Conversations with Genevieve Tsai

Today we’d like to introduce you to Genevieve Tsai.

Hi Genevieve, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Drawing and writing has always been my hobby ever since I was a kid. I was obsessed with cartoons and animated movies and as long as I had a crayon or pencil, I would draw on anything with a margin of space: napkins, my homework, those little blank stationary pads they leave in hotel rooms by the telephone. My brother’s face while he was sleeping. I would steal all the Post-its in the house to make my own flipbooks.

I also played tons of video games growing up, starting with the Commodore 64, then the Atari, Game Boy, Nintendo, Famicom, Sega Genesis, and so on. I especially loved going to the arcade to play fighting games. One of my first memories was seeing the Dragon’s Lair series—especially Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp. I was mesmerized by the beautiful feature animation, the characters, the music… and being a huge fan of Don Bluth’s early films, I recognized the style I loved immediately. When I ran out of quarters, I would watch that attract mode intro loop over and over, hoping someone would come to play it just so I could see what happened next in Dirk’s adventure. I knew at that point I wanted to work in animation. I wanted to write stories, create characters, and make them come to life.

My parents were very supportive and encouraging of my dream to work in animation, and when I was about ten, my dad helped me build an animation lightbox and “lunchbox” setup at home, using only materials we had on hand at the time: a sturdy box that was used to package a kid’s DIY “Decorate Your Own Clock” kit served as the frame, while the inside was lined with reflective duct tape and tin-foil. He fastened a halogen lamp onto a beer can, wired a flip switch to the side of the box, and secured plexiglass at the top. Mounting the family camcorder on a tripod so it was facing straight down to the glass, I would tap pause and record in rapid succession to film each drawn frame.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Despite my childhood dream of wanting to be an animator, I still had no idea about how to find a path to reach that dream. There was very little info on attaining such a niche job during the dawn of the internet in the early 90s, and living in a small town near Sacramento; few people knew anything about the animation industry. Since I loved creative writing, I would research the children’s book market, believing one way to get discovered by animation studios was through writing and illustrating children’s books, so I decided to pursue an English degree at UC Davis.

Soon after graduating with my Bachelor’s Degree, the dot.com boom was upon us, and I saw yet another possible avenue into the animation industry: Flash animation! I did an additional year of schooling to study web design pick up Flash, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and some web programming. In the meantime, I was working part-time as a substitute teacher in a K-6 Elementary school and starting up my business as a freelance illustrator, painting animal murals for local nature centers, designing mascots for the American River near Sacramento, and logos for local businesses.

After getting my Certificate in Web Design & Animation, I went to the Academy of Art in San Francisco to study 2D Animation; however, soon after graduating, news came out that Disney was closing down all of their 2D traditional animation studios and focusing more on 3D. It was sad and distressing news for me at the time, but then I found a home in the games industry as a Character Concept Artist. I began my career in San Francisco at a subsidiary of Activision Games and later Electronic Arts/Maxis, where I worked on various Sims games. Following that, I worked on Sly Cooper 4: Thieves in Time and then went into mobile games at Zynga. While working at Zynga, I was simultaneously growing my Character Design business, doing freelance work for Hearthstone at Blizzard, League of Legends illustrations for Riot Games, character designs for games in development at Intel and Google, and later down the line, I designed character-based merchandise for Valve’s Dota 2 (a game which I was obsessed with at the time).

But after all these years, I still wanted to pursue a career in TV/Film animation, so I left the games industry to focus solely on attaining that goal. I was so fortunate to receive a ton of invaluable portfolio advice and help from my network of friends that I’ve made through work, conventions, social media, online art schools, and mentorship programs.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a Story Artist and Character Designer at Dreamworks Feature Animation. My passions have always been visual storytelling and designing characters with personality, appeal and expression.

