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[Chao]

You're all wrong dudes, the King of All Cosmos is the best.

WINNAR

 

[Martial Loh]

I remember flicking through the Art of Halo book in Borders, the designers used to do a quick sketch and hand it over to another guy to tart up. But with Master Chief he gave them back a rather sleek androgynous styled character...so the original designers went back and reworked it to look (i quote) "more like a modern day tank".

The general design in Halo is pretty good (except for the brutes in Halo 2.....)
I'd never seen the Guild Wars art before...thats awesome and is right up there with WoW's concept art.

On the jap side of things, I like the SMT dude...and Capcom's Akiman, who did stuff like Streetfighter and King Gainer(though thats an anime and not a game..).

 

[fushi]

I have seen some very impressive character design here but this picture blew me away.
Does anyone know on what game is this designer working on right know?

He doesn't really do games all that much, just the occasional artist-for-hire work most artists do. Visit his homepage to see more (people at work, beware: erotic artwork ahead).

 

[Error]

I would post some Kazuma Kaneko, but I can't find anything. >_>

 

[Haly]

I second dabookerman.

Ayami Kojima

The Renaissance never looked this good.

Another vote for Yoji Shinkawa (Someone count these up)

This is some incarnation of Otacon that can't possible be the one in MGverse right now.

And because I don't think he's been mentioned. Toshiyuki Itahana.

(I hope he's on the next two games.)

 

[sprsk]

I'm convinced some of you people just don't know how to read.

This is a thread about character designers not character designs.

 

[Shard]

Satomi Asakawa

http://www.zelda.com/universe/game/twilightprincess/inside05.jsp

 

[MegaTen]

I cant believe people are mentioning the Rabbids. They've got to be the most generic characters I've seen in a game for a while. They arent funny, they arent cute, and they just seem like rejected designs from a mediocre childrens program. I want the old Rayman back.

 

[jett]

My man Yoji Shinkawa.

 

[RegularMK]

I can't remember thinking sexually ambiguous characters were ever cool

Unless Ayami Kojima designed them.

So she deserves a special mention.

 

[Twix]

Yoji " THE GODDAMN " Shinkawa...

 

[Durante]

After thinking back to all the games I played which had memorable character designs, I'll have to agree with Kazuma Kaneko. Seems like he is a popular choice, despite working on mostly niche products.

 

[R3Z]

Yoji " THE GODDAMN " Shinkawa...

I seriously dont see anything special here. The second pic is pretty cool, but the character sucks completely !

 

[Haly]

Well I don't think Shinkawa's responsible for any of his characters beyond the design right?

I mean he gets an image description that says: "Blah blah old man blah bah half plant blah will die in two weeks blah."

I think a lot of people like him for his how well his preferred medium ties in with the Metal Gear theme.

 

[Segata Sanshiro]

I might get jumped on for this, but oh well. While I think Shinkawa is an excellent artist, one of the better ones working in games, the actual character designs from Metal Gear are either generic or bad.

Amano is another artist who I like a lot, but the absolute saminess of his female character designs is hard to ignore, so I didn't list him.

Moebius is great, but I was under the impression his work in games was mostly making illustrations of already-existing characters.

 

[Miroku]

Best character designer ever

Saw a few questions about this one pop up during the thread.

The artist is Shunya Yamashita. I believe he currently works at Square Enix. I wouldnt be surprised at all of those FF12 armor designs are his.

I recently bought his art book "Sweet Dreams" from animenation. It's a pretty nice book, with lots of boobies and great design throughout. Here's a link to where I got it:

http://www.animenation.com/4776791927.html

 

[NotWii]

Satomi Asakawa

http://www.zelda.com/universe/game/twilightprincess/inside05.jsp

OMG Nice link, I had forgotten to go back and read those!

Nakano (TP main designer/illustrator) says:

Today I still love American comics and fantasy art. While I was working on Majora’s Mask, I was especially into the Hellboy series. Who knows? Maybe its imagery influenced my own illustration style for the game.

Wow, so that's how that unique style came about, I would kill for a Zelda game with those graphics!

 

[disappeared]

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto:

I know he does anime and manga, but technically he did the art for the EVA games too.

 

[agent069]

Damn Majora's artwork were so good, it's a shame the N64 wasn't powerful enough to render it, in fact Majora just look like Ocarina in 30fps. I hope that someday we'll see a cell shaded Zelda with Majora's art style.

 

[DeathbyVolcano]

Majora's Mask still has the best art style out of any Zelda game.

 

[XSamu]

yeah, link's design is great because I've never seen a picture of peter pan before.

:lol :lol

 

[Tamanon]

Kazuma Kaneko by a long shot. It's amazing how much he can get out of designs that are always the exact same height and weight. But, he draws a TON of great designs.

 

[djtiesto]

Well, Kaneko and Amano, my 2 picks, have been mentioned already, I'll now say Satoshi Urushihara... did work on the Langrisser and Growlanser games, and a whole lot of hentai, lol.

