Nguyen, Vincent

Personal

Male. Education: Attended School of Visual Arts.

Addresses

Home and office—Hoboken, NJ. E-mail—[email protected].

Career

Illustrator and animation artist. Blue Sky Studios, White Plains, NY, animator.

Member

Society of Illustrators.

Illustrator

(With Joe Bartos) Mark Shulman, Some Ducks, Barron's (Hauppauge, NY), 2003.

Gwyn Borcherding, The Good That I Should: Romans 7 for Kids, Concordia Publishing House (St. Louis, MO), 2004.

Mark Shulman, Stella the Star, Walker & Company (New York, NY), 2004.

Karen Hill, A Sky Full of Praise, Little Simon Inspirations (New York, NY), 2005.

Mark Shulman, Louis and the Dodo, Sterling Publishing Company (New York, NY), 2005.

Sally Derby, Whoosh Went the Wind!, Marshall Cavendish (New York, NY), 2006.

Steven Kroll, Jungle Bullies, Marshall Cavendish (New York, NY), 2006.

Mark Shulman, Not Another Tea Party, Sterling Publishing (New York, NY), 2006.

Eric A. Kimmel, Little Britches and the Rattlers, Marshall Cavendish (New York, NY), 2008.

Karen Rostoker-Gruber, Bandit, Marshall Cavendish (New York, NY), 2008.

Sidelights

Vincent Nguyen is an artist for Blue Sky Studios, a computer animation studio that has produced such films as Ice Age. In addition to creating art for motion pictures, Nguyen also illustrates children's books, including such titles as Whoosh Went the Wind! by Sally Derby, Stella and the Star by Mark Shulman, and Little Britches and the Rattlers by prolific writer Eric A. Kimmel.

The characteristics of Nguyen's work as an animation artist can also be seen in his work for children's literature. His book illustrations often include lively action and provide a unique and unlikely point of view. For instance, in capturing the fabricated adventures of a young boy who is always late for school in Whoosh Went the Wind!, Nguyen assembles an array of illustrations that portray the story's imaginative young protagonist scaling mountains and depict dandelions flurrying in the wind and chickens and roosters flying about. In a review of the book for School Library Journal, Rebecca Sheridan remarked that Nguyen's "acrylic and charcoal illustrations … carry the action and add to the story's energy." Julie Cummins in her review for Booklist noted that, much like his work for film, Nguyen's picture-book images "effectively use perspective to generate the melee."

In Stella the Star Nguyen adds his unique viewpoint to a title that highlights a little girl experiencing her first turn on stage in a school play as her proud parents look on. In School Library Journal, Maryann H. Owen commented that the book's "oil paints on prepared paper satisfactorily depict" Shulman's cast of characters. Also in praise of the collaboration between author and artist, Booklist reviewer Ilene Cooper noted that the illustrations for Stella the Star "appear welcomingly theatrical" and predicted that "kids will be enticed by the look."

Biographical and Critical Sources

PERIODICALS

Booklinks, July, 2005, Pat Scales, review of Stella the Star, p. 35; November, 2006, Barbara Chatton, review of Whoosh Went the Wind!, p. 58.

Booklist, April 15, 2004, Ilene Cooper, review of Stella the Star, p. 1449; October 15, 2006, Julie Cummins, review of Whoosh Went the Wind!, p. 54.

Kirkus Reviews, December 1, 2005, review of Louis and the Dodo, p. 1280; July 15, 2006, review of Whoosh Went the Wind!, p. 721; October 15, 2006, review of Not Another Tea Party, p. 1080.

Publishers Weekly, January 2, 2006, review of Louis and the Dodo, p. 61.

School Library Journal, May, 2004, Maryann H. Owen, review of Stella the Star, p. 124; January, 2006, Amy Lilien-Harper, review of Louis and the Dodo, p. 113; October, 2006, Rebecca Sheridan, review of Whoosh Went the Wind!, p. 109; November, 2006, M. Casper, review of Jungle Bullies, p. 98.

ONLINE

Children's Bookwatch Web site,http://www.midwestbookreview.com/ (October 1, 2006), review of Whoosh Went the Wind!

Reviewer's Bookwatch Web site,http://www.midwestbookreview.com/ (May 1, 2005), Susan Bethany, review of The Good That I Should: Romans 7 for Kids.

Vincent Nguyen Home Page,http://www.vincentdi.com (January 5, 2008).