Fine Arts and Animation

The Department of Fine Arts and Animation serves to help students gain a firm grasp on the fundamentals of visual arts, developing theoretical and practical skills that can be applied to a variety of media, from video games to film. Students are exposed to both traditional techniques in drawing, ceramics, and painting, as well as modern production tools in 3D design and animation. The department’s faculty are experts in a variety of fields and bring professional backgrounds that include work in film and animation, video game development, comics, and more.

Department Faculty

Calvin Tan Eu Jin

Department Chair
Senior Lecturer

Calvin Tan received his bachelor’s degree in art from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in 1999.

Calvin is an avid World War II history buff and has been modeling historical-scale figurines since secondary school. He has created several original pieces for scale model companies and collectors, many of which have won gold awards at international competitions. He has also written many instructional articles relating to painting and sculpting miniature figurines for international modeling magazines, as well as an instructional book under Osprey Publishing.

Calvin began his career as an art instructor in 2001 at Nanyang Polytechnic (NYP) School of Interactive Media and Design. While there, he taught foundational drawing and was solely responsible for the creation of two elective courses — one on polymer clay maquette modeling and another on animal anatomy.

In 2006, Calvin relinquished his full-time role at NYP for an adjunct position to pursue his lifelong passion for modeling scale figurines. He also taught clay sculpting, foundational drawing, and figure drawing at Ngee Ann Polytechnic and conducted several clay sculpting workshops at Lucasfilm Animation – Singapore.

Calvin joined DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore in 2009 as a senior lecturer teaching foundational drawing, human and animal anatomy, and clay maquette modeling.

Chang Yeat Cheng, Dominic

Senior Lecturer

Dominic Chang earned a BS in Construction Management and worked as a civil engineer for three years while saving up to attend animation school at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada.

After receiving his diploma in classical animation, Dominic returned to Singapore to work at Southern Star as a 2D animator and at Scrawl Studios as lead storyboard artist. He would go on to become animation director on the Shelldon CG animated series at Tiny Island Productions and was one of the driving creative forces behind the series Dream Defenders.

Dominic devotes whatever spare time he has to figure drawing, and he has participated in art exhibitions with Group 90 alongside other Singaporean artists.

Dilip Kumar Chaubey

Principal Lecturer

Dilip Chaubey graduated with a BFA in Illustration from Banaras Hindu University in 1991.

He began his career as a freelance comics illustrator with Pawan Comics before joining Raj Comics as a full-time illustrator. Over the course of 13 years at Raj Comics, Dilip rose from an illustrator to an art director and was credited on 300 published titles.

In 2003, he moved on from comic book illustration to specialize in children’s book illustrations, working with prominent companies such as Q2A Solutions, Planman, and Thomson Digital.

Dilip began teaching at DigiPen Institute of Technology Singapore in 2008.

Keh Choon Wee

Lecturer

Choon Wee has worked in the international animation and games industry for over 12 years with experience in directing, creating conceptual designs, animation, storyboarding, 3D modeling, and texturing, as well as creating VFX for games.

His versatility, keen sense of aesthetics, and eye for detail has seen him contribute to numerous animation and games production pipelines over the years. This has included conceptual designs on Weta Production’s Jane and the Dragon children’s TV series; storyboards and direction on a few episodes of Scrawl Studio’s The New Adventures of Nanoboy and Milly, Molly; and work on LucasArts’ titles including Star Wars: The Force Unleashed I and II (modeling, texturing, VFX), Monkey Island 2: Special Edition (VFX, BG artist), The Clone Wars: Jedi Alliance and Republic Heroes (rigger, environment, VFX), and Star Wars: The First Assault (VFX).

After six years with LucasArts Singapore, Choon Wee joined Beach House Pictures in 2013 as the creative lead of the animation and digital department, where he was responsible for its overall art direction, animation, and conceptual designs. He also spearheaded projects for the ZooMoo network and the ZooMoo App.

During his spare time, he continues to draw comics, illustrations, and character designs, and he has self-published his own sketchbooks since 2012.