Did You Know That A Malaysian Is Part Of The Animation Team For Disney Pixar’s Elemental? Meet The Talented Animator Kim Leow
Malaysian Pixar artist, Kim Leow shows what being a Malaysian means to her by imagining a Malaysian version of Element City.
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It’s every little kid’s dream to work in an animation company like Disney and Pixar, isn’t it? Imagine, not only can you immerse yourself with interesting stories, but you get to create iconic characters and bring them to life too! Sounds like a dream come true for some, doesn’t it?
Well turns out, a Malaysian woman gets to live that dream and bring so many inspiring characters to life!
She’s responsible for animated films such as Elemental, Hotel Transylvania 4, Wish Dragon, The LEGO Movie 2 and many more!
Introducing the superbly talented animator, Kim Leow. Let’s get to know one of our pride and joy in the animation industry.
(Credit: @kimanimator / Instagram)
Kim Leow is a character animator born in Malaysia and is now based in Vancouver, Canada.
In 2006, she moved to Canada to attend a top animation school called Sheridan College, where she honed her animation skills before joining the creative industry.
Currently working as an animator at Pixar Animation Studio since last year, she has been involved in lots of Pixar movies and series such as the new movie about the four elements living in one world called Elemental, a mini-series of Cars called Cars On The Road, the upcoming short series about a softball team called Win Or Lose and the upcoming movie about humans and aliens, Elio.
In an exclusive interview with Disney Studios Malaysia, Kim Leow showed what being a Malaysian means to her by imagining a Malaysian version of Element City.
“I do relate to the movie quite a bit. I myself am an immigrant. I immigrated from Malaysia to Canada. Yea, it’s really touching, the story,” she said in explaining why she wanted to work on the Elemental movie.
During her creative imaginative sketches, she answered some questions about her home country and said she misses the food here too, especially Laksa and Pork Noodle Soup.
(Credit: @kimanimator / Instagram)
She drew four animations of what she imagined Malaysian characters in the Elemental film would be like during the interview.
With four elements, she imagined Earth would be a durian seller enthusiastically promoting his D24s, Water would be an uncle selling Tofu Fa near a busy street, Wind would be a mamak worker pulling a long teh tarik and flipping his fluffy roti canai in the air and lastly, Fire would be the nostalgic Roti Man zooming around kampungs on his heavily loaded motorcycle toot-ing loudly and selling his snacks.
(Credit: @disneystudiousmy / Instagram)
“I miss my family and I’m missing out on my nephews growing up. I do miss the little things, you know, like just the rain. I miss the thunderstorms. It’s just so beautiful,” added her.
Well, it seems like we’ve been taking our rain and thunderstorm all year round for granted, isn’t it?
At the end of the interview, she gave an inspiring message to struggling Malaysians who want to follow in her footsteps.
If you are interested enough in what you’re doing, don’t give up and just keep doing what you believe. I don’t think I ever stopped trying. Trust your own instincts.
Kim Leow, Malaysian Pixar Animator
Some of her works
Here are some of the movies, short films and series that she has worked on over the years with various animation companies.
- Elio (Pixar Animation Studio)
- Win Or Lose (Pixar Animation Studio)
- Elemental (Pixar Animation Studio)
- Cars On The Road (Pixar Animation Studio)
- Hotel Transylvania 4 (Sony Pictures Imageworks)
- Spirit Untamed (Jellyfish Pictures)
- Over The Moon (Sony Pictures Imageworks)
- Addams Family (Cinesite)
- Wish Dragon (Agora Studio)
- The LEGO Movie 2 (Animal Logic)
- NextGen (Tangent Animation)
- The Nut Job 2 (ToonBox Entertainment)
She did some awesome jobs, didn’t she? Let’s hope she’ll get involved in many more big films and even make her very own big-shot animation one day. To big dreams and big hopes. Malaysia Boleh!
If you wanna know more about her work and animations, follow her on Instagram and Twitter.
READ MORE: ‘Cars’ Franchise Has A Mini-Series Coming To Disney+ Hotstar This 8 September!
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