Usually when I'm just drawing,
it really comes from a feeling inside.
It kinda just flows out of my hand,
and it's an emotion that I'm trying to put down on paper.
Some of the favorite things that I like to draw is my nephews.
I have all these great memories with them and experiences with them.
I hear them laugh, and I hear how they play with each other.
And that's kind of where my hand goes.
My parents came from Taiwan.
My dad came here first in his early 20s,
on a business trip, and he fell in love with the country.
And so, he went back to Taiwan, and then brought me and my mom.
I definitely grew up as a Disney child.
I remember having one Disney book, and it was in Chinese,
but it was all Disney characters, and my mom would read that to me.
And so even though we didn't really recognize the reading,
like the pictures told the story.
And so we always had a fondness for images.
I started working in animation, and I was actually at a fork in the road
because I was thinking maybe I would go into teaching
because I love working with kids,
and I thought it would be great to bring art into education.
But as I was preparing for school,
I also just applied all over, Disney included.
And I remember I got accepted to all the schools that I applied for,
but then I got a call from Disney, and it was just no question.
Like, I was-- I wanted to work at Disney.
As a senior illustration manager here,
I work with a team of artists and provide them art direction,
make sure everything's in line.
We take the art direction of the film,
and we create a style of our own for the books.
The first picture book that I worked on here was Sofia the First.
I really like this book because I got to add,
like, little flourish designs throughout the book to wrap around the text.
And it was really fun to be able to add the little hearts on the I's.
And it felt more personal.
It's something that I think, as a child, I would have done too.
I work with the most creative people that I know.
So, we have the Frozen middle-grade cover.
And then, Winnie and I have been talking about, um, special effects.
When a film is in production,
we start illustrating the books that go along with the films.
We're thinking, like, a burgundy color that will match, um, Anna's lining.
-Okay. -So, it's got a very Frozen 2 color,
so all the palettes are cohesive.
There's books that retell the film,
and then there's also books that are extension stories.
And as a manager, I guide the team of artists
so that they can illustrate a book that looks cohesive,
even though there are multiple hands on it.
So, this is for the Toy Story 4 extension book. And...
One of the things that I really like working on is extension stories
because you get to extend the life of these characters
that you fall in love with when you watch the movie.
Especially, like, when I was younger, and I would watch this film,
and I would always wonder, "Oh, what happens after they get married?"
Or "What happens after this adventure is over?"
We get this foundation to work with
that we get to take in so many different directions.
Yeah, the book is really fun.
And it takes place in a carnival setting, so it's actually really appropriate.
I think these extension stories
develop this new type of relationship I have with the characters.
You experience them even in a closer way
because we get to tell, like, what happens next.
I'm helping Jeff with the Frozen 2, uh, covers.
One of my favorite parts of the job is we get to collaborate with the filmmakers.
They're the ones that create this world and these people.
And to have this firsthand explanation of all this knowledge
is what helps us make our books so wonderful.
And we had decided on a cool silver ink, so it'll be shimmery.
And so it will stand out from the page.
You have everything working in a more analogous color scheme,
which is a more limited scheme,
but it's much more harmonious to the environment.
You immediately recognize them as Anna and Elsa.
I think it channels the Frozen aesthetic quite a bit.
So another one of my favorite books was Three Little Words.
I really love the message of this book, and it's to "just keep swimming."
I think it's a great, positive message for little kids,
and it's also something that I tell myself every day.
What I love about art is it forces me to find my voice.
It allows me a way to express myself.
And I've learned to love myself
because I learned that everyone expresses themselves differently.