Conversations with Kiuyan Ran

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kiuyan Ran.

Hi Kiuyan, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi! It’s my honor and pleasure getting to be here. Been drawn to pen and paper from childhood and introduced to digital illustrator since a young age, I kept painting for over ten years and pour my passion into illustration and game industry. After gaining a degree in Art of Game Design from China, I pursued my MFA degree in illustration in the US to sharpen my skills in visual art, while keep doing contract jobs as an artist besides the school assignments. I am now a freelance illustrator working for worldwide game companies and publishing houses.

I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Of course, it is not as smooth as thought. Finding my own voice was one of the difficulties for me. As a game artist, you have to work with a whole team in a big process for the product, it requires you to be a generalist that are capable of doing multiple different art styles, and shifting between styles all the time can take the time and energy from the artist to go on the journey of diving deep to find a stronger shape of his/her unique voice. I was very used to trying different styles to fit in every different project, thinking all the time about what suits best for the project, what other artists are doing and what the client would want to see rather than how would “I” do it in “my” way. I sometimes “envy” talented artists who seem to be born knowing what they want and a unique style of their own, that “my” voice only comes to me after giving plenty of time and energy thinking and struggling and endeavor of practicing and exploring hard. I also believe that it is directly related to your personal state of mind and soul. Sometimes when you look back at the many struggles on your artistic path, they reflect the difficulties of life. It took me a long time on the way wandering, and I am still on my way and waiting for new surprises and challenges in the way of growth.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I enjoy my major part of work doing illustrations for worldwide game companies and publishing houses. I am passionate in fantasy-themed visual development arts, game card illustration and book illustrations. The experience of being a generalist in visual arts that can shift in multiple styles and aesthetics actually helps a lot in broadening horizons and working on projects from different fields. I am pretty open-minded in solutions for different problems and always gaining something new in every project I worked on.

Networking and finding a mentor can have such a positive impact on one’s life and career. Any advice?
Outside of schools, online classes are a very accessible and useful way to find a mentor and get knowledge. Many outstanding artists who are active in the industry are my role models, and the classes they might teach is the chance to get to know more and talk to them. Internet has worked very well for me in getting friends as well, I get a lot of artist friends from internet. It connects you with a lot of resources you couldn’t imagine to have many years ago.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kiuyanran.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/krusierweasley/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KrusierWeasley
• Other: https://www.artstation.com/krusier