Featured artist: Yoshitaka Amano (1952-)

I have admired Amano’s work for many years now and was introduced to his work by Square soft’s early games, like so many others. Yoshitaka Amano is a Japanese illustrator most known for his work for the famous Final Fantasy game series and Vampire Hunter D saga, although he has worked on several other major projects. When Amano was only 15 years old he managed to get a job at Tatsunoko Productions, a Japanese production company. One of the first projects he was involved in was Speed Racer, a series famous nowadays all around the world. He worked for Tatsunoko Productions on animated films as a production/character designer for the next 15 years after which he decided to become a freelance artist and got involved in the first Vampire Hunter D novel. Later on he worked for Square soft, on the first Final Fantasy game as a concept artist and has since been involved in the game franchise. He has also done some theatre set designs, had multiple art books published, had exhibitions around the world as well as appeared on a film.

His works are influenced by old Japanese ukiyo-e wood prints and paintings as well as European art noveau works and not least by Gustav Klimt. He is also a big fan of western comics. His style is very unique to him and even though it’s contemporary it does not fit into the same slot with normal Japanese manga and anime. His works consist of large simple shapes mixed with great detail.

I own his Hiten and Maten art books witch I can recommend to anyone who is interested  in surreal and fantasy art. He has also done a novel with Neil Gaiman called ‘Sandman: The Dream Hunters’, which is pure gold.

Here are few links to some of his works:

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(I do not own any rights to these pictures)

Here are links for further reading:

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And here is my fan art of the day: D