I completely admire Fujishima Kosuke who designs most of the iconic Tales series characters for Namco Bandai, my favourite character visually and character wise being Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia).
His work is always aesthetically wonderful, the concepts are rather simple in comparison to other Namco artists like Inomata Mutsumi and Okumura Daigo.
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| Cheria Barnes by Inomata Mutsumi (Tales of Graces F) Rich in colour and accessories - too much |
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| Estelle Sidos Heurassein (Tales of Vesperia) |
I find Fujishima's design more elegant and works nicely (colour, tones)
His colour palette is sparse and usually consists of two main colours (for the body) and usually one extra for details and embellishments.
Though his character designs have evolved to be more lavish as a result of the companies shift to a more realistic, to scale character model rather than the cell-shaded, anime styled miniatures (due to fellow leading artist Okumura's push for more realism) they still retain and elegant simplicity.
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| cell-shaded style reminiscent of anime |
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| more realistic and to scale on the world map models |
I hope, by the time I am able to hopefully work in the game industry as a character (or perhaps more likely a concept artist in general or a sub-character designer) I am able to create designs as simple, elegant and iconic as Fujishima's Lloyd Irving and Yuri Lowell.
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| Yuri Lowell (Tales of Vesperia) |
Yuri designed with an anti hero look, most of Fujishima's characters are bold and bright.
Character personalities and backgrounds usually come before the actual designs
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| Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia) |
My favourite character and design (Lloyd Irving)
Like:
-bold colours
-interesting hair (but not too over the top)
- realistic and simple
-minimal but striking accessories add character (stands out)
