Artist Research

  In this blog, I will be discussing about the artists that I have researched on that I will use as my guidance and inspiration for my project. I have also decided to name my project 'Purply Fun', I have given this name because the characters are much more relaxed and well suited for the comedic and relaxing theme that I am going for.

 Now I would like to talk about the three artists that I have looked at and discuss each one of them individually.

Makoto Shinkai

 Makoto Shinkai, also labelled as 'The next Hayao Miyazaki', is a Japanese director, writer, producer and animator. Makoto Shinkai has worked on movies such as Your Name (2016), which became the highest grossing anime film earning over $281 million dollars worldwide. Makoto has also worked on several other movies in the past before Your Name such as 5 Centimeter Per Second (2007)  and The Garden of Words (2013). 

 Makoto is famously known for creating his work as vibrant and detailed to captivate the audience. He work also takes great influence from Hayao Miyazaki as the characters drawn and directed are simple, clean yet highly detailed in motion and expressions.

Your Name (2016)

 One of the key aspects of his work is intergrating modern society in the films to show much realism as possible, such as showing highly detailed smartphones on the character's hand. Such elements exemplify and acknowledge about Makato's awareness of making movies in the current times.

Shinji Kimura

 Shinji Kimura is another Japanese artist that has worked on several shows and films. He is an art director and a background artist. 

 Althought not much information regarding his career is mentioned, he work can be seen in movies such as Blue Exorcist from 2012. His key elements in background art consists of maintaining high details and colours, his work also consists of high dynamic range giving depth and vastness in the background. This allows the characters to move more freely as the background has been scaled appropriately for any one particular scene.

Blue Exorcist The Movie (2012)

 His work emphasizes greatly with colour gradient and the levels of details. This is something from which I can take inspirations and learn to establish similar amount of details into my background art. Althouth it would not be as thorough, but a small step is a good concept to take.

Eiichiro Oda

 Eiichiro Oda is a manga artist and is well known for his manga series One Piece starting from 1997. Eiichiro's manga series then became an animation show which goes on to become among the longest running show from Japan with over 900 episodes aired.

 Eiichiro's style is very minimalist yet full of expressions. All of his character designs are unique in a sesnse that details are not profoundly present but rather exists in the term of emotions and facial movements.

 

One Piece Chapter 1 Cover, 1997

 Eiichiro's other element in drawing style is that character's cartoonish look. Appeal is the factor that is recognizable so all characters do not possess a serious tone or look on them. This allows to be a more cheerful and digestible look for audience when reading or watching the show. And finally, the lineart is simple with straight uniform lines, this gives uniformity and it is easier to draw in this fashion.

 What I can take away from Eiichiro's work is that his style with the facial drawing, the expressions and character designs are the qualities that I will be implementing in my animation portfolio. Moreover, with the combination of the background designing and directing the animation, it will be a good contrast project with different characteristics altogether.

Reference List:

Your name (2016) Directed by M. Shinkai [Feature Film]. Japan: Funimation Films

Blue Exorcist The Movie (2012) Directed by A. Takahashi [Feature Film]. Japan: A-1 Productions

Oda, E. (1997) One Piece (Volumes 1). Japan: Jump Comics