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Shiyoon Kim (Template:Ko-hhrm) is a Korean-American character designer, concept artist for Walt Disney Animation Studios and chief designing officer for Movie Land Animation Studios & Movie Land Digital Production Services. He is most prominently known for his work on the major motion features: Tangled (2010), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), Big Hero 6 (2014), and Zootopia (2016). Kim currently lives in Los Angeles with his wife.

Early life[]

Shiyoon Kim began to draw from the early age of three. Growing up, he consistently practiced drawing, bringing more and more life to each successive doodle that he created. As time progressed onwards, he his artwork improved and he showed a lot of innate talent for it. After seeing his natural proclivity towards drawing, his parents encouraged him to keep on going and even went so far as to move from Massachusetts to California to enroll him in a high school animation program shortly after tenth grade.[1]

The program which Kim entered, was the Rowland R.O.P. Animation Program. The high school's animation program is known for its rigorous creative process, which is similar to the experience of an actual professional animation studio.[2]

Kim credits one of his professors Larry Kurnarsky, with teaching him the importance of a story driven piece. One of the main lessons which Kurnarsky taught Kim, was that everything within a piece of art, or even a collection of art- relates back to the story in one way, shape, or form. Kim even stated that, "Everything he looked at (storyboards, character design, layouts, animation, etc) was in terms of how it is either pushing the story or hindering it." It was the advice of Kurnarsky that prompted Shiyoon Kim to take his first life drawing classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena California. After graduating from his high school, Kim decided he wanted to continue his education at CalArts. It was here that he studied the different components of filmmaking and animation. Kim credits the school with teaching him how to create a film, compelled by an intriguing story narrative. [1]

Career[]

At CalArts, Kim made Leash Boy, and The Fox and the Boy, as his third and fourth year films, respectively. After graduation, Kim worked for Rough Draft Studios on the Futurama DVD box sets. During this time, he also interned at Pixar for Animation, and worked on doing some animation tests with the Ratatouille models, (none of which appeared within the movie). After these jobs he moved on to Disney's Apprentice Program for visual development.[1]

At Disney, Shiyoon Kim has designed characters for films such as: Tangled, Wreck It Ralph, Frozen, and most recently he was the lead character designer on Big Hero 6.

Filmography[]

Kim started off his career at Disney working on the Prep & Landing (2009) films where he is credited as working within the art department. After this he moved on to work on Tangled (2010), as an accredited character designer. He also worked on the animated end credits of the film. Following Tangled, he worked on the 2011 version of Winnie-the-Pooh, in the visual development department. Once Winnie-the-Pooh was taken care of he worked on Minkyu Lee's Academy Award-nominated short film Adam and Dog (2011) as an animator and digital colorist. The success only continued as Tangled grew to be so popular, that following the movie the demand for a wedding scene was so large that the creative teams once again had to come together to create a short film, Tangled Ever After. Kim was once again in charge of doing the end credits for the short film. Paperman (2012) was the next short film which he worked on once again as a character designer. Following this, in 2013 he worked on Frozen as the designer of the Duke of Weseltown, and on the short film Feast as a character designer.

In 2014, his magnum opus would be the smash-hit film Big Hero 6, where he was enlisted to be the lead character designer on the film. He worked on all of the characters but he had fun with the two main characters, Hiro Hamada and Baymax, especially.

Most recently he has worked as a character designer for the academy award winning film Zootopia (2016), and the short film Inner Workings (2016). He is credited with designing Zootopia characters such as Mayor Lionheart, Assistant Mayor Bellwether, Flash, Gazelle, and Bonnie and Stu Hopps. Kim would later serve as lead character designer on Sony Pictures Animation's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse in 2018[3] and he serve as character designer on Movie Land Animation Studios' The JH Movie Collection Movie 2: The Second Part in 2019.

MLDPS designs[]

In Movie Land Digital Production Services, Shiyoon Kim was credited as character designer, replacing Randy Thom and Monty LaBueno since May 4, 2017 while working as character designer on the film The Crown. Although Shiyoon Kim created the film's visual effects concept artist at Movie Land Digital Production Services, Kim worked hard to incorporate characters into the sequel film, The JH Movie Collection Movie 2: The Second Part.

Big Hero Six designs[]

While working as the lead character designer on the film Big Hero 6, Shiyoon Kim worked hard to incorporate Korean characters into the Disney film for the first time in the studio's history. According to Jin Kim, another animator at Disney Animation Studios, Shiyoon Kim had designed the lead characters of Hiro Hamada and Tadashi Hamada as Korean characters in the original drafts. GoGo Tomago was also originally designed to be Korean as well.

