Cubebrush Featured Seller: Didier Nguyen
Didier Nguyen is a French Illustrator, Concept Artist, and Anatomy teacher for the Game & Movie Industry–currently working with Blizzard. His previous clients are Activision, Toys For Bob, Quantic Dream, Passion Pictures, VOLTA, Mythic games.
His Cubebrush store is filled with great tutorials and tools.
Let’s start with the good stuff. What is your best accomplishment as an artist?
I may have accomplished one of my main objectives recently, which was to work at Blizzard Entertainment!
Why?
Blizzard was a dream for the longest I can remember, especially because I love their art direction and especially what they’ve done with Overwatch. Also lore and video games overall and obviously cinematics!
When did you decide you wanted to be an artist for a living?
I never really took that decision, I used to say “Je veux être dessinateur” when I was a kid which means “I want to be a drawer” literally in French, but I quickly moved on to wanting to become someone with a 9 to 5 job because I didn’t think there was a job such as the ones we have in this industry like concept artist.
I’ve never heard of that, I always thought taking a gig as an illustrator or something meant that I was going to have a hard time earning money.
How did you pursue it?
Short story: I flipped a coin.
Long story: I looked it up on the internet! I’m pretty much a self-taught artist when it comes to drawing but I still wanted to have formal education and learn how the video-game and film industry worked.
My very first encounter with the industry was a written/drawing test for “Gobelins” which is a school of visual communication and arts in Paris, now one of the best Art/Animation schools in Europe. I went on to the Oral finals and failed, one of the jury told me that my drawings/illustrations leans more towards Video Game, he told me to look up for video game schools instead.
I found 2 schools that offer “Alternance”: School for a week and internship the other week, It was like learning, training, and earning money to pay for the school at the same time. That’s why I basically flipped a coin between these 2 schools and ended up in Isart Digital.
Favorite company you’ve worked for?
Definitely Activision’s Toys for Bob!! Best experience yet! I also need to mention the one who recruited me: Josh Nadelberg. He’s the Art Director that gave me the chance to work on cool and creative projects.
Why?
When I was told that I was going to work on Spyro reignited trilogy and then be a Vis dev on Crash Bandicoot 4, I was totally excited, they had me at Spyro though.
Worst job you ever had? Give us all the details.
Let’s say “tough” jobs instead, I consider all the jobs I had to be experiences that led me where I am today. The toughest job was probably being a Warehouseman lifting hefty boxes and fridges, and a Cleaner at a coffee shop.
We are so lucky to be in this industry, I really admire workers with tough jobs and we don’t appreciate them enough.
What is your most embarrassing moment as an artist?
I don’t recall having an embarrassing moment as an artist or even being embarrassed at my art, everyone should show their art to the world to see! On the other hand, though, I do have plenty of embarrassing moments as a human being.
If you could start your career all over again, what would you do differently?
Nothing, I don’t think I should, either way, I’m not messing with timelines.
What advice would you give to the younger you?
Invest in Apple and Amazon, trust me. Just be your stupid self and try not to get in trouble. Also, eat more veggies, please.
What made you open a store with Cubebrush?
I recently started making tutorials and wanted to share my narrated videos on the website!
What advice would you give to ambitious artists out there?
Some of you will make it sooner and some later, as long as you’re really passionate about this thing, you just need to keep practicing, train hard, give yourself time to appreciate all the things you’ve done. If you want to give up it’s okay too, no pressure, all fun.
See more from Didier here: