Nishimata Aoi on her illustrations
Half Moon Diary posted up a review of Nishimata Aoi desu. (amazon), which is an essay book released on the 30th of Jan. It’s basically Nishimata’s personal autobiography, with 29 pages of illustrations and slightly lesser pages with photos in the 132 page essay book.
In the review, there were some interesting quotes from the book from the parts where Nishimata talks about her art.
There are probably a lot Illustrators that will go through the full process of starting from roughs before drawing a character, my direction is a little different from these people, what I try to do is try to make everything look good on the whole.
Basically I’m not pursuing strong artistic skills, but rather I’m going for art that looks cute with an appearance that looks fancy and balanced on the whole.
My concept is to draw art that can be easily understood with just a quick look.
My art appears to be mainly popular with the younger generation, people that are not too much into anime yet, or people who don’t know much about the industry yet.
That is probably why there is a tendency where fans look at my art first and begin to like the world of illustrations, and then they start to look at the art from other illustrators and start thinking “Hey this guy’s art is much better”, and end up becoming a fan of another illustrator instead.
She actually analysed herself pretty well!
Also according to the review, she talks about her doujin and cosplaying stuff too, but she doesn’t get too much into detail with those subjects in the book.
February 4th, 2009 at 3:46 am
Huh.
Now I don’t have the right to complain about Nishimata anymore. And to top it off Itoi Noizi is getting better. I can still yell at Itaru though!
February 4th, 2009 at 4:02 am
Noizi is getting better? Since when?
February 4th, 2009 at 4:45 am
Being an obsessed Nishimata fanboy here, it may be my biased view on her art after all, but while the designs mainly feautre a not too complex drawing style it’s especially her coloration for it that is anything else but simple IMO and that aspect inherits lots of the fascination on this illustrators art to me (that and Nishimata’s Seifuku designing skills..which *are* among the finest to be found).
That said, regarding the other noted artists there’s no way around to add my two cents as well ^_^”
Itou is slightly overhyped in my view. Her art is nice, but it’s nothing that makes me go crazy (that and she really should stick with Pero instead of kichiemo for fujitsubo-machine to make them more worthwile >_<).
Itaru on the other hand *is* an art goddess in this fanboy’s biased opinion (though she really should improve the winterly publication side of things for SOLDIER FROG).
February 4th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Itaru? Any links, info?
February 4th, 2009 at 8:48 am
> art that looks cute… can be easily understood with just a quick look…
> mainly popular with… people who don’t know much about the industry yet
As a fan of her artwork, this describes me perfectly (especially since I chopped off the parts that don’t apply to me ;-P ). Simple is appealing. I like Hello Kitty as well.
I’ve been wondering if I should buy this book. There’s a lot of stock left at Gamers. At least this linked review is more meaty than some Amazon 5 star rating. It ends with recommending this book only to fans who like to see childhood photos of Nishimata-sensei (she’s cute claims the reviewer), etc, because it falls flat on offering any real interesting details that might woo disinterested readers. The reviewer does offer a hint on how to get some pictures of Nishimata’s previous-life cosplayer hijinks if you Internet search with a special phrase.
> @sololista: Itaru
Maybe littleharlock is talking about Itaru Hinoue, responsible for artwork in Key games such as Clannad, Air and Kanon?
February 4th, 2009 at 8:55 am
Yeah she’s pretty much right on the money.
But I like her stuff anyways! (I’m also a fan of Hisashi Hirai w)
February 4th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
> Noizi is getting better? Since when?
Since http://shining-force.jp/sff/
February 5th, 2009 at 12:42 am
You do know that 80% of the character designs in that game are not by Noizi right…?
February 5th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
“She actually analysed herself pretty well!”
Indeed. Didn’t think I would disagree with what she had to say. But I never thought I would agree with it 100%.
I really hope more artists get these kind of books.
February 6th, 2009 at 3:54 am
> You do know that 80% of the character designs in that game are not by Noizi right…?
I have to remind myself that random internet people do not know other random internet people and I should not be offended here.
1. I know Japanese. Every single character there is also listed with the illustrator that designed them, and you don’t even need to know Japanese to notice this.
2. I have… well, “trained” eyes and it is not difficult for me to figure out who drew what if I am somewhat familiar with the artist, and the two doing the games are big names (debatable). A lot of random people are big names to me. I could also go on about coloring style and lines and tendencies and crap but nobody wants to hear that junk.
3. I draw. To an extent.
4. I’m not a retard. <– Key point, this is probably where we missed each other