Meet Jay Kim: Character Designer & Visual Development Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Jay Kim and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Jay, we’d love to start by asking you about lessons learned. Is there a lesson you can share with us?
The most important is ‘Always grab the opportunities when you get them.’ In life, opportunities often come from unexpected places and times. Whenever it happens, we used to debate whether to accept the offer or not. No matter what the result is going to be, I think it is important to give it a shot. There will be some hardships for sure, and you may eventually fail. However, the experiences that you can get from failure are very invaluable. They will make you build your own solution to be better at the next opportunities, and as a result, you can be successful.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I’ve loved drawing and painting since I was a little kid. When I was in middle school, I used to draw without sleeping until late at night, and often got in trouble for falling asleep during class at school. And although I’ve been drawing from an early age and was also able to expose myself to what I wanted to pursue as a career, the path wasn’t always easy. To earn recognition as an artist, I constantly pushed myself and set higher and higher expectations for my goals. Going through these challenges, I’ve learnt that there will be days I will be dissatisfied with my work, but also learned that its important to be forgiving as well. I have eventually realized that as long as I continue to make some progress despite the outcome of the work, I am still learning and improving, and this has allowed me to reach where I am today.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I am a big fan of milk tea and coffee. I have tried most of the boba and coffee shops in Old Pasadena. People who have been in Old Pasadena say Jin Tea in West Green Street is the best place, but the fact is that Jin Tea’s teas are too expensive. My favorite boba place in Old Pasadena is Prolece Tea. Their hazelnut cream milk is the best milk tea drink that I ever had. If you like the creamy taste, I recommend you try the drink. For coffee, there are two places that I can recommend: Urth Caffe in East Colorado Blvd and Copa Vida in South Raymond Ave. Two places are very good to chill when I need to refresh myself, so I would bring my friends to these places. I think that the best place to hang out with friends is – of course – DisneyLand and California Adventure. They have a bunch of rides and shows to enjoy and I recently heard the Avengers Campus opened in California Adventure too. There is also a beautiful garden in San Marino called the Huntington Library. There are different themes of the garden that people can walk in. If the weather is too hot, people can choose to walk around the Art Museums in the garden. I think those are the best places to hang out with friends or family.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I can name two teachers from the ArtCenter College of Design who have influenced me greatly. The first would be Noah Klocek, my Visual Development teacher, and from him I was able to build confidence in my abilities because he has encouraged me to be the best version of myself as an artist and has supported the direction of style I wanted to pursue for my career. Another teacher would be Adam Dix, my character design teacher. He is one of the best character designers that I know of and I am currently building a portfolio based off his advice and guidance. I can say that they have been very influential towards my education at ArtCenter and I owe a lot back to them!

Website: https://jaykimdy.com/

Instagram: @jaykimdy