KIM Sang-jin, best known abroad as Jin KIM, initially wanted to enter a college of fine arts but had to settle for an economics major due to his color blindness. After working for a while as a commercial illustrator, he joined Hanho Heung-Up as an animation artist, receiving his first credit in the popular Korean TV show <Dooly the Little Dinosaur> (1987). A couple of years later, KIM found an open position at Kennedy Cartoons, in Canada. There, he would notably work on...More

KIM Sang-jin, best known abroad as Jin KIM, initially wanted to enter a college of fine arts but had to settle for an economics major due to his color blindness. After working for a while as a commercial illustrator, he joined Hanho Heung-Up as an animation artist, receiving his first credit in the popular Korean TV show <Dooly the Little Dinosaur> (1987). A couple of years later, KIM found an open position at Kennedy Cartoons, in Canada. There, he would notably work on <Tiny Toon Adventures> (1990-1991) and the TV animation series <Aladdin> (1994-1995). The company closed not long after, and KIM eventually made history in 1995 by becoming the first Korean to work for Walt Disney Animation Studios. Starting with <Hercules> (1997), KIM contributed to most of the studio’s titles of the late 1990s and 2000s, including <The Emperor’s New Groove> (2000) and <The Princess and the Frog> (2009). With <Bolt> (2008). KIM was given his first opportunity to prove his worth as a character designer, a responsibility he would assume again for later productions and thus heavily influencing the visuals of critically acclaimed and award-winning films <Tangled>, <Frozen> and <Moana>. His biggest contribution remains so far his work as a character design supervisor for <Big Hero 6> (2014), for which he was nominated for the prestigious Annie Award for Character Design in an Animated Feature Production. In 2015, he was one of the six Korean individuals invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, along with BONG Joon-ho, IM Kwon-taek, CHOI Min-sik and SONG Kang-ho. KIM eventually quit Disney Studios in 2016 and moved back to Korea to join the entertainment company Locus Studio, which was producing the Korean CG animation film <Red Shoes>, released in 2019.Less