Reddit AMA Recap: Genice Chan

Recently, Chinese Canadian Artist Genice Chan did a Reddit AMA interview where she talks about her decent track record of credentials such as working for the Canadian Animation company Giant Ant, Sharing various pieces of art on her Twitter along with her collaborative involvement with Studio Trigger in regards to their most recent Netflix Anime Series, BNA (Brand New Animal).

On what inspired her to become an illustrator.

Since I was young I’ve always been very interested in creating things, I’d always been known as the “art kid,” and my family and friends were always very supportive and encouraging of the things I made! So when I got old enough to start thinking about my career, something in the creative field felt like a natural choice.

Looking back though I’d say Robert Kondo and Dice Tsutsumi’s visual development work on Monster University were especially impactful to me. There was this one time my dad brought me to a book store to look at art books, and I came across a bunch of Pixar ones. When I saw their paintings it resonated with me and I got this deep feeling of “Ah, this is the kind of work I would like to make.”

After I got that book I made a note of the position that they were credited for (I think it was something like “Visual Development Artist”?) and started researching it, and the things I found from that really set a foundation for the path I’ve taken.

On tips for beginner artists.

Focus on developing your fundamental skills (to me, those are: anatomy, color, lighting, perspective, and composition)

Find something you can be passionate about, or have a lot of interest in, and use that as motivation to draw a lot (when I was a beginner artist, this was K-pop and K-pop fanart)

Find a community and make friends! This can be online, at work, at school, through a class, or a lot of other things- I just think having support and accountability is very important for anyone’s growth.


On how she got into Giant Ant in 2018.

It went a little bit like this! I was in school and hadn’t really decided what studio or position I wanted to pursue yet, so for some time I decided that I would just wait and see what offers I would get when I graduated In one of my classes, there was an assignment where we needed to research studios in Vancouver and write about a few that we were interested in The instructor, Hilary Moses, was kind enough to already have a whole excel sheet with a bunch of Vancouver-based studios and their sites/contacts on it I came across Giant Ant through this- their work resonated with me right away so I decided to look more into that studio, and the more I saw about the studio the more I wanted to work there As I was creeping, I realized that one of our Art Directors, Rafael Mayani, was already following me on Twitter! So I followed back and DM’d him, expressing that I was interested in working at Giant Ant and asked for his thoughts on my portfolio We went back and forth a little and eventually set up an internship that I would start when I graduated and returned from a vacation After about 3 months of interning I got promoted into a more permanent position and I’ve been working there since.


On how artists can improve on character creation and creativity.

Nothing exists in a vacuum, and everything is a combination of something (here’s a cool video series on this topic!), so to me, creativity is less the creation of ideas from nothing, and more about combining and evolving existing ideas in an interesting way, which leads us to two things you can consider:

What ideas do you have at your disposal? It helps to pay attention to what you’re pulling influence/inspiration from, and also to actively look beyond what you’re used to. You are what you eat! Or in this case, your ideas are directly influenced by the ideas you consume.

What are some ways you can combine and evolve them? You can also think about how many things you are combining, and take notes from the way other people evolve ideas. And again, just like exercising your physical muscles, the more you exercise your creative muscles the stronger they will be.


On how to deal with maintaining motivation/battling burnout.

Honestly, I struggle with this as well haha. My own problem is that even when I’m burnt out I’m highly functional, so I have a hard time recognizing when I need a break. A couple of things that I think are helpful though: Reflect on how you’re feeling often, try to catch symptoms of burnout early, and address them. For example, if you’re feeling really drained and tired all the time it might help to rearrange your routine so that you have more time to rest and recharge. Schedule things into your life that are outside of art! For me, this was stuff like volunteering/participating in youth groups, but this can also be fitness, or cooking, learning a language, or just some kind of extracurricular class or hobby. I think there’s a lot to gain from having a life outside of art, In my opinion, it’s necessary to just slack off sometimes; let yourself have time for it, and do it unapologetically (but also… please be responsible about it lol)


On dealing with the stress of working on concept art as a profession and working with major studios like Trigger.

I think I’ve developed enough confidence and experience with what I do, so the work itself is rarely stressful for me haha. I think sometimes things get stressful when a client or project is very demanding and gives excessive amounts of feedback, or sets tight deadlines, but Giant Ant and Trigger have both been pretty good to me in those aspects. With BNA though I definitely felt a lot of imposter syndrome when I began working on it, I guess that’s a different kind of stress haha.


On the challenges of drawing anthropomorphic animal characters, and favorite character design within BNA.

I found it more fun than difficult! Animals have really interesting shapes and coming up with ways to personify them was a fun challenge. I think having some understanding of anatomy is very helpful. It’s hard to pick one!! I like a lot of the background characters, actually.
There’s a killer whale dad and his daughter that appears a couple of times, I’m pretty fond of them.

On Anime from Studio Trigger, she’s watched outside of BNA.

At this point, I’ve watched Little Witch Academia, Kill La Kill, Promare, and Space Patrol Luluco! There are things I like about each of them, but I’d say I’m particularly fond of Promare because I’ve got a lot of fun memories of watching it in theatres with friends.

On the stress of working on the show itself with too much work.

Haha, there were a few points! The whole time I worked on BNA, I was also working my 9-6 position at Giant Ant. On their own, I think each position’s workload was manageable, but there were many times I had to get up at 7:30 am for work after staying up till like 3 am doing concepts or something lol I would say that the work itself was never super stressful and the people I’ve worked with so far have all been very good to me, but sleep deprivation does kinda suck lmao



On the defining moment of her art career thus far and favorite thing about getting to work with Trigger.

Hmm, I’m not sure if it’s defining exactly, but a really memorable moment for me was when the first key visual was tweeted on Trigger’s official Twitter page. I was out having dinner with some friends and the whole time I kept refreshing my feed, waiting for the moment I would be allowed to announce my involvement in it. I yelled when the tweet was finally up haha

Hmm, there’s a lot of things- I think having a chance to be heavily involved in the development of a story was very special to me! Seeing the work I contribute pass through the hands of people I admire was also super cool. And the cult following that Trigger shows have is fun to watch. haha