KPop Demon Hunters was the smash hit animated Netflix sensation of 2025. It was nominated for a ton of awards, including Oscars, racked up hundreds of millions of views, and its songs were massively popular as well. One of the major forces behind the film was production designer Mingjue Helen Chen.
The film’s unique visual style, character designs, and gorgeous animation are part of why it’s become such a sensation. Chen has been a longtime Wacom user, and we wanted to check in with her about her tech setup and see what she thought about some of our newest products! We’ll be publishing a series of videos over on our Instagram and other social media accounts that get into her process and her thoughts about products. But we also wanted to talk with her about her background and career: that interview is below! Note: the following interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Tell us a bit about your background. What led you to a career in visual development and production design?
I’ve always wanted to be an artist, though what kind I wasn’t sure. I went to art school for primarily illustration and dabbled in fine art as well, and it wasn’t until my third or so year did I seriously consider focusing on a career in animation and not editorial or book illustration. What ultimately drew me into visual development and specifically animation is the storytelling aspect of the medium, the intersection of cinematic language and art challenged me in ways that I still find joy in today. Animation is a collaborative medium, and hundreds of people are working together to solve visual problems to communicate story to the audiences, and I’ve always loved that aspect of the job, rather than working alone on something singular, I really enjoy being part of a larger process.
One of the best introductions to the medium for me was my first freelance job in animation, working on Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie. It was a short gig, but was an absolute crash course on the animation. It is still the smallest art team I have ever been a part of, but what that meant was that I was able to touch a little bit of everything. The last two months I was tasked with doing story beat moments of the whole movie, which would then be put into book form for the team that would be handling the stop motion production in London. That holistic approach to visual development, imagining what would be final shots in the film under the guidance of my Production Designer Rick Heinrichs, was the ultimate master class that made me fall in love with the medium, the process, that whole thing.
Do you remember your first Wacom tablet?
The first ever Wacom tablet I got was the Intuos 2. I remember doing fanart on our home computer on Photoshop 5 as a teen, and if you’re of a certain time, you know a lot of that was also happening on oekaki boards across the web. To be honest, I’m a creature of habit, so from my high school years in 2001 to when I started at Walt Disney Animation Studios in 2011/2012, the Intuos 2 was my go-to. I remember getting a Wacom Cintiq pen display at my workstation at Disney, and instead I just used it as a monitor, and requested an intuos!
I was lucky to enter art school already being familiar with the tools, and by the time I got there it was a completely normal part of my workflow and the further education I received with other media like oils or charcoal served to help hone and define how I approached my digital work. Nowadays I do use a Cintiq at work and the Wacom Movink at home, and my general workflow of tablet + Photoshop hasn’t changed in 20 years.
Where do you find your creative energy and inspiration today?
I think the best thing I can do for myself outside of the normal advice of practicing craft, etc. is to be curious. Travel, read, watch movies, or just talk to your friends… it’s about being open minded to learn. Every movie I’ve worked on is so varied, I’m constantly pulling from research or my own experiences to visually design things that will connect to an audience that I may never personally talk to. I love going down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, or binging a new show from start to finish and dissecting it with my husband about what worked or didn’t work about the show, and in the end it helps me define my own tastes and provides clarity for me about what is important to me as an artist.
What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice I’ve ever received about animation specifically is to treat it like the medium it is. Animation and film have to be experienced over time – it is not a single image. It’s linking up shots, making sure continuity is preserved, setting up a 3D stage, not just a 2D one for characters to act in. Some rules you learn in art school, like the rule of thirds or golden ratio, don’t apply equally like they do in another medium. Symmetry and flatness in illustration could be seen as boring, but in Wes Anderson’s hands it feels like design!
About the artist
Mingjue Helen Chen is a visual development artist and production designer currently based in Los Angeles. She graduated from Academy of Art University in 2010 and has been working in the animation industry since, with clients like Walt Disney Animation Studios, Warner Brothers studios, Paramount Animation, Netflix Animation, and Sony Pictures Animation. Notable projects include Frankenweenie, Wreck-It Ralph, Big Hero 6, Wish Dragon, Raya and the Last Dragon, and most recently she served as Production Designer for Sony Pictures Animation’s K-Pop Demon Hunters.
