Favourite Final Fantasy Character Designer/Artist?

[Croyles]

I remember in an interview he said he got so frustrated with with his designs basically being for nothing that he began drawing them as sprites. Square didn't get the joke apparently.

That's funny since that would seem to contradict this interview completely. He mentions that since he knew his art would be transferred to small characters made of pixels he started by doing a few designs in that style. They asked him to design normally instead so they could then shrink it down into pixel format. He didn't seem to mind that at all either.

thats funny i don't see the part where he agrees or disagrees with what i read in another interview.

Dude I dont know where you read such an interview but I have watched the 1up interview ages ago and just now again (theres a written version and the actual video interview), and it honestly just sounds like he found it funny. Nothing of what he said even remotely hinted to him being frustrated by his characters being turned into sprites. Why would he? He signed up for the job and that was the best of graphics back then.

1UP: Since the early video games featured such primitive graphics, how did you feel about seeing your elaborate illustrations transformed into such tiny sprites?

YA: There's actually an interesting story behind that. Because the art was so small and pixelated, I created a design like that. But they came back to me and said "please design it normally so we can shrink it down ourselves into a game character." They wanted a real design from me, not for me making something looking like a game character. [Laughs]

He really sounds bitter and frustrated here. Check out the video interview too.
A Day in the Life of Final Fantasy's Yoshitaka Amano from 1UP.com
Its about four fifths into that part of the interview.

As for the topic, I was tempted to vote for Yoshida because I love his work too. I also like some Nomura stuff, but it does get repetitive. Although, Amano's work can get repetitive too, but in a different sort of way. I ended voting for Amano, but I think if I was in a different mood I could have probably voted for Nomura or Yoshida instead.