Kondo's first dream job was to be a paleontologist, because he drew dinosaurs as a child. On a visit to his brother, he witnessed a show at Old Tucson Studios that demonstrated how a cowboy "showdown" sequence was done. This, along with Jurassic Park, inspired Kondo to study animation.[1]
NST was his first job after graduation. He worked there as a generalist creating concept art, modeling, texturing and rigging, while applying for jobs at film animation studios. His two credits included 1080º Avalanche, which features a Metroid cameo, and Metroid Prime Hunters.
His (now inactive) website featured several concept artwork pieces, of a stylized Samus Aran with tentacles that may represent Phazon, and three depicting Space Pirates, one of which is based on its Metroid Prime appearance, and another that has a Metroid larva on its abdomen. A separate version of the Samus piece, posted to Kondo's Instagram profile, is captioned "#samus meets #venom". Whether this artwork was created for Hunters or another Metroid project, or in Kondo's own time is unclear.
After leaving NST, Kondo worked at Monolith Productions (on Condemned: Criminal Origins, later returning to animate Middle-earth: Shadow of War), Secret Lair (on Arkadian Warriors, WB Games (on Lord of the Rings: War in the North) and Signal Studios (on Toy Soldiers: Cold War). He also lectured at the DigiPen Institute of Technology for two semesters. While teaching, Kondo came to the realization he had not fulfilled his dream of working in film, and joined the online animation school Animation Mentor. It was while he was that he received a job offer from Sony.[1]
Kondo is currently the Lead Animator at Sony Pictures Imageworks, with produced films under his direction including Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Angry Birds 2 and Connected. He is also an Animation Mentor.
