Passion and Paintbrushes: Lucy Wei (‘24) creates original characters and fan-art through digital design

Alyssa Wu, Staff Writer|March 2, 2023

Fascinated by the world of art, Wei is constantly thinking of new ideas for her drawings.

As young Lucy Wei (‘24) picked up her drawing tool and started scribbling on the page, she knew that art would be something that would continue to be a part of her life. Though art has always been a part of Wei’s life, it was not until high school that her passion for art really began to blossom.

“I took eight years of traditional art classes from when I was five until when I moved here in seventh grade. Towards the beginning of high school, I moved to digital art because I got an iPad and I had an Apple Pencil so I kind of experimented,” said Wei.

Switching from traditional art with restricting prompts to her own styles of art gave Lucy the freedom to explore. Traditional art usually surrounds the goal of being as realistic as possible, replicating certain objects without much room for creativity.

“I like how you can make your own creations based on your own creative ideas. The traditional art class I took had really strict prompts that I had to follow, so it was kind of hard to be creative. If you have your own creative idea, it’s nicer and more fun,” said Wei.

By drawing on inspiration from her friends and other artists, Wei’s style has been able to develop and continues to change.

“I looked around for other people’s styles and took inspiration from those. The skill just developed from the traditional art that I did,” said Wei. “I look on Pinterest a lot and Instagram stories and their accounts. Then I kind of just take inspiration from whatever I like and blend it all together.”

Through this adaptability to different styles, Lucy is able to explore many genres as well as create her own concepts.

Wei also enjoys sharing her interest in art with her friends. They’ve all expressed awe and surprise at her art skills.

“The type of art Lucy likes drawing the most is drawing persona OCs or drawing fanart. Her current process would probably just be looking through references of what she wants to draw and then carrying it out, as well as trying new techniques for her art,” said Irayna Lin (‘24).

Original characters or “OCs” are imagined personas drawn, painted, or sketched and shared online. Artists that create OCs might also create personalities for their characters.

Many of Wei’s pieces are experimental in order to find a style she likes. Wei enjoys drawing in the cartoon-y thick lineart style.

“Before my art was really really rough concepts and just really unoriginal things, then now I kind of like making my own like kind of details and then create OCs,” said Wei.

Through the years, Wei’s style has evolved from just replicating to being able to create art through her own ideas and concepts.

“I’ve seen her art change from more cartoon-ish at the beginning to more mature-looking and also more realistic,” said Lin.

During quarantine, Lucy even started an Instagram account for her art, featuring many of her OCs and fanart concepts.

“I took inspiration from a friend. It was during quarantine too, so I thought I might as well start one because I did digital drawing a lot,” said Wei.

Wei’s account has amassed over 300 followers. On her page Wei interacts with fellow artists, participating in art trades, collabs, and commissions. One of Wei’s favorite interactions with fellow artists is art trades, which are an exchange between two artists or more on creating content for the other.

“My personal favorite project of hers is probably her video game characters redrawn in human forms,” said Lin.

Currently, Wei enjoys drawing fan-art of characters from her favorite game Valorant. She enjoys taking her favorite characters and adding her own designs.

“A lot of the digital art projects I’ve done in the past year are based off this video game called Valorant. I just draw the characters in there. It feels like playing the game,” said Wei.

Right now, her hobby of art remains a personal one. Wei currently does not take any art classes. However, she does plan to take two AP art classes in school next year.

Last summer, Wei also participated in a summer program at UCLA for design and media arts where she was able to create her own passion projects. The program included everyday nine to five classes on campus with four separate classes.

“Last year I took a two-week on-campus camp, a summer program at UCLA, for a design Media Arts class. This year, I’m planning to do a game design program at UCLA again,” said Wei.

In the future, Wei plans to continue in art and have a career specifically in either graphic design or video game design.

“I’m planning to do something related to graphic design, or I think going into video games would be cool too because you can have your own kind of creative design. You can create your own things based on your interests, and I just really enjoy it,” said Wei.