Native name 최상현 (崔相賢) Nationality South Korean | Full Name Choi, Sang-Hyun Website sakiroo.com | |
 | ||
Born July 29, 1980 (age 36) ( 1980-07-29 ) Bucheon, South Korea Known for Illustrator, character designer | ||
New styles to a new stage sakiroo choi tedxyouth kmla
Sakiroo (Korean: 사키루), born Choi Sang-hyun (Hangul: 최상현; Hanja: 崔相賢), is a South Korean illustrator and character designer. The subjects for his work are varied and include caricatures of sports figures. He has been involved in exhibits and projects (see below), including those in South Korea, France, England, United Arab Emirates, China, Singapore, United States, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela. He lives and works in Bucheon, just outside Seoul.
Contents
Life
Sakiroo received no formal education as an artist. He said that due to not having a lot of childhood toys, he drew faces of his favorite characters on paper and fashioned them into an origami type of story to play with. He began earning money for his drawings when he was twenty. His first jobs were "special dot mini character" designs for the internet communities for Neowiz "SayClub" and "Avatar" in 2000, and for SK Communications and Cyworld "Mini-rooms" during 2003-2007. In 2005, he posed as an "artist" model for clothing brand MLB Korea, and along with his artwork, in an ad for KT&G.
For a book cover project in Singapore, artists were asked to choose a book that had been influential to them. He chose Stephen R. Covey's "Principle-Centered Leadership," which he said played an important part in determining his life’s path. "Despite having no formal training in art, he left a nine-year career in the corporate sector to realise his dream of becoming an artist."
"Sakiroo" is a name that he made up from syllables and sounds that he likes "Sa" "ki" "roo," wanting to distinguish his choice to become an independent artist.
Style and works
His work has been described as "a multitude of illustrations and cartoons full of color and extravagance," "inspired by cartoons and manga," influenced by "Asian themes," and combining "hand-drawn illustrations with digital coloring — using his own color theory."
In an interview with KOCCA he said he mainly works on paper, which allows him to sketch in coffee shops in Seoul, without computer graphics.
Others' works that have influenced him are Yusuke Murata's Eyeshield 21,Akira Toriyama's illustrations for Dragon Ball and Toei Animation's sequel Dragon Ball Z.
His work, though varied, sticks closely to popular culture themes, often making fun of them. In 2011, his "Yellow Lemon" characters, with "oblong heads, menacing grins, beady eyes and dental work from the '90's" populated a "school" with uniformed elite characters, including Batman, Superman, Ronald McDonald, Homer Simpson and Michael Jackson. After he used the characters again to "pick on" famous fashion brands, Hugo Boss, Ermenegildo Zegna, Burberry, Lacoste and The North Face; Trendhunter.com said "Yellow Lemon" was becoming a cultural staple itself.
In 2013, both Mass Appeal and Flavorwire, that document urban and cultural trends, noted his caricature work with Colombian artist Pol (Jean Paul Egred), "some of music’s best collabs", among those, MJ and Eddie Van Halen, Run–D.M.C. and Aerosmith, enhanced with beaks, braces and severed limbs. He also joined Pol in 2012, with other South Korean and Colombian artists, when they met in Miami to show an interpretation of each other's pop icons.
He has illustrated The Big Bang Theory for Warner Bros. Television, Valderrama for Major League Soccer Insider, and the Striding Man for Johnnie Walker, among other works.