Although Shiyoon Kim originally wanted the three main characters to be Korean, the film called for at least one Japanese character to better conform with the comics. Due to this necessity, Kim had no choice but to drop Hiro and Tadashi Hamada's proposed Korean ethnicities, and give them Japanese names instead. Although the film called for making Hiro and Tadashi Japanese, he was able to succeed in making GoGo Tomago Disney's first Korean character.

Even though Hiro and Tadashi Hamada are portrayed as Japanese characters in the film, his original Korean-based character designs are still prominent within the film. In fact, Tadashi Hamada's character design was influenced by Daniel Henney, his Korean-Irish-American voice actor. GoGo Tomago's design was also influenced by her Korean-American voice actress, Jamie Chung.

Awards[]

Nominated for the 42nd Annual Annie Awards for Character Design in an Animated Production for Big Hero Six (2014).[4]

Quotes[]

"When I'm designing my characters for my short films I try to have a solid understanding of my whole story and the relationship my characters have to it. I will ask myself who are these characters and what role do they play in my story? What is their personality? I'm constantly drawing sketches to explore the character while also thinking about who they are and how they will move and act. It also helps to go and do a lot of research on whatever character or thing you are designing. Through this process I'm trying to stay rough and loose because I know towards the end it will get tighter and tighter. Most of the time I'm just trying to find that drawing with the most appeal and character. A lot of times the difference between an appealing drawing and one that's not as appealing is simply the subtle spacing between proportions.[1]"

"Towards the end, I start tying down my character. I start asking myself what style of animation I am going for in my film? Since I'm probably going to do most of the animation of the characters myself, I will try and find the most economical way of drawing my characters without losing the "character" or appeal? At this point, the perfect situation would be to do experimental animation with my designs.[1]"

"I think the fun part comes with coming up with ideas and characters. The hardest part for me is still learning how to draw well. I don't think there have been any easy parts of designing for me.[1]"

"Growing up I think I always wanted to become an artist just because of the fact I had fun drawing. I wanted to do something that I enjoyed, so I realized being an artist was someone that drew so I decided to want to become that.[1]"

References[]

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 "Shiyoon Kim Interview" Character Design Blogspot, 13 September 2007. Accessed 25 April 2017.
  2. "Animation", Rowland High School, Edlio. Accessed 25 April 2017.
  3. "'Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse' Designer on Creating the Film's Spider-Gwen", Comicbook.com, January 9, 2019. Retrieved on January 17, 2019. (in en) 
  4. "42nd Annual Annie Awards Nominees & Winners", Annie Awards. Accessed 26 June 2017.

External links[]

