Teen Gamelab intern Jake Lazaroff interviewed Gamelab artist Jiyoun Lee, the character designer behind Out of Your Mind. Read the interview inside.

The preface to this interview would be that I wanted to interview an artist, and after looking through the pages on the Gamelab site I chose Jiyoun Lee.

After two weeks' delay because of crunch time, I got to interview Jiyoun. I took a pad of paper and met her in the break room.

My first question was her position at Gamelab. She is a "lead artist," which means she's responsible for a big part of how the game will look. Not only does she create art for the games herself, but she also helps others with their artwork.

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Jiyoun has been an artist since age 10, when she took piano and art classes. Better at art than piano, she chose to continue that aspect of her education and ended up going to a specialized art high school. Her early instruction involved mostly drawing from life. She went to college and received an undergraduate degree in fine art.

Asked what her favorite medium was, Jiyoun said that "I grab everything I can grab." She uses a wide variety of media, including pencil and charcoal, as well as software such as Adobe Photoshop and Painter. We had a lengthy discussion on drawing tablets, and I found out that the animation company she used to work for received the first Cintiqs (the really high-end tablets from Wacom).

While she had liked playing games even at an early age, by the time Jiyoun went to college the Korean game industry wasn't big compared to the animation industry. She worked for an animation company as well as a film company, doing everything from character design to background art. After that she went freelance, which is how she found Gamelab.

Jiyoun came to the United States about a year and a half ago. Still a freelance artist, she learned about Gamelab from a friend who worked there. Gamelab, coincidentally, was looking for an artist for a game called "Out of Your Mind." She was tasked with creating NegaTics, mental quirks which are the main antagonists in the game. Her challenge was to take negative characters and make them "cute and huggable." Gamelab obviously liked her work, as they hired her fulltime.

After "Out of Your Mind," Jiyoun worked on a mural at the old Gamelab office. This was a game-themed design to be painted on a wall. Jiyoun and the other artists designed this on paper, then projected it onto the wall and traced over it.

The best moments in her job, according to Jiyoun, are "after I struggle a lot [on a piece of art] and there's a good result, and everyone loves it." Similarly, the worst moment is when she's inspired and has a good feeling about a piece, but it doesn't turn out so good. "It's hard to predict peoples' reactions," she told me, "even though I'm experienced."

As far as personal projects go, Jiyoun still makes fine art. She has a website, and she keeps a portfolio of work she's done since she came to Gamelab. Her favorite games are Rez (a rail-based shooter for Playstation 2), Virtua Fighter, StarCraft, and Galaga. She listens to a wide variety of music (fusion jazz to hip-hop to hardcore), although now she's into more alternative and experimental music. She also enjoys soap operas and "art movies."

At this point I told her that I had never played Rez, so we went over to the Playstation 2 to try it out. We took turns playing through the first level, and while it didn't make it up there with my favorite games, I do agree with her that it's insanely fun.

In a follow-up email, Jiyoun told me that she "feels lucky to be at Gamelab because they try to make unique games," which lets her do a lot more things as an artist. Gamelab expects more of their artists, so artists are constantly challenged to do better.

She also emphasized the importance of research in her art, which she said is something that all artists should do. Apart from research, she looks to culture for inspiration. She looks to people and what she sees in the street, as well as magazines and museums.