Hello and thank you for visiting Halcyon Realms. I’m Vong yonghow, a Singaporean visual effects (VFX) artist based in Vancouver BC, Canada.

I  like animation, photography, film and pretty art books.

I’m a VFX Lighting technical director, creating visual effects for feature live-action & animated films. I’ve worked on movies like Rango, The Avengers, Star Trek Into Darkness, KPOP Demon Hunters, 2 Transformers films and 4 Spiderman films, including the Academy Award winning Spiderverse. My demoreel/CV is here;. you can also check out the full list of films I’ve worked on IMDB and Letterboxd.

I lived and worked in Tokyo for six years (2004-2009) after been awarded a Singapore National Arts Council film-making scholarship. During my final year in film school I started working on Akira creator Otomo Katsuhiro’s Freedom at Sunrise Animation Studios. It was an awesome experience.

( image above ) Me with the Oscar award for for Best Animated Film Of 2025 awarded to Kpop Demon Hunters. There’s also a goofier version of me here holding up the same award ( plus the Golden Globe ) for Spider-Man : Into The Spiderverse (2018).

Please take a look around my blog and and if you like what you are seeing or reading you might want to consider subscribing to my rss feed, follow me on twitter or if you need to get in touch with me you can do so through my contact page.

Did I mention that I like pretty art books ? I’ve reviewed about 1000 books ( circa 2024 ) since I started it as a hobby around 2009 – you can browse the whole list here. If you enjoy my reviews, please consider purchasing through my affiliate links, that will earn me a little coffee money at absolutely no additional cost to you. Cheers, and thank you for the support !

Some trivia :

This is a newspaper article by Singapore Straits Times about my work on Freedom Project.

Here is a picture of Sunrise Animation Studio in Ogikubo, where I worked on Freedom Project.

I’m a big fan of Paul Van Dyk ( PVD ), Chicane,  The Thrillseekers and Sir David Attenborough.