Today we’d like to introduce you to Thy Vo
Hi Thy, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi! I’m a Vietnamese-American artist, born in New York, and raised in Georgia. I was glued to the tv as a kid and was raised on classic cartoons and anime which just fueled my love for the arts and animation. While pursuing a BFA in animation at SCAD, I produced 2 films and worked on many others, which sparked a new love for production and collaboration. After graduation, I worked in motion design for commercial content for 2 years before I switched gears to series and interactive work for PBS Kids, adult swim, and Cartoon Network. As of last year, I’ve been freelancing for various brands and have stayed in educational content for kids and young adults.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been overall a bumpy ride; the classic struggle of getting my parent’s approval for art school, paying for said art school, and finding a job after was pretty rough. Even after getting steady employment, Covid hit which shifted everyone’s worlds and then later, I would be laid off due to a studio shutdown. But with those struggles, I’ve found some great people who stuck by me and uplifted me while I was down. Conflicts on the journey are tough at the time, but they pass and when they do, I always feel more and more confident going forward.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I’m a 2D generalist animator, which means I provide services across a variety of departments and styles. I can storyboard, illustrate, rig, animate, and composite. My favorite type of work centers around culture, color, and nostalgia.
For the longest time, I was probably most known for my student film, “Tutorial Skip”, which told the story of what happens to a novice gamer when he skips the tutorial and goes straight for the strongest boss. I co-directed this film with Ryan Imm and Sydney Seekford and it was our love letter to Japanese role playing games. We made sure to saturate the film with all the nostalgic colors, sounds, and iconography of classic jrpg’s. We had around 40 artists on this film and it was such a blast to make.
I’m most proud of my work on the PBS Kids series, “Jelly Ben and Pogo”, created by Jalysa Leva. The show was the first of its kind to celebrate Filipino culture on American TV and is filled with so much joy and love. The team worked really hard to pull from real experiences and fill the show to the brim with representation. We don’t see a lot of south-east Asian media on TV so I’m so very grateful and proud to be a part of this series.
Another project I’m proud to be a part of is Asian in Animation’s “bé hông (little persimmon)”. This was a volunteer project with over 60 artists to produce a 2 minute film in 9 days. The film is about a young Vietnamese girl honoring her late grandfather with his favorite fruit; a persimmon. I was the head of animation and the story is directly inspired from my own family and time spent in Vietnam. bé hông is currently running the film circuit and I hope you all get a chance to check it out!
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Oooh, that’s a tough one. I’m going to cheat a bit and say I have a favorite time of my life instead; it’s when my mom would take me to the nail salon with her when I was about 4 or 5 years old. In retrospect, it was probably because there was no one to watch me at the time, but I had so much fun being there with her. My mom worked the most and the farthest away, so I only really saw her at night or on Sundays, so this was a time of my life where I was with her all day, all week. I would spend my days chatting up the customers, painting on paper towels with the polish, folding towels in the back, and napping on the dryer in the back room. The smell of nail polish and that really specific ring of the store bell always takes me back to that time.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thydvo.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milk_thy/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thy-dai-vo/
