Kim began her studies as a fine arts student at the Sun Hwa Arts Schools and the Ehwa Womans University in Seoul, South Korea, and later moved on to the California Institute of the Arts to learn character animation. After receiving specialty training in traditional and digital painting and drawing styles, Nickelodeon Animation Studios employed her as a color supervisor, background painter, and color stylist on Avatar from 2005 to 2007. In 2008, she began working for Warner Bros. Animation Studios in Burbank, California, as a background painter and color stylist.