Japanese Videogame Artists

[justjustin]

I'm starting this thread because I don't know any good resources for finding videogame artists; I'm an absolute beginner in this area. I stumbled upon Katsuya Terada a few days ago and instantly liked it-- especially his Battle K-Road stuff and the Virtua Fighter 2: Ten Stories image.

selectbutton.net/katsuya_terada.html
forums.selectbutton.net/viewtopic.php?t=26927

So, please share some Japanese videogame artists you like. I'd prefer names instead of sperate games. Posting pictures is recommended as long as their not browser-window-expandingly large. If someone wants to post art by Western videogame artists please start a thread.

Most of all, if you know artists with a similar style to Katsuya Terada please share!

[Namakubi]

Believe it or not, I have a few of his art books, and Katsuya Terada used to do artwork for Nintendo Power! Here's one of his Zelda images:



And of course there's the Capcom Street Fighter team. Everyone knows AKIMAN, the original Street Fighter II artist, and Daigo Ikeno of Street Fighter III and IV fame, but my favorite is probably Bengus. His Street Fighter Alpha II watercolor drawings are beautiful.

Here's a great blog entry about Bengus on the Capcom Unity blog:

www.capcom-unity.com/bigmex/blog/2008/11/11/the_bengus_blogs

And there's Shinkiro, formerly of SNK, now a staff artist at Capcom. You'd probably recognize his work most recently on the box cover and publicity images for Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom.

www.the-nextlevel.com/media_wii/tatsunoko_vs_capcom/tatsunoko-vs-capcom-art.jpg

While not Japanese, there's Korean artist Hyung-Tai Kim's work on the Magna Carta series, which seems to divide people. Some people love it, some hate it.



Hope this is a good starter for ya!

[Deleted]

Apr 7, 2010 22:35:21 GMT -5 justjustin said:

I'm starting this thread because I don't know any good resources for finding videogame artists; I'm an absolute beginner in this area. I stumbled upon Katsuya Terada a few days ago and instantly liked it-- especially his Battle K-Road stuff and the Virtua Fighter 2: Ten Stories image.

In response to the Nintendo Power/Terada connection, I was really surprised when I learned about that too...there's a good amount of those illustrations in some of his artbooks, including the cover he did for the Dragon Warrior strategy guide that you got with the game if you subscribed around 1990.

Justin, if you like Terada I'd check out Jake Hunter on DS...doing designs for that series (Saburo Jinguji) was one of his first jobs IIRC.

[justjustin]

Thanks for the posts guys. Great start indeed, Namakubi (ha, great name). Pretty cool you have a few Terada art books. I'll check into Jake Hunter, Joestar. I think it's interesting how his styles really vary. I checked the selectbutton thread a bit ago and someone put up a link to scans of the Katsuya Terada Zenbu (all) book. Interesting to say the least...

[ryochan]

Well, this is what I can think of:

Satoshi Urashihara - Mostly did the designs for Langrisser/Warsong, but I know he did a handful of other games as well

Kousuke Fujishima - Despite also being a manga artist (Ah! My Goddes, You're Under Arrest) he's done multiple games including: Sakura Wars, Tales of Phantasia and several other Tales of games (I don't know a full list, but I think Abyss may have been his)

Haruhiko Mikimoto - Mostly you'll find his designs on covers so far as I know, with games that are limited in character designs, but he may have a few more. Of course, you'll mostly know him for his anime work for things like Macross and I think he did the Salamander OVA as well (or something, I'd have to go through the articles again)

Sadly, those are the only ones I know that aren't extremely popular/well-known, as other artists naturally are. Hope it helps a bit.

[muteKi]

Random fact: Tony Taka did the character designs for the Shining Tears and Shining Wind games.

The anime that was based on the two games did not carry that style over, sadly.

[Atma]

Apr 12, 2010 11:44:05 GMT -5 muteKi said:

Random fact: Tony Taka did the character designs for the Shining Tears and Shining Wind games.

The anime that was based on the two games did not carry that style over, sadly.

This is a crime against humanity.

[kobushi]

Just repeating what's already been said, but Katsuya Terada really is excellent. He's done character art for all (?) of the Jinguji Saburo (Jake Hunter) games, the two Busin (Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land) games, and more recently, a PSP game called Nanatama (七魂).

I like his Jinguji art the best. Do a search for [神宮寺三郎]

edit: some novel covers from his blog (http://cacazan.blogspot.com/):
3.bp.blogspot.com/_RlPvskeWGcw/S62y3GBHA2I/AAAAAAAAATY/Po1TIDi_Hek/s1600/REAN%E6%9B%B8%E5%BD%B104.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/_RlPvskeWGcw/S6x9PqPgM5I/AAAAAAAAATQ/det6w3Cnkwc/s1600/REAN%E6%9B%B8%E5%BD%B102.jpg
2.bp.blogspot.com/_RlPvskeWGcw/S6wbQReWYwI/AAAAAAAAATI/c8TfYkumTjs/s1600/REAN%E6%9B%B8%E5%BD%B103.jpg
1.bp.blogspot.com/_RlPvskeWGcw/S6VmBGRRHlI/AAAAAAAAATA/xfK7ffz46zU/s1600-h/REAN%E6%9B%B8%E5%BD%B101.jpg

[loempiavreter]

Jun Suemi who did art for a Wizardy game and the Rengoku series.







Don't know what this art is from? Wizardy? Guin Saga? No idea, jsut wanted to include some other Jun Suemi art that's not Rengoku.

[Vendaval Este]

The Rengoku art makes those games look worthwhile, but I hear they're not very good.

[justjustin]

Just wanna say thank you all, you've been a big help. If only I had more time to add/talk about some myself!

[loempiavreter]

Apr 16, 2010 13:48:23 GMT -5 Vendaval Este said:

The Rengoku art makes those games look worthwhile, but I hear they're not very good.

I think they are decent if you like Diablolikes, I once recommended Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory to a friend of mine and he enjoyed it as well, so i'm not the only one.

I feel Rengoku II: Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N. fixed most of the annoying issues Tower of Purgatory had.

And I liked Rengoku's surreal futuristic adaption of the Divine Comedy better then Dante's Inferno take on it.

[robertagilmour]

I love Jun Suemi, I'd like to see him do more game work. I think he'd do a good Castlevania.

[Vendaval Este]

Apr 17, 2010 6:48:42 GMT -5 loempiavreter said:

Apr 16, 2010 13:48:23 GMT -5 Vendaval Este said:

The Rengoku art makes those games look worthwhile, but I hear they're not very good.

I think they are decent if you like Diablolikes, I once recommended Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory to a friend of mine and he enjoyed it as well, so i'm not the only one.

I feel Rengoku II: Stairway to H.E.A.V.E.N. fixed most of the annoying issues Tower of Purgatory had.

And I liked Rengoku's surreal futuristic adaption of the Divine Comedy better then Dante's Inferno take on it.

I suddenly feel the need to buy these immediately.

[justjustin]

鈴木康士 aka Yasashi Suzuki aka Phantoms KADAN (not sure about this pen name) should get a mention. We all know him from the art he did for Treasure games Tsumi to Batsu, it's sequel and Ikaruga. Here's some of his Ikaruga work.