Four Questions With Tetsu Tsukamoto (Costume Designer)
1UP:
What was it like to design the same character several times over for all the different jobs and costumes?
Tsukamoto:
In the beginning, I racked my brains. Because they are "costumes" to the characters, each character's personality and appearance would always come into play and I would run out of ideas. I was not able to think freely like I would when creating monsters. However, as time went by, I was able to grasp the style/tone of each of the characters and was able to enjoy the process of thinking it through --- "if this is her personality, she would wear something like this."
1UP:
You designs clearly reflect your being in touch with modern pop culture. What sorts of things did you draw from for the outfits?
Tsukamoto:
I wasn't conscious of pop culture but I did go through tons of fashion and womens magazines. It wasn't quite the fashion sense that I had, so I remember trying very hard to familiarize myself and mastering the style as my own by looking at all kinds of materials. Design-wise, I created them in a way that is easy to recognize by first creating a silhouette, omitting the details, and then changed the shapes and to give it their own personality.
1UP:
Did you ever design an outfit that even you think may be a little too over-the-top?
Tsukamoto:
There were quite a few. And of course, men and women have different fashion sense -when I would show the designs to our staff, both the guys and girls would tell me to go further or that I've gone too far. It was hard to maintain the right balance. But in some cases, it was interesting to see that something the guys would find over-the-top, the girls didn't.
1UP:
If you had to pick one job for one character as your favorite, which would it be?
Tsukamoto:
…That's a tough question…I put my best in all of them. But if I had to choose, I like Paine's Dark Knight the best. Not really from a design standpoint, but the fact that it's simply appealing...my kind of taste. For Rikku, I like her as the Black Mage combined with her motions. For Yuna, I would go with her default Gunner that Nomura-san drew…it seems to fit her perfectly!