Today we’d like to introduce you to Tea Nguyen.
Hi Tea, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am an illustrator born and raised in Vietnam. Please call me Tea (like the boba tea)!
Right now, I’m based in the East Coast of the US but I will soon return home to Asia during the summer of this year.
I first picked up art as a little one, and I realized that I’ve always been slightly better at it than my peers. As soon as my eyes landed on my first manga pages, I knew that I wanted to be artistically THAT good. At that time, joy was as simple as emulating nicely drawn pictures and liking the results.
Skipping ahead, I wound up at Savannah College of Art and Design as a student in 2017. Even though I graduated with a BFA in Illustration, I still couldn’t fully grasp what is it that I wanted to do (a little more on that later). Despite that, I establish myself as a professional creative.
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?
Right. I have been “trying” to be an artist for my entire life. Every artist got their own reason for pursuing art. For me, it’s not necessarily out of passion but rather a voluntary struggle if that makes sense.
I discovered my abilities for creating since youth, but I kind of lost that spark during my high school years. Growing older, that joy suddenly became lost to me. I think in a way, I lost myself.
It didn’t make sense to me but time waits for no one. Before I could figure it out, it came time to choose a career path. Even now speaking as a college graduate, I still don’t have all the answers. It’s truly frustrating – I think you can dub my story as “the most indecisive girl figuring out how to be an artist and a functional adult” and it wouldn’t make a difference.
If there’s one thing I do know now that I’ve been struggling more “mindfully”, I learnt that instead of making the uncertainties my enemies, I decided to embrace them and just try to create to my heart’s content. The rest will follow.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Generally, I paint with my trusty iPad and Wacom tablet. You might notice that my body of work is a little chaotic, that’s because it’s true. As an artist, I’m uncertain and it shows.
In college, I was trained in concept art, but my interests are with all things cute! I’m passionate about background art, which is a division in development work for either games or animation. I have said it before, but background can really affect the look and feel of a project. I like to approach worldbuilding that way more than from characters’ angle.
If I have to describe my style, it’s definitely stylized with textures and lots of color usage – I have been told that colors are a specialty of mine and I will always find ways to incorporate them. These days I try to experiment with all kinds of content, hence you see a bit of everything. Outside of worldbuilding, my favorite topics to explore are food and travel. I also love good design so I incorporate graphic elements into my work sometimes. All in all, I guess you can consider me a generalist. I have a broad range of skillset and I intend to learn more.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I don’t necessarily locate in Atlanta, but I do enjoy the vibe and surrounding of where I’m located at the moment in Greensboro, North Carolina. It seems friendly wherever I go and I don’t feel like I’m worn out by the environment unlike the bustling cities. It’s chill and quiet.
That being said, there is much about the city life that I miss, such as the abundant selections of food I can eat or boba tea stores (I love my boba). I used to go to college in Savannah, GA where there was a huge community of artist population that I no longer have direct contact with. Being an artist, you’re mostly on your own but having a vibrant art scene is just as important.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://milkteadraw.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/milktea_illustration/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milkteanguyen/
- Other: https://www.behance.net/milkteanguyen
Image Credits
Credit to Kevin Vo for my personal photo.
