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Architect David Miller spares some time to do plein-air painting almost every day. He says he cannot imagine a life without art. In this episode, he shares how he reignited his passion and rebuilt the routine for painting after years of inactivity. His thoughts and experiences are so inspiring and so relatable to many of us who are in pursuit of a creative life.

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Featured Artist: David Miller @davidmiller5664 

Host: Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

The one and only Laura Price (a.k.a. lulusketches) is our guest for this ARTrepreneur Interview, in which she shares her very busy life as a full-time VisDev artist and a part-time YouTuber. You will learn about Laura’s dream career path in animation, her thoughts on YouTubing and many helpful tips and tricks for starting in animation and YouTubing.

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Featured Artist: Laura Price @lulusketches

Host: Mark David Teo @historiamemoria

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Kim DeVera still doesn’t like being called “artist”, although she paints almost everyday since the quarantine. Kim sometimes gets very serious about this art thing and she has to take a step back to remind herself that this is just a hobby, and she should enjoy and have fun. Kim is someone who can instantly brighten up a room (or a chat room). She listens to everyone carefully and she communicates with empathy. We miss her presence dearly whenever she’s not on Discord. You’ll find out why she believes this has been “the best quarantine” for her.

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Featured Artist: Kim DeVera @madpimp 

Host: Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Long-time Urban Sketcher and art instructor, Virginia Hein, sat down with us and chatted about her design career, her teaching journey, and how she supports the growth of Urban Sketchers both in LA and overseas. Virginia finds enormous joy in teaching and also learning from her students. Her motto is “I’m always learning.” We thank her for being such a great teacher and an inspiration to all of us!

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Featured Artist: Virginia Hein @virginiahein 

Host: Angela Sung @angothemango 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Nellie Robinson has a dual-degree in computer science and illustration and now she works as a Technical Director at Disney. In this interview, Nellie shares how her passion for programming and art helped her land this career path that combines the best of both worlds (HINT: her internship at Pixar helped a lot.) She talks about how much she enjoyed exploring LA with plein-air painting, and how taking notes from nature can be very beneficial for her line of work. And also, she’s working on her own painting app!

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Featured artist: Nellie Robinson @_narobins 

Host: Michelle Lin @michelleinteal 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Before establishing Nucleus, a gallery that is dedicated to showcasing entertainment art and artists, Ben Zhu graduated from Art Center College of Design and worked on Call of Duty I. What led him to his journey to become an ARTrepreneur? What makes Gallery Nucleus unique? What are his secrets for running a successful art business? What suggestions does he have for artists to work with galleries? What are his newest artistic pursuits? In this episode, Ben answers all these questions. He also shares a bit on work-life balance and his measurements for success.

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Featured Guest: Ben Zhu, Gallery Nucleus  

Host: Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

In this episode, India-native artist and illustrator Gunja Bhatt shares her experience living and teaching in the Bay Area, dealing with visa issues, and how art, especially plein-air painting, has accompanied her along the way. She enjoys the art community we have established very much and her "go-with-the-flow" attitude makes her such an easy-going person to paint with!

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Featured artist: Gunja Bhatt @artist.gunja 

Host: Michelle Lin @michelleinteal 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Want to sell your artwork but don’t know where to begin? In this episode, three expert “con-artists” Larry Quach, Eunjung June Kim, and Mauricio Abril talk about exhibiting at various art conventions. They share valuable lessons learned from successes and failures as they navigated the challenging yet rewarding world of conventions. With no in-person events this year, find out how these artists are adjusting their art businesses to the global pandemic. We are so glad to have Linden Li back to host another exciting topic.

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Featured Artists:

Larry Quach @larryquach 

Eunjung June Kim @hediun 

Mauricio Abril @mauartist 

Host: Linden Li @lindenpaints 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

After working an office job for 2 years after college, Randolph decided to pursue a career in entertainment out of his love for art. He got his first game gig literally minutes after walking into CTN Expo. Now he is a Background Painter in animation. Aside from his full-time job, some freelance, and taking care of his 2-year-old, he manages to find time to practice traditional painting after everyone goes to sleep. Randolph is really into reading art-related books and we call him "The Scholar" in the group. His other passion is to share his art history knowledge with people and we look forward to having him on the show again in the near future.

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Featured artist: Randolph Williams @rawiii 

Host: Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Have you also wanted to tighten up the graphics on level 3? Well, we heard many people went to work for game studios because of that classic commercial. In this episode, three well-established game artists, Jeremy Fenske, Kristina Ness and Tim Kaminski, share their career paths in the game industry, what they think about the future of game art, and other fun stuff. This episode’s host, Esther Wu, has also worked in games for a long time before switching to animation.

Donate to us: https://bit.ly/donate2wp

Featured Artists:

Jeremy Fenske @jeremyfenskeart 

Kristina Ness @____ness

Tim Kaminski @randomspirits 

Host: Esther Wu @artbywu 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Sherwin made a career switch to become an artist after working an office job for a decade. Now he is a visdev artist at DreamWorks and also an art instructor at CDA (Concept Design Academy). Sherwin is passionate about documenting his surroundings with creative methods, and plein-air painting is just one of them.

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Support us by shopping at Blick Art Supplies via: https://bit.ly/wp-blick

Featured artist: Sherwin Abesamis @winsher 

Host: Michelle Lin @michelleinteal 

Find Warrior Painters: https://www.warriorpainters.com/

If you have heard about the Netflix animation series “Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts”, produced by DreamWorks Animation, you’d have noticed the awesome backgrounds. We’ve invited three artists who created these backgrounds to chat about their work experience, lessons learned, as well as some memorable things that happened during the production.

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Featured Artists:

Nikita Chan @chanikitaa

David Merritt @merritartwork 

Linda Chung @lindachungart 

Host: James Lien @jameslien 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters

Kate had worked in game studios and Pixar before she become a full-time mom, but her passion for plein-air painting never went away. She manages to find time to paint outside of her responsibilities, help organize paint sessions for the SF Warrior Painters, and also actively seek remote employment opportunities in the entertainment art industry. Kate is smart and witty, super fun to talk to, which probably explains why she’s so good at handling all her 7-yo daughter’s existential questions.

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Featured artist: Kate Liu @lemonikate 

Host: Kayleigh Ma @kayleighx 

Find us on Instagram @warriorpainters