  • Official website
  • Shiyoon Kim on IMDb Lua error in Module:EditAtWikidata at line 36: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
v - e - d
Part of WarnerMedia (AT&T)
Filmography
Released Stickman: The Movie (2014) • Reggie and the Penguin (2015) • Loppy the Dog (2016) • Birds (2017) • The Street of San Francisco (2017) • The Polar Express (2017) • Eddie (2018) • Major Lazer: The Movie (2018) • Penguinopolis (2018) • Smash of Claws (2018) • The Wampanoag Movie (2018) • The Hi-Tech and Science Fiction Movie (2018) • Doug (2018) • Funimals (2018) • Stuart Little (2018) • Sarcastics (2018) • Animals of Spy (2018) • Light It Up (2019) • Birds 2 (2019) • The Hampster Movie (2019) • Stickman 2: Larry's Adventure (2019) • Sphere (2019) • The Crown (2019) • Charlotte's Web (2019) • Animal Party (2019) • Car Chase (2019) • Ghost in the Shell (2019) • Star Trek (2019) • Loppy the Dog 2: The Second Movie (2019) • GoGo Tomago (2019) • Sarcastics 2 (2019) • The Great Spy Racers (2019) • Chunko (2020) • Ned's Newt (2020) • The Legend of Disguise (2020) • Spanish Empire (2020) • Twister (2020) • The Trumpet of the Swan (2020) • Technoville (2020) • Scrambled Eggs Super! (2020) • The Hunger Games (2020)
Produced with Sony Pictures Animation The Animals in the Attic (2019) • The Secret Life of Animals 2 (2019) • Dimensions (2019) • Shaun and Roger: Roger Breaks the Internet (2019) • Gwen and Dan (2019) • Carmen Sandiego (2019) • Hoverboard (2019) • Chocolate Fever (2019) • Spider-Gwen (2019) • Go (2019) • Everest (2019) • Grossology (2019) • Bunny (2019) • Cool Girls (2020) • Spectrum (2020)
Upcoming Romeo and Juliet (2020) • Las Vegas (2020) • Mr. Magoo (2020) • Spider-Gwen 2 (2020) • Panko the Dragon (2021) • Famous 5 (2021) • Carmen Sandiego 2 (2021) • Voltron (2021) • The Hollow (2021) • The Last Kids on Earth (2021) • Grossology 2 (2021) • Untitled Romeo and Juliet sequel (2022)
Produced with Aardman Animations The JH Movie Collection Movie 2: The Second Part (2019)
Upcoming The JH Movie Collection Movie: The Fate of the Tour (2020) • The JH Movie Collection Movie 4: Lost in Florida (2021)
As Ted-LaPai Productions A Bird's Tale (1994) • The Secret of Ace (1995) • Cycle Throughout the World (1996) • Life of Animals (1996) • Power Up (1997) • One Little Rabbit (1997) • El Fuego (1997) • A Trip to Denmark (1998) • The Secret of Ace 2 (2000) • Yeti (2000) • A Bird's Tale 2 (2000) • Life of Animals 2 (2001) • MagnusLos Altos (2002) • Two Little Rabbits (2002) • Bunnies on the Streets (2003) • The Animals Movie (2004) • Kevin the Lost Dog (2006) • A Trip to Los Angeles (2007) • The Final Chapter (2008)
Upcoming Faster Bike (2020) • Cuphead (2020) • Jin (2020) • Carlos & Ricky: Into the Future (2020) • Reggie and the Penguin 2 (2020) • Shank (2020) • Spy Penguins (2020)
Associated productions Sarcastics (2018)
Direct-to-video films The Hunger Games (2020)
Television series Stickman: The Series (2016-present) • Tom the Hand (2016-present) • All Hail Loppy the Dog (2017-present) • How Penguins Goes to Kansas (2017; television film) • The JH Movie Collection Show (2018-present) • The Christopher the Stickman Show (2020-present)
Franchises Stickman (2014-present) • Loppy the Dog (2016-present) • The JH Movie Collection Movie (2018-present) • Sony's Movie Land Universe (2019-present) • Tom the Hand (season 3; 2016, 2019-present)
People
Directors Ted V. MillerRobert ZemeckisStephen HeneveldMike MitchellDon HallPhil Lord and Christopher MillerChris WilliamsChris MillerJenny HarderBob PersichettiPeter RamseyRodney RothmanTom McGrathWilliam RenschenElla RayDominic FormellaAlejandro MunozMarcos Rivera
Producers Chris MeledandriKristina ReedBonnie ArnoldRoy ConliRoy LeePhil Lord and Christopher MillerJordan KernerDon HahnDarla K. AndersonDan LinJohn LasseterAvi AradAmy PascalWilliam RenschenElla RayDominic FormellaAlejandro MunozMarcos Rivera
Writers Karey KirkpatrickNicholas StollerRodney RothmanPhil Lord and Christopher MillerJordan RobertsJohn DavisPeter LordNick ParkWilliam Renschen
Executives/Associated figures Ted V. MillerMichael LaPaiMonty LaBuenoGeorge MacGuffinChristopher MacGuffinChris Meledandri
Animators and visual/special effects artists Gal GadotJamie ChungBex Taylor-KlausJeffrey KatzenbergRich MooreRoy ConliGary TrousdalePhil Lord and Christopher MillerSteven SpielbergDuncan RouleauSteven T. SeagleSteven YeunJenny HarderHailee SteinfeldShiyoon KimPanat ThamrongsombutsakulJohn KnollCraig HammackSimon J. SmithSamik Roy ChoudhuryErik-Jan de BoerCedric Nicolas-TroyanEmilio Ruiz del Río
Signature voice actors/actress Ben StillerAdam SandlerJim CarreyGal GadotHailee SteinfeldJamie ChungBex Taylor-KlausMichael J. FoxAndy SambergKeegan-Michael KeyRihannaJohn DiMaggioTenzing Norgay TrainorShameik MooreJake Johnson
Signature musicians Henry JackmanJames Newton HowardLorne BalfeMajor LazerAlan MeyersonDaniel Pemberton
Signature character designer Monty LaBuenoRonnie del CarmenJin KimShiyoon Kim
Visual Development & Storyboard Artists Dante EriksenCody CameronAndrew StantonShiyoon KimJin KimGeoff JohnsRonnie del Carmen
Related topics
Related media and projects Birdy AnimationTouchstone Animation StudiosSphere Ball StudiosShank FilmsPanko and Panda Studios
Miscellaneous Warner Bros. films (Unproduced Warner Bros. projectsWAG filmsWarner Bros. animated filmsWarner Bros. Animation franchises and productions)
See also Movie LandMovie Land EntertainmentWarner Bros. PicturesWarner Bros. AnimationWarner Animation GroupAcquisition of Movie Land by Warner Bros.The JH Movie Collection Movie (2018) • Gwen and Dan: Level Two (2020)