Melody, how long have you been creating art? Could you tell us about your experience as an illustration major at Cal State Fullerton?

I’ve been creating art since I was six. From drawing with chalk to crayons, and now traditional art to digital art.

It’s actually quite difficult for me to talk about school, since I’ve done most of my art outside of school.

CSUF has been both a blessing and a curse. At times, it challenged me in art to strive to do better. It also put me in my place in terms of skills by professors. I was happy being challenged in different tasks. It was also where I learned new mediums such as gauche and oil. However, because I was out of school a lot, I learned to be an independent Artist (freelance), and I heavily strive to be a business woman rather than an artist.  The idea of selling art, whether it to be fine art or working at a convention, has a lot to do with marketing more than art skills.

At times, I felt school was hindering me in what I wanted to do. The majority of the people I knew in school wanted to work for companies, while I wanted to start my own. School can tell you about what the world is like, but until you experience it yourself, you won’t know.  That’s what I have done through going to cons, creating things, making friends, and traveling. Despite all the struggles, I am truly grateful to all the CSUF professors that encouraged me to further my art career and helped me to succeed.  In other words, college is a lot of balancing school work and personal work.

Is character design / illustration your full-time occupation?

It is! I couldn’t possibly think of doing anything else.

Your Kaleidoscope Collection is stunning! Could you tell us about the series’ conception and how it influenced your style?

Kaleidoscope was an experiment for trying to reach new heights in my personal art Style.  When I was a kid, I loved my toy kaleidoscope and took it with me everywhere. The world was different through those three pieces of mirror. Those mirrors formed a triangle, and thus formulated my work through that. I find the shape to grab attention and to be very fundamental in composition, shapes, forms.  It was easy to connect the dots to form triangles to demonstrate shadows, light, and structure.

The name Kaleidoscope in Chinese means millions of flowers; which inspired me to do something that relates both flower and triangles together. The result was something really relaxing. Drawing anything in that style takes time, because individual triangles are drawn with no specific formula. I find it calming to do art work in that style and enjoy producing something aesthetically pleasing in the end.

What advice would you share with novice artists searching for their own unique style?

Copy. I’m sure many other artist have said it before too.

Copy photos, copy master art works, and most of all copy from life.

Real expressions that photos miss feeling, but not in seeing.

Once you are done being a sponge and can draw what you see in your mind, the rest is just discovery.  Sort out what you like and dislike in all the art you’ve copied, and recycle it into something new. If you want a unique style, be “you,” draw something that “you” love, and that speaks “you.” And practice, practice, practice, and the rest will fall in place.

Tell us more about your workstation setup. Do you work with traditional and / or digital media? We’d like to see a picture of where you create your art!

My work station is usually an organized chaos (despite the photos).

I have two laptops; a Toshiba Satellite for the main work and a Dell XPS to run videos or research. I’m currently installing a desktop (see the monitor in the back). I currently have a Intous 5 Pro Tablet. I’ll be upgrading to Cintiq soon.

(Though I have to say, it’s not the technology that makes good art, it’s skills. Technology just makes it easier.)

I work with both traditional and digital mediums. I sketch my quick ideas traditionally. Sometimes I just grab whatever sketchbook that has a free page and just doodle. If I like the work, I do a quick color comp, and then move to digital to fully render it.  There is a bookshelf full of all the art books I’ve collected and old sketch books on top. Just to have some anti-artblock inspirations.

You have a few different styles: classical cell shading, a smoother three dimensional shading approach, and a flatter style with an almost collage feel to it. Do you feel your style evolving in one particular direction, or branching out? Any preferences between these styles?

Maybe it’s my personality or my mood, but each style comes easily to me and is fun. Cell shading is easy, because it’s just lines, shadows, and colors.  The rest is technique and understanding form. It’s the same information with painting but it goes from 2d to 3d by adding foreground and background. It’s like creating a world. I think it’s because I can’t decide between the flat art style and the painting art style that I created in my Kaleidoscope series. The world between worlds.

I like exploring different avenues. If this question was asked a year ago, I would say I like branching out. But now, I would like to gather all the information I have learned to form a distinctive style.

It seems uncommon for artists to have their own logo, your logo is composed of a moon and a butterfly, somewhat reminiscent of Sailor Moon   How did you design it? Is there a story behind the logo?

I won’t deny that Sailor Moon definitely had some influence in this Logo, but it was not the intention. During the time when I created the logo, it wasn’t going to be the moon and butterfly at all. Instead, it was going to be a star and triangle (going back to my odd fervor for the shape).

I ended up deciding against those designs since it seemed to represent a lot of other modern shows.

Creating a logo that represented me ended up being pretty hard. The more I tried to discover myself to create a logo, the more I got lost. Then, I stumbled on an old necklace that my first love gave me. The logo actually represents that necklace. It was a reminder that I changed so much since then. I realized I wanted a logo that can change with me. I was ever changing and so was my art style.  What represented all of that? The moon. The moon will change during each phase, but its core will not. I change my art styles a lot, but in the end, it’s still my art.  As for the butterfly, it’s a symbol for me to strive to do better. I want to go through metamorphosis all the time. The goal is to graduate to a butterfly, but I’m still a caterpillar that has not eaten enough knowledge to even begin the cocoon phase.

