Yuan Yuan Kuo is best known as a model, actor and social media star – but she’s also added another dimension to her career, that of successful illustrator. After rediscovering a childhood passion for drawing, Kuo began using Procreate to find her signature style and to bring her now famous characters Three Mao and Little Monster to life.

We spoke to Kuo about turning her love of illustration into another career highlight and how Procreate enables her to realise her ideas on the page.

Plus, she shares an exclusive artwork with the App Store that’s a visual love letter to girls everywhere.

Kuo has always pushed herself to go further and reach higher in her career, a determination that drove her to pitch herself to her modelling agency and eventually see her name and face on huge billboards. “Most people wait for chances,” she tells us. “But taking that first step is what makes you different. I only know how far I can go by challenging myself.”

When she started sharing early iterations of Three Mao and Little Monster to her social media, she was surprised by how much people connected with her art. Kuo realised that drawing had been a source of confidence for her since childhood and picking it up again sparked an ambition to publish an illustrated book.

Procreate became Kuo’s drawing tool of choice, enabling her to upskill on the fly even though she had no previous experience with professional drawing software. “At first, I didn’t know what ‘layers’ were. I had to remind myself that there’s no getting around learning the basics,” she laughs. That foundational work would eventually lead to Kuo creating her first illustrated book Hope You Like It in 2019.

To get up to speed with using Procreate, Kuo experimented with each brush. Perfection wasn’t necessarily the goal, rather telling stories in an appealing way. “I wanted my work to be true, not perfect,” she says. “So in You Are Not Alone [her second published book], I used dry ink brushes for all the lines and colours. I wanted to give the red of Three Mao’s cheeks and the blue of Little Monster’s body the feel of old ballpoint pens.”

In her third book You Make the World Just Right, dedicated to women and love, Kuo wanted to portray various aspects of love. “Your mental age gets more child-like when you’re in love, so I chose 6B pencils and oil pastels for the silly, innocent feel of kindergarteners’ drawings,” she says. Kuo likes to set a mood for a piece as a whole using background colours: “I’ll use a freycinet brush for backgrounds or large swathes of colour, and then add some pink for a cute and comforting vibe.”

Procreate’s intuitive design and its vast library of brushes and colours are a perfect match for the raw authenticity of Kuo’s creations. “I want to build the Yuan Yuan Kuo brand,” she says, “and Procreate gives this brand depth.”

“I never thought I’d be an illustrator,” she adds. “Lots of voices around me said I could be a singer, broadcaster or actor, but as I grew up, put down roots and matured, I began to enjoy writing and drawing in a world of my own. That’s when I decided I wanted to pursue illustration. If I’m a balloon rising into the sky, then Procreate is my air pump.”

In a new illustration designed exclusively for the App Store, Kuo hopes to inspire all girls to trust their imagination, take that brave first step and head towards the unknown. “You can grow up to be stronger than you think. Trust your imagination, be brave, take that first step and head towards the unknown.”