Hyung Tae Kim in person

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON ANICOMBO.COM BLOG 2008/11/25

left to right: Chiu, Hai (me), Delly, Danny, Fan, Jason, Donald, Joe, Hyung-Tae Kim (B&S Art Director), Aaron (GW2 Character Art Lead), Xia, Daniel (GW2 Art Director)

I generally don't get excited about meeting anyone, but on Thursday, we got a chance to meet one of my favorite character designers, Hyung-Tae Kim. For those who don't know who he is, I credit him for helping popularize a CG painted look on anime styled game characters, and introducing a unique design sense that's often emulated these days.

Hyung-Tae Kim is the Art Director for the upcoming NCSoft game, Blade & Soul, which also happens to be one of the best looking games I've seen recently. He recently visited our ArenaNet office and the artists here familiar with his work were eager to meet him. He seemed like a nice guy and was cool about signing the artbooks we had of his work.

I'm definitely looking forward to Blade & Soul. I don't know how much appeal it will have in the mass market, but it has so much style that nothing else out there has right now. If you're a fan of Hyung-Tae Kim's work then definitely check this game out.