 

[Illuminati]

I have no idea who is the artist for American McGee's Alice, but their demented take on characters from Alice was great:

 

[kevm3]

 

[ElectricBlue187]

I like the Blizzard art direction in general.

me too, who says the west isn't talented

 

[D-X]

Not enough from the Panzer Dragoon series (Ok Mobuis was mentioned but not enough pictures at least)

 

[disappeared]

I love McGee's version of Alice. Like she'd just slit your throat if you ever pissed her off.

 

[MasterMFauli]

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto:

I know he does anime and manga, but technically he did the art for the EVA games too.

Though Rei is one of the hottest imaginary girls out there: Dude, it´s a animce-license-game. It´s as if i post picture of the Naruto-manga/anime, because i love the GNT-games ^^

Also: Many people in here got, seemingly, confused with best character-design and best artwork. Those Metal Gear Solid-pictures dont show great character-design, but great artworks.

 

[karasu]

Street Fighter 3 guy, Devil May Cry guy, Range Murata

 

[rockman zx]

Maybe not the best, but for me one of the best is Toru Nakayama.

 

[DeathbyVolcano]

Was that Alice game good?

 

[seat]

:lol I don't know about his ability as a character designer.

Are you serious? Those are just headshots.

The previously posted character designs from the LucasArts games and Psychonauts are examples of great, UNIQUE character designs as well. Same goes for the Panzer Dragoon RPG designs as well. That game truly had its own visual vocabularly.

Generic anime characters, even if they're part of some great art, are never good or unique character designs, which is what this thread is about. The guy who did the characters designs for Fable might be the worst answer here so far. There is absolutely nothing unique or even remotely good about those designs at all. If you truly love those, I have some drawings I did in elementary school that I want to sell you.

And Master Chief. Why? Seriously, why? I don't think there is any valid defense of that. "Because it's kewl" is not a valid reason.

 

[PolyGone]

Yasushi Suzuki says hi

he has an awesome-looking new manga which should be coming out soon:

click here to see the first 10 pages (stunning)

 

[grenadeguru]

Kaneko Kazuma.

Yes.

 

[Ichirou]

I don't think it's anyone in this thread's fault that by-and-large western artists suck and/or don't have the name recognition that asian artists do (because, again, they suck).

Japanese games just give a lot more emphasis to art design than Western games generally do.

I vote Hidenori Matsubara, Akiman, and Kinu Nishimura, for humans, and Hajime Katoki (Virtual On) for mecha.

 

[golduck342]

Capcom's artists... The guy or female who did the art for Breath of Fire 3 & 4.

QFT

More Here. A lot of it is fantastic (My new favorite site, thanks google)
http://www.creativeuncut.com/artbof3.html
http://www.creativeuncut.com/artbof4.html

 

[Buggy Loop]

Most of the good ones have already been mentioned, ZOE/MGS, castlevania, DDS, etc.

I'll add one that hasnt been mentioned so far yet, Andrew Jones from Retro studios, his metroid prime concept art is pure gold, sadly im having a hard time finding anything on google about it.

 

[Durante]

Was that Alice game good?

It's the only Quake 3 engine game I finished. And there were about 100 or so of those. It's great.

Yoshiyuki Sadamoto

If he counts I'll have to change my vote, I have two 1x2.2 m wallscrolls with his NGE art in my room. Also, the only artbook I ever bought is by him :lol

 

[nelsonroyale]

the guy who designs the collosii in the Shadow of the Collosus...just amazing

Also Kaneko

damn does moebius do panzer dragoon...looks very nice

peace

 

[Abel]

This isn't technically a Kaneko picture than it is a Shigenori Soejima one (see the "SOE" in the lower right corner) Kaneko is credited for the original character design but the art is Soejima's I believe, just an FYI

 

[Dave1988]

This is some superb concept art. Anybody knows the name of the artist?

 

[Avalon]

I have the Kaneko SMT2 artbook, actually. I can post some art from that tonight. It`s like, 1000 pages or something. Ridiculously big.

I would love to see some of it if you have the time (I need to start picking these books up).

 

[gutter_trash]

I seriously dont see anything special here. The second pic is pretty cool, but the character sucks completely !

a Japanese artist who does't stereotypically fall into the anime trap and is able to concept outside the mold of his peers deserves praise.

I love Japanese games but I do get tired of the fuzzy spikey haired anime man-boy characters.

Kudos to Yoji Shinkawa's gruff, gritty and cool style

 

[LegendofJoe]

There is a serious lack of Andrew Jones respect in this thread. You guys are waaaaay too much into similar styles.

 

[Illuminati]

Was that Alice game good?

Yes, it was great. Awesome art direction, story, level design, voice actors, and Chris Vrenna of NIN fame did the soundtrack, which was fantastic. Here's the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzsuJhyq_jE

Supposedly they are making a movie based off the game this year staring Sarah Michelle Gellar: http://www.americanmcgee.com/wordpress/index.php?p=55

 

[Shouta]

Well, speaking on deisgn only and not the actual art, I think Mutsumi Inomata, Satoshi Urushihara, Tatsuya Yoshikawa (BoF series), and whoever the folks that did the designs for Wild Arms 1-3 (woo Kanon!).

 

[Jasoco]

 

[momolicious]

everyone should play American McGees Alice..

 

[dili]

Got to give a vote for Shigenori Soejima. Both Kaneko and Soejima do some incredible character designs.