Amano: Likes drawing cute girls, never played Final Fantasy

There aren't many people as well known in Final Fantasy as Yoshitaka Amano. The legendary artist has created some very iconic pieces, and his art is highly collectible; just ask our very own Amano-enthusiast, espritduo! Not only that, but it is Amano's art featured on the limited edition posters we're giving away!

http://www.espritduo.com/Amano/FF13%...20title%29.jpg
Amano has created a wide range of Final Fantasy artwork, including the title cards

He was recently interviewed by Kotaku and revealed his two favourite characters: Kain and Terra. For him, they were the closest to real actors, come to life through his artwork. They're also two of my personal favourite characters and were given powerful parts to play in their respective games.

The interview also revealed some other interesting facts, like Amano has never played a Final Fantasy game; his children would always snatch them up before he could.

For the full interview, click the link at the bottom.

[Source: Kotaku]

That's disappointing, since I was under the impression that all the key guys behind the Dragon Quest game play it. Oh well, I guess Final Fantasy has never been really accessible like that.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bolivar

That's disappointing, since I was under the impression that all the key guys behind the Dragon Quest game play it. Oh well, I guess Final Fantasy has never been really accessible like that.

---

FF is accessible but Amano probably isn't a gamer. I feel most of his work in FF channeled to illustrations from Amon Saga, Guin Saga and Arslan Senki.

I liked the interview but I've always liked Amano's art. I got a real appreciation for it in one of my art classes, when I used one of his pictures for the assignment where I had to copy a Master's work. Everyone in class who saw my picture and the student doing H.R. Giger's work thought we were crazy.

Terra being one of his favorites doesn't surprise me, there is actually more official character artwork for her than any other character in the series. Yes, even Cloud who has been redesigned and shown up in countless spin-offs doesn't have as much character artwork as Terra does for one game. Kain was a bit of a surprise but a good choice in my book.

I never really cared for Amano's art. It did surprise me that he's never played the games, but thinking about it, it's not so odd since his art is not indicative that he had ever played the games.

Amano is a good artist I admit, but it doesn't surprise me one bit he never played the games. One thing I never liked about his art (even though he clearly has talent) is that it looks nothing like who it's supposed to be half the time. Bartz is given white hair, and a femine expression, Locke wears a bowler hat even though he never does in the game, and everyone is wearing a completly different outfit. I get that he's adaptating sprites into somewhat realistic portraits, but even the colors of the clothing isn't correct half the time.

That's really more the programmers fault than his to be honest, and Locke doesn't wear a bowler hat, he wears a full head scarf, well technically a few. which is why it looks like a hat. :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Del Murder

I never really cared for Amano's art. It did surprise me that he's never played the games, but thinking about it, it's not so odd since his art is not indicative that he had ever played the games.

---

*Gasp* Shame on you! :kaofight:

I guess it was because they don't look at all like the actual characters. Also I can't really tell who is who, or if the character is a man or a woman.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Formalhaut

*Gasp* Shame on you! :kaofight:

---

Am I the only one that thinks that this animation looks so racist ? :laughing:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Del Murder

I never really cared for Amano's art. It did surprise me that he's never played the games, but thinking about it, it's not so odd since his art is not indicative that he had ever played the games.

---

And the games take 40+ hours to beat

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

That's really more the programmers fault than his to be honest, and Locke doesn't wear a bowler hat, he wears a full head scarf, well technically a few. which is why it looks like a hat. :D

---

His work is mostly illustration type stuff, nothing feels like an actual design made for in-game environment. I mean there is reason why they call him "image illustrator" for FF.

To be fair, I can see how someone says you can't even tell who the characters are.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by maybee

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Formalhaut

*Gasp* Shame on you! :kaofight:

---

Am I the only one that thinks that this animation looks so racist ? :laughing:

---

Don't worry, they made an equally racist one as well: :kaofight2:

This is why it's always tough to talk about Amano when discussing character designers in the series. Square said that they moved him away from character designer on FFVII onward because his style wasn't suitable to 3D, but if you think about it his style was never suitable to 2D sprites either. I think his artwork has probably always been more important for inspiring the team. If you look at the FFIV manual, you can't deny that it's an Amano world that they created, but yeah, the characters look nothing like his illustrations.

For me, the Amano artwork is symbolic, it does really inspire the production staff seeing a beautifully crafted piece of artwork about the game.

To be fair to Amano though, you really couldn't do his artwork completely for the characters in the 2D game due to technology limitations. Though his monster designs were pretty faithful, even going back to FFI, the Four Fiends and Chaos are pretty gorgeous even as enemy sprites.

Though they really don't have an argument for that now. I would be really interested to see them transcribe his art into a game with little corner cutting. I mean the FMVs for FFV and VI on the Anthology set were pretty breathtaking.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Wolf Kanno

To be fair to Amano though, you really couldn't do his artwork completely for the characters in the 2D game due to technology limitations. Though his monster designs were pretty faithful, even going back to FFI, the Four Fiends and Chaos are pretty gorgeous even as enemy sprites.

Though they really don't have an argument for that now. I would be really interested to see them transcribe his art into a game with little corner cutting. I mean the FMVs for FFV and VI on the Anthology set were pretty breathtaking.

---

I don't think Square considered Amano as big deal to them otherwise Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals would look like this promotion piece:
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__...omo_Pin-up.jpg

Considering that Hironobu Sakaguchi said that his goal in gaming was to make games that looked like Amano's art I would disagree.

Besides, Legend of the Crystals barely follows the mythology of FFV, and didn't even use Nobuo Uematsu for music, so it sounds like this was a decision by Studio Madhouse rather than Square.

But Sakaguchi says a lot of things... they ditched Amano as character designer for VII onwards and Nomura began taking over even on FFVI.

But I still think the series as a whole owes a lot to him. The early games really were shots at making an Amano world and that's been institutionalized in the subconscious of what the series is trying to do.

Not completely true, Amano did the initial character designs for FFIX and he also helped with some of VII's designs as well. Sephiroth is collaboration between Amano and Nomura. Noumra style was just easier for 3D cause it was simpler in overall design. It didn't help that his non-FF work brought him more recognition out of Japan in the mid-90s and he did several world tours with his art galleries.

Though I agree that Amano did a lot for the series and that a part of the appeal of the early games is trying to capture the allure of his artwork that inspired the games to begin with.