Anya Ng-Chee always knew she loved art and video games. But she never imagined the two could form the foundation of a real career. That changed when she discovered Game Art at Centennial College, a two-year, hands-on program, focused on getting students ready for the game industry, and making essential career connections. One connection to game art jobs was directing her to the Ubisoft Next competition, which sees students and recent graduates showing their 3D artist skills, competing to earn an internship at Ubisoft Toronto. With determination and drive, the newly-graduated Anya would ultimately come in first place in the Ubisoft Next 2025 3D Art category, landing that internship. Here’s how she got here, how she won, and her advice for future competitors.
Combining two Passions into a Career
"From a young age, I always loved playing video games, on console and on PC," Anya says. "It was all I did other than art, which was my other passion. I knew I wanted to pursue art, but I didn't know that I could have a career in art, because I was always told, you know, 'starving artist.'"
"I went to university for something else," she continues, "but I didn’t like it. Eventually, I was scrolling through different pathways for college education, and when I saw Centennial’s Game Art program pop up on the screen, I thought, that's something that I've never thought of that incorporates two things that I'm really interested in."
"I noticed that it was a short but condensed program, which really appealed to me," she says about her decision to join the program. "I didn't really want to do a full four-year bachelor's, because I’ve found that I don't really thrive in long-term school environments, so finding that it was short-term was really appealing to me."
"I also looked at the different courses that I was going to be taking in it," she says, "and they were really informative about the different facets of making games on the art side, which was really cool, because then I could decide what I would specialize in later on, when I found out what I'm good at.”
Over the program’s two years, Anya would find plenty of opportunities for hands-on experience creating art and assets for games.
"We had labs where the professor would show us how to do things," she says, "and we would follow along and ask questions at every step. It was very interactive, and I liked the smaller class sizes, because that meant that the professor could take time to explain things to us again, or answer all of our individual questions and give us feedback. And on top of that, we also had this collaboration for our final term, where we made games with University of Toronto students who are in programming." These opportunities for hands-on learning would become critical when it was time to enter the game art competition.
Ubisoft Next
Well before Anya graduated, her professors had already told her about the Ubisoft Next competition. In fact, she’d initially planned to enter before finishing her program.
"Pretty early on in our learning, they mentioned previous students who were finalists or winners," she says. "Last year, I was going to try to take part, and I got to a blocking-out phase of everything, before I realized that it was just too much to deal with. I was in a condensed program, so I had eight courses going on at once, plus the Ubisoft next thing. So, I decided I would take what I learned, and I would be determined to do it next year."
"I thought it might be a really good opportunity to get a head start in the field," she says about her motivation for taking part in the Ubisoft Next event. "If I did win, an internship with a triple-A game studio would be an insane first job experience straight out of the womb of school."
Building the Room
There are multiple categories you can compete in during Ubisoft Next, and Anya opted to enter the 3D Art competition. 2025’s Ubisoft Next 3D Art prompt saw participants being asked to create a full 3D environment of a convenience store post-disaster, with an emphasis on visual storytelling, attention to detail, creativity, and the creation of high-quality assets. Anya’s winning entry depicts a store that is coming to pieces, but more eerily, contains a cluster of glowing alien eggs, suspended in the air by organic threads.
"The first thing that I did was venture out into Toronto," Anya says, about how she came up with her submission concept, "to go to different streets, different convenience stores, take reference photos, look at the layouts, and basically get a feel for what kind of atmosphere a convenience store that's family-run would give."
"The theme of it was kind of like you're being watched," she says. "I knew that I wanted to do something really creepy with that. Maybe a little bit gory, but not too crazy, because I didn't know if that would disqualify me. I really like playing with complimentary colours, so that's part of why I've got that orange glow in the middle, with the blue fog everywhere else. I also really wanted my environment to have an aspect of visual storytelling where you could tell exactly what's going on just by looking at it, and looking at the different things in the scene." And as for how her schooling helped her?
"I learned a lot throughout all of the different courses that I took," she says. "The Digital Painting courses helped with knowing composition, being able to draw out what I wanted the final render to look like, what colours I want to be there, what contrast I'm using to pull the viewer's eye to where I want them to look. Other courses helped me to achieve that vision in a 3D space, like the 3D Modeling and Environment Courses, and the final project."
Winning, and What Comes Next
"It was surreal at every step of the way," Anya says, "from receiving the e-mail of being in the top five, then in the top three, coming to the award ceremony, and then finally being called up on stage. I still don't know if I fully believe it's going on. But I also felt really happy and proud that I made it that far. It gives hope for the future."
"I hope that I'll be able to be offered a permanent position at Ubisoft," she says. "It would be really cool to move up the ladder there, but whatever happens, I know that I'd like to spend my career in games. Eventually, maybe in 10 years or more, I’d like to make my own game. I've got some ideas that I would definitely like to see made into a game. And hopefully I can go back to school, learn some programming, and be able to make it myself."
A Strategy Guide for Success
"My main advice, at least for this competition in particular, is don't believe you've lost before you've finished," Anya says to any other Game Art students, "because that was a big thing for me. Every day that I was working on it, I was like, there's no way I'm going to win, I'm doing all of this for no reason. And that's only destructive. There's no way that you can move forward and do your best when you've got that cycling through your head. So really, do things just because you're going to be able to finish them, look back, and think, 'I did that, and I'm proud of myself, even if it's not perfect.'"
"Another big thing is, it's really cheesy, but it’s to not give up," she says. "Always be learning. Stay hungry. And always be willing to be wrong sometimes. You're going to be wrong, and it's better to accept that with grace. If you believe you can never make a mistake, you won’t grow."
By: Anthony Geremia