Robert Kondo was born and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles. As a child, he learned art from his mother, a trained fashion designer, which led him to study illustration at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. For twelve years, he worked at Pixar Animation Studios as an art director on films like Ratatouille , Toy Story 3 , and Monsters University .

Originally from Japan, Daisuke "Dice" Tsutsumi is a graduate of the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Dice has worked as an artist at Blue Sky Studios on Ice Age , Robots , and Horton Hears a Who! and as an art director at Pixar on Toy Story 3 and Monsters University . Along the way, Dice spearheaded charity projects like the Totoro Forest Project and Sketchtravel.

Together, Kondo and Tstutsumi directed the 2015 Oscar-nominated short The Dam Keeper and then founded their own studio, Tonko House, in Berkeley, California.