Kim Hyung-Tae has become the most well known Korean anime artist, defining the Korean style of anime (as opposed to Japanese styles) that has influenced artists worldwide and expanded the anime style as a whole. As one of the first artists who I owned an art book by and knew by name, I feature Kim Hyung-Tae’s art work again here on Anime Clay as one of the artists I know best and admire most.
Kim Hyung-Tae’s main work is in character design, designing the characters of the Magna Carta series and the upcoming MMORPG Blade & Soul (which I would highly recommend checking out if you like Kim Hyung-Tae’s aesthetic, because it is an entire world of it with a lot of customization). His characters have a truly unique feel to them, typically having an incredible amount of detail and complexity. There is a quality to the materials and forms of his designs that feel thick and heavy to me which I can best describe as “clay-like”. This clay-like quality is perhaps most obvious in the hair of his characters, which are rich in form and smooth with a heavy liquidity.
The other quintessential aspect of Kim Hyung-Tae’s art is his extremely stylized and exaggerated anatomy. I have heard a lot of people complain about and attack the anatomy of Kim Hyung-Tae, and every time I am confused. People seem to act as if Kim Hyung-Tae is trying to be realistic, and judge his art based on how inaccurate it is to realistic anatomy. I do not understand how anyone could think that Kim Hyung-Tae was ever trying to be accurate. Furthermore, I do not understand why anyone demands realistic anatomy from any artist of the anime style — a defining part of anime is to stylize and exaggerate anatomy. Even outside of anime, artists have been distorting the human body for centuries, in sexual and non-sexual ways, at times much further than Kim Hyung-Tae. With those contradictory critics aside, I admire Kim Hyung-Tae for his extreme twist on anatomy and the balance that he has found between expressive forms and the human body with the anime style.
- Official Site (under construction)
- Blade and Soul official site (Korean)
- An interview with Kim Hyung-Tae
- Apple Comics (Korean art book website where a few of Kim Hyung-Tae’s books can be found)
- You can also find many of Kim Hyung-Tae’s art books at Amazon.com
- Original Anime Clay Post
Kim Hyung-Tae has become the most well known Korean anime artist, defining the Korean style of anime (as opposed to Japanese styles) that has influenced artists worldwide and expanded the anime style as a whole. As one of the first artists who I owned an art book by and knew by name, I feature Kim Hyung-Tae’s art work again here on Anime Clay as one of the artists I know best and admire most.
Kim Hyung-Tae’s main work is in character design, designing the characters of the Magna Carta series and the upcoming MMORPG Blade & Soul (which I would highly recommend checking out if you like Kim Hyung-Tae’s aesthetic, because it is an entire world of it with a lot of customization). His characters have a truly unique feel to them, typically having an incredible amount of detail and complexity. There is a quality to the materials and forms of his designs that feel thick and heavy to me which I can best describe as “clay-like”. This clay-like quality is perhaps most obvious in the hair of his characters, which are rich in form and smooth with a heavy liquidity.
The other quintessential aspect of Kim Hyung-Tae’s art is his extremely stylized and exaggerated anatomy. I have heard a lot of people complain about and attack the anatomy of Kim Hyung-Tae, and every time I am confused. People seem to act as if Kim Hyung-Tae is trying to be realistic, and judge his art based on how inaccurate it is to realistic anatomy. I do not understand how anyone could think that Kim Hyung-Tae was ever trying to be accurate. Furthermore, I do not understand why anyone demands realistic anatomy from any artist of the anime style — a defining part of anime is to stylize and exaggerate anatomy. Even outside of anime, artists have been distorting the human body for centuries, in sexual and non-sexual ways, at times much further than Kim Hyung-Tae. With those contradictory critics aside, I admire Kim Hyung-Tae for his extreme twist on anatomy and the balance that he has found between expressive forms and the human body with the anime style.
- Official Site (under construction)
- Blade and Soul official site (Korean)
- An interview with Kim Hyung-Tae
- Apple Comics (Korean art book website where a few of Kim Hyung-Tae’s books can be found)
- You can also find many of Kim Hyung-Tae’s art books at Amazon.com
- Original Anime Clay Post
Serenade is yet another Korean anime artist I have come to deeply admire. The painterly detail of all her textures is beautifully done, and on top of that, she knows how to make her purple-pink-blue color palette glow with a spectacular moonlit aura.
I am particularly amazed and somewhat confused by the versatility she has between cute and mature (for anime standards). Most of her work on Pixiv, and shown here, has a cuteness to it that is typical for anime. However, on her personal site, you will see that she is fully capable of a more mature look with more realistic facial anatomy (an example is the 5th image here, with the woman in the kimono). I have found a few artists who are capable of both the cute and mature/more realistic styles of anime, but usually they are more well versed in one style over the other — this is not the case for serenade. Serenade is somehow quite good at both styles, and I like both of them just about equally. It is for this reason that I consider her to really understand anime art, being capable of two very different styles of it. Though, strangely she doesn’t have many finished pieces of the mature style, which is why you don’t see any here or much of it on their Pixiv.
For serenade’s Pixiv: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=556801
And for her site: http://sinohi.egloos.com/
To start, here is one of my most favorite Korean anime artists — KKUEM! Her work is amazingly clean and professional, and still has a very distinct look to it. Personally, I love the faces, detail on the clothing and the thick feeling of the textures which I so often love in Korean styles.
Here is KKUEM’s Pixiv: http://www.pixiv.net/member.php?id=45438
And here is their site: http://kkkooo.wo.to/
My gateway artist into Korean anime art, Kim Hyung -Tae. He broke all the rules, on anatomy, outfits, weapons, footwear and character design in general. And he did it successfully, influencing character designers world wide, and letting the world know what Korean style is.
Along with the intricately detailed outfits of his characters, Kim Hyung-Tae uses a thick style of shading to render his characters in what I can best describe as “clay-like”.
His work can be found in various art books — such as the Oxide series, and Apple (which he did the cover art for, shown here in the 2nd image). He also did the character design for the PS2 game series Magna Carta and the upcoming MMORPG Blade and Soul.
Kim Hyung-Tae’s official site is still under construction, but will be located here: http://studiosis.com/jam/
For the Magna Carta official site: http://www.atlus.com/magna_carta/
For the Blade and Soul official site (Korean): http://bns.plaync.co.kr/
For Apple Comic’s site (a Korean art website): http://www.applecomics.co.kr/
And for an interview with the artist: http://www.guupress.com/magazine/interviews/htk/1.asp
