'Father' of the dragon Pikalong: 'Painting requires heart'

(Baonghean.vn) -Born and raised in Do Luong Town, pursuing a career in painting since his teenage years, the artist born in 1986 has only joined the comic book industry for about 10 years. Although he has not spent much time "playing with comics", Thang Fly (Bui Dinh Thang)-The "father" of the dragon Pikalong and many famous comic series has achieved much success, creating a great influence on the online community.

Let's listen to the interesting sharing of the 8x artist from Nghe An about the profession associated with drawing pens.

Artist Thang Fly.

Can you share what fate led you to become a comic artist?

I have had a passion for drawing comics since I was a child and have always considered it a dream and an ideal to pursue. As I grew up, I drew more and more, and the more I drew, the more my passion grew. At first, I just thought of drawing for fun, then I drew to earn extra income and then it became a profession. Now it is not just a profession anymore but like a friend, a close confidant of mine.

In your opinion, for an artist, what factors play an important role in continuing the passion and bringing readers meaningful works?

For me, there are many important factors to nurture the flame of passion and breathe meaning into the work I create. The first is perseverance because the beginning is always very difficult, perseverance is like a solid stepping stone for the next successes.

Second, you must learn how to earn extra income from your own profession, only then will it last long. The third factor is ideas and inspiration, because creative professions cannot lack these, you must not allow your imagination to stand still but must constantly learn and improve your thinking. The last factor is life experience, the profession of an artist in particular and other professions in general always require experience in both work and life.

Drawing comics is the greatest passion of this 8x artist.

As a young artist, you have achieved many successes in your career. So what difficulties have you encountered on your career path and how have you overcome them?

The main difficulty is income and too much work. At first, drawing comics was very poor, the effort was a lot but the royalties were not much.

Besides, at first the number of fans was small, not popular, there were projects that were in progress but had to be abandoned because they saw that they did not receive enthusiastic support from readers. At first, many of my friends drew comics, but 80% of them quit and started drawing other things to have a more stable and secure income.

Although I encountered many difficulties on the path of pursuing a career in drawing comics, I still kept drawing. I did not have much interest or ability in drawing concepts or illustrations.

I also do many jobs besides drawing comics to earn extra income while still maintaining my passion. I like what I do, I try this way and that way, one day luck will come and all the difficulties will be compensated by worthy achievements.

Making art always requires a unique mark. What have you done to create a unique feature for your works?

At the beginning of their work, every young artist is influenced by their seniors or monuments, but the longer they work, the more different they become, because we are human, and humans are always different. I like to draw pictures with clear strokes that quickly capture emotions. For me, each stroke is always simple, honest but deeply humane to convey meaningful messages to readers. Besides, the humorous element is also one of the ways to attract and keep readers attached to my works.

Do you have any "bloody" experiences that you would like to share with young people who will follow in your footsteps as a comic artist?

I want to tell young people who are pursuing a career as a comic artist: drawing requires a heart. For creative work, do what you like, reflect the realities of society to readers through your works and the important thing is that each "brainchild" born must contain the deep feelings and sincerity of the artist.

Young people pursuing a career as an artist in particular and other careers in general should persevere in pursuing their favorite job, don't be discouraged because one day luck and success will smile on you./.

Le Thao