How do you decide the motifs and series of your merchandise?? Is it about characters you personally find appealing, what you think is going to do well with your audience, or something else?

All of the above. For majority of my fan art, it’s actually done for my fans. People would request popular game or anime, and I would draw to show my appreciation to the fans and the show.  Though, for me, I would never draw anything I have never watched or don’t know about. Merchandise isn’t just an item. If I make something to sell, I have to understand why it exists, who is going to buy it, and how to sell it. If there is no love in the art, there is no art.

I think the most critical thing in making merchandise is taking risks. Currently, I want to slowly move towards original art such as Kaleidoscope and Chinese art. I’m really glad it’s being received well among my fans. I’m sure if I show how much I love my art, people will love it too.

Love your zodiac charm series!! Do you have any advice on designing and making charms? Do you have a preferred manufacturer?

Thank you!

I’m pretty new at designing charms myself.

My advice would be to make things simple. When it’s easy to read as a silhouette, it will be easy to read far away (even if it’s small). Also, when making an art or product, consider who’s going to buy them. My zodiac charms were made to target girls, but my male fans likes them too. (Which makes me really happy!)  Another thing is, people like art with purpose. My idea to creating the zodiac charms was to introduce westerners to more Asian cultures. To my surprise, a lot of people have already known them, Which only makes me happier that they can appreciate and understand the charm.

I use both Zap Creatives and Inkitlabs as manufacturers.
In my opinions, Zap provides better and stronger wood charms, and Inkit provides better quality acrylic charms.

Is there a story behind your nickname Chukairi?

It’s so embarrassing to talk about it! I thought it was an obvious name, but people have a hard time pronouncing it.

“Chu” because I like the sound Pikachu makes, and “Kairi” from Kingdom Hearts…..and that’s how it came about. No one had that name on DeviantArt at the time, and prided myself for being clever. It literally means “center of an ocean village.”

How does being bilingual influence you as an artist?

Being bilingual makes it very interesting at conventions. I get to hear and see what people think of my art in two languages. It pushes me to want to connect the two cultures more and do better so that both cultures can like what I do. That’s why I changed the theme of my work to games, because games do that.

I have a hard time communicating with people in both English and Chinese. Words don’t translate well sometimes. It’s also hard to tell people to pause and understand, that there are two languages going on in my mind, at all times. When I stutter or pause to think, it’s not because I don’t know what to say, but because there are just so many ways to speak I get stumped by my own thoughts.  So I express a lot of what I want to say and feel through art. With art, I don’t need to speak. People can just understand it. From there, they create their own story. I hope that someday I can built relationships with others through my work.

You have tabled at huge conventions such as Anime Expo and Fanime, what do you like the most about your convention experience? What advice do you have for artists aspiring to table at conventions? What do you think could be improved at conventions?  

For aspiring artist, Just do it. Go table. Figure out your mistakes and improve. If you are scared, bring a friend.

When you go to your first con make a checklist before you go. Have a lot of water, and best to go with someone who can help you (like carry things and feed you). Having a good helper is important. I don’t have a helper, but my art friends take care of me a lot. So make friends! Talk to EVERYONE!

My favorite thing at a convention is to meet new and old fans from the Internet. It’s so strange and exciting when the people I talk to online is are in front of me. Seeing shy, happy, and excited fans always reminds me why I started as an artist.

As for improvement in cons, I would like better security and a decrease the amount of artist to 100-150 at a convention. Too many artists isn’t always a good thing. When there are too many artists, things could be stolen without notice. Attendees at times would have a hard time moving around and have difficulty finding the artist they are looking for.

Could you share some photos of your setup at conventions?

It’s different every time.  

My second year at FanimeCon, 2013

Collaboration with I Had Those Toys. 2014

Anime EXPO 2015

There are such vibrant colors in your art yet work harmoniously with each other, especially in the piece below. Could you share some tips on creating a unique color palette that works well?

For tips, try to understand the color wheel, such as monochromatic, complementary, tertiary, and analogous colors. Knowing those will help create a better color palette. There is also website  http://paletton.com/ that can help guide artist to figure out the wheel.

Another tip is when colors gets too saturated or chaotic,  pick one color that complements the other color to mute it. Let that color be the first layer of the drawing and overlay it. (overlay not as the filter, but just as an action). Then, adjust the opacity. Doing this digitally is easy. It’s an effect I learned similar to a wash on a watercolor painting, or toning in oil painting.

You recently published an art book titled ‘Transcend’, is this collection of personal works or an anthology? Could you tell us a little about the creation of this art book?

It’s a personal collection of both anthology and original artwork!

The book is to honor some of the original artwork I have done since 2007. A lot of them were done with poems that I never really expressed to the public. So in a way, this is a confession of all the feelings I held in my art. The art inside are bits and pieces of personal life experiences and relationships. Where there is art is where I lacked in words to express, and where there is words is to give comfort and explanations to those who need more. In short, it’s a book of feelings.

What’s on the horizon for you? More publications? Collaborations?

There will definitely be new and improved art in the future. Since I’m currently in the process of reestablishing my brand, I’m planning on making another book. It’s taking a while because I’m doing a lot of research. It’s about the brain power to turn words into art. Some new kaleidoscope-related merchandise will be coming in the future. And as for collaborations, I’ll be working with more shops locally to publicize my art.