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Who is the best character designer in gaming?

Segata Sanshiro said:
It's not that Western artists suck, it's that by and large the best Western artists are not working in games. Japan is fortunate in that their top comic and animation artists have been deeply involved in the game industry, whereas ours by and large have not been.

I wish I could be saying Jim Lee or Jack Kirby or Don Bluth or Joe Quesada. I guess I can say Don Bluth, so I'll add him to my previous choices of a Japanese artist and a French artist.
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Yeah, this is absolutely true and I should have mentioned it in my previous post. There are definitely a lot of amateur, freelance and pro artists in the States that create stunning, stylish and appealing art... they just don't work in videogames.
 
akachan ningen said:
yeah, link's design is great because I've never seen a picture of peter pan before.
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Peter Pan never looked this good! :D

__TWW-w.18%20Fredrik%20Delin.jpg


_artwork05.jpg


_LinkvsVolvagia.jpg


source: zeldart.net
 
I've always loved Fable's character design, it has a very pretty and destinctive art style and isn't the usual 'dark gritty' style of most other RPG's.
I think that's one of the reasons why I liked it so much and it felt really different to me.
It's one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to Fable 2.

Fable
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Fable 2
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Tieno said:
I've always loved Fable's character design, it has a very pretty and destinctive art style and isn't the usual 'dark gritty' style of most other RPG's. I think that's one of the reasons why I liked it so much and it felt really different to me. It's one of the reasons why I'm looking forward to Fable 2.
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Same here. It feels so much like a fairy tale. I've always felt it's one of the more majestic art styles around. I also happened to absolutely love the bandit portion of the game and because of my own sometimes cliche tastes, I absolutely loved Twinblade. One of my favorite bosses of the last generation.

twinblade-2.jpg
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Kazuma Kaneko

/thread over

his style is just absolute ****ing awesome. i love the character art for digital devil saga, persona 1/2 and shin megami tensei: nocturne.

persona2_01_1024.jpg
 
Lack of Warcraft makes me sad. :(

But yes, other than Metzen and Samwise, no Western names leap readily to mine.

Huh... I guess I'll go with Yoshida, Amano, or Kenji.
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
It's not that Western artists suck, it's that by and large the best Western artists are not working in games. Japan is fortunate in that their top comic and animation artists have been deeply involved in the game industry, whereas ours by and large have not been.
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Totally agree.

I'm not a huge fan of Japanese art style, but Kaneko is an exception ( ;) ). I actually prefer Western art with comic books and etc. but as people have said, none of these great artist are working in games. I'd take the artwork in current comic book styles compared to most of the Japanese (anime) art.

As someone said though: there's not much talent in Western developers, or any name worthy people at least.
 
Art style or actual design? They're pretty different and most of the people in this thread are posting their favorite art styles rather than the actual designs...
 
A lot of people posting some fantastic pieces of art, but not necessairly what I'd call great character design, atleast on an aesthetiv point of view (I don't know what the characters themselves are like, as I don't even recognise 80% of them).


I'm going to put forthe the designer (or more likely designers) of Pokemon. Those are a bunch of iconic characters. I mean seriously, a Turtle with water guns?, Electric mouse? A dinosaur with a flower on it's back? Weird, wacky, memorable, with simple but striking designs, and given personality from the best source -the player. Everyon has their favourite pokemon.
 
mrkgoo said:
A lot of people posting some fantastic pieces of art, but not necessairly what I'd call great character design, atleast on an aesthetiv point of view (I don't know what the characters themselves are like, as I don't even recognise 80% of them).


I'm going to put forthe the designer (or more likely designers) of Pokemon. Those are a bunch of iconic characters. I mean seriously, a Turtle with water guns?, Electric mouse? A dinosaur with a flower on it's back? Weird, wacky, memorable, with simple but striking designs, and given personality from the best source -the player. Everyon has their favourite pokemon.
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Ahhh yes, Ken Sugimori
screenshot_98330_thumb300.jpg


He definatly is iconic.
 
Tieno said:
Totally agree. Master Chief's design is incredibly awesome and iconic. I really like it alot. I love his armor.
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that has to be a joke, right? the master chief is the icon of generic western design. man, you can clearly see, that the "artist" used a 08/15 motorbike helmet as an armor piece for the halo hero.

god, the master chief design sucks.
 
dabookerman said:
Ahhh yes, Ken Sugimori
screenshot_98330_thumb300.jpg


He definatly is iconic.
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Is that the pokemon guy? Thanks, didn't know his name. Did he do all of them, or just like the original...Wikipedia time!

Broken Symmetry: agreed - that stuf is really nice. Some very creative designs that just look great. Guild Wars? Is that like a WoW thing?

Also agreed on Master Chief beign a bit generic.

Also agreed on Shenmue - the bandaid on Ryo was a stroke of genius. Too bad the consistency of design in shenmue ie all over the place.

Good character design to me must be memorable, perhaps unobtrusive (not over the top), but a design that will be recognisable regardless of the style use to portray them. They should go beyond the style used.
 
ram said:
that has to be a joke, right? the master chief is the icon of generic western design. man, you can clearly see, that the "artist" used a 08/15 motorbike helmet as an armor piece for the halo hero.

god, the master chief design sucks.
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Whatever he did, it worked. I love the design and there's something very simple, iconic and mysterious about it that I don't see in many other characters. I'm sorry if I disagree with you.
 
Since western artists are still underrepresented: Denis Loubet of Ultima fame. I've seen he's got a home page:
http://www.io.com/~dloubet/

Example:
u9doc22.jpg


Unfortunately I can't find anything from the manual and spell book illustrations from Ultima 4 and 5, his best work in my view. Impressive in-game art can be found in Ultima 7.
 
Shouta said:
Art style or actual design? They're pretty different and most of the people in this thread are posting their favorite art styles rather than the actual designs...
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Exactly...

Tieno said:
Totally agree. Doom guy's design is incredibly awesome and iconic. I really like it alot. I love his armor.
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Agreed.
 
DarknessTear said:
kartia04uc1.jpg


:lol I don't know about his ability as a character designer.
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Yeah, that's not the best pic you could take, but I think that Amano is better as an illustrator than a character designer.


Anyway, people should start admiting that the Master Chief's design is one of the worst ever.
 
Personal favourite is Kazuma Kaneko, but i definitely agree with the other artists posted so far.


My contribution: The artist of the Megaman Zero/ZX; Toru Nakayama.
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Most of the best game artists have already been mentioned, but I'd like to add Russian artist Anry (full name Andrey Ivanchenko), who works for Akella.


He's currently working on Disciples III.

Samples :

http://www.akella.com/en/i_gallery/disciples_2.jpg
http://fc01.deviantart.com/images3/i/2004/09/6/7/Piter_Blood.jpg
http://ic3.deviantart.com/images/i/2004/02/e/b/Beatrice.jpg

(The last 2 are from Sea Dogs and Pirates of the Caribbean / Sea Dogs 2)


Various works can be found on his deviantart gallery : http://anry.deviantart.com/gallery/


I really am a fan of his =)
 
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