Who else deserves credit in your story?
There are so many people in my life that have helped me get to where I am now. Sherrie Sinclair and Oliver Sin were amazing mentors/instructors of mine at the Academy of Art. My friend, Brandon Luyen, introduced me to his Art Director, Scott Werner, at Shaba (Activision), which kickstarted my career in games. My Art Director at EA, Adam Murguia, went to Riot Games which lead to some extremely fun freelance there as well. At Zynga, my best pal, Steph Dere (previously a Story Artist at Pixar), introduced me to Glenn Kim, who was also previously at Pixar as an Art Director. Glenn introduced me to his other Pixar friends, Mark Holmes and Chris Frye (Dreamworks). Mark helped me with honest and invaluable portfolio advice, and through him, I met his animation industry colleagues William Erik Evans, Paul Abadilla, Jake Panian, and Tim Heitz, all of whom kindly offered more solid feedback on my work.

Matthew Maners, who was at Sony on “Hotel Transylvania” at the time, gave me fantastic tips on finding one’s own style. I learned more about color and lighting through a CGMA course taught by the incredible Ty Carter and Ryan Lang and had a wonderful mentorship with Disney Art Director Scott Watanabe through the Motivarti Mentorship program. I had the opportunity to design for “Free Birds” at Reel FX, thanks to the amazing Armand Serrano and Robin Linn. At SDCC, I met the great Tad Stones: creator, Director/Executive Producer (amongst many other talents on his tool belt); I looked up to Tad ever since I was a kid–being a HUGE Disney Afternoon fan, especially of his series, “Darkwing Duck.” Tad was always super kind and supportive of my work, and he offered me character design freelance at Bento Box on a charming Disney Jr. pitch he was developing.

I’m grateful for my friend Pascal Campion’s massive support and advice. He encouraged me to take the leap to move to LA; he was the Art Director on my first in-house animation job at Warner Bros for the Netflix series, “Green Eggs and Ham.” Pascal is a master of visual storytelling–conveying complex emotions and moods through the use of a single image. His cardinal impressionistic style and gorgeous use of colors and lighting make him one of my art heroes—it was such an amazing experience learning from him!

Following “Green Eggs,” I was granted the amazing opportunity to work as a Supervising Character Designer on the “Animaniacs” 2020 reboot. I learned so much about leading a team as opposed to being a solo designer. The job also gave me valuable, hands-on experience with the animation pipeline and the layout and retake stages of TV animation. I made so many strong and lasting friendships on that wonderful crew!

During my time on “Animaniacs” I worked closely with Animation Director Scott O’Brien and we ended up co-directing a short animated pilot together for a development pitch called “Tom & Jerry Time”–a preschool Tom & Jerry show based on my modern redesigns of the classic duo. Simultaneously, I was also approached to redesign a contemporary take on “Tiny Toons Looniversity.” The team pitched my initial lineup of the main cast to Spielberg and the designs became the springboard for the show’s style. After “Animaniacs” wound down, I received a text from my friend—another phenomenal art-hero inspiration of mine—Chris Sanders. We had previously worked together when I illustrated for a novel he co-wrote with his brilliant wife, Jessica Steele-Sanders, “Rescue Sirens: The Search for the Atavist.” Chris brought me on to help with character designs at Dreamworks on his new film, where I also began my journey as a Story Artist. I am learning so much more than I ever have. Words cannot express how grateful I am for Chris believing in my abilities and giving me a chance!

From my childhood love of writing, drawing characters, and playing video games, to working in the very industries I loved as a kid and landing my dream jobs—it’s still unbelievable to me how everything’s come full circle! It’s been such an adventure to which I owe massive thanks to all my dear friends and family for all their support along the way! I couldn’t have done it without them.

Contact Info:

• Website: GenevieveTsai.com
• Instagram: Instagram.com/GenevieveTsai
• Facebook: Facebook.com/GenevieveTsaiArt
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/genevievetsai/
• Twitter: Twitter.com/GenevieveTsai