A dash of color flows across the page. Carefully crafted with passionately placed strokes, a vibrant and stunning image comes together. Senior Ashely Pei adds finishing details to her artwork, drawing inspiration from the iconic character designs of the Star Wars franchise. The University of Southern California (USC), a famous university nestled near the center of Downtown Los Angeles, is known for its beautiful campus and prestigious creative programs. Luckily for USC, skilled, artistic, and hardworking senior Ashley Pei will be pursuing her passion in animation at the university on the sunny side of California.
Majoring in design with plans to break into the animation industry to work as a visual development artist, Pei is looking forward to her future. With a love for art and drawing ever since she was young, she believes that USC is the perfect school to help her excel and succeed in pursuing her goals, as the school has very close ties with the animation industry.
“The animation industry is such a big deal right now,” Pei said. “I think the future of art is moving towards technology and that’s why I want to do visual development in the animation industry.
USC offers Interdisciplinary Studies, which will allow Pei to take classes with subjects that will differ from just art. Pei has many opportunities to chase after, seeing as the Interdisciplinary Studies program opens doors to exploration in other classes. This will make it easier for her to take courses she has an interest in, like Business Administration or Cinematic Studies. Pei found other art schools she applied to to be smaller and more limiting which contrasts with USC. A bigger school with more than just one focus was the most fitting for her path, and USC just happened to be the perfect missing puzzle piece to complete the image of Pei’s future.
Over years of hard work, Pei has acquired impressive skills in the realms of art. Disney, Pixar, and Star Wars are some of her biggest inspirations. Pei looks up to Star Wars especially when it comes to concept art and character design. Artwork on her Instagram account features famous characters like R2-D2 and other familiar droids inspired by Star Wars.
During her time as a high school student, Pei spent many of her days practicing and perfecting her craft. She enjoys watching an abundance of movies and TV shows to draw inspiration from. She also finds it useful to study the way the shows are designed. Her favorite film is Spirited Away, a 2D animated movie created by Studio Ghibli.
Pei offers advice to any incoming students who have an interest in following the path that she took.
“I would say just do your research about the schools you want to go to because some of them might require a portfolio,” Pei said. “Also just keep practicing art. You can do it.”
Before leaving CHS to conquer her endeavors at USC, Pei would like to shout out to Ms. Kirkpatrick for always being supportive, encouraging, and making it clear that pursuing art as a career is possible for everyone.