Tetsuya Nomura ♥♥♥

Well, I know manga-style animation shouldnt be part of my portfolio, but I still can help to hide my respects and admiration to Tetsuya Nomura, a japanes artist born in October 10, 1970.
He's been my inspiration since long time ago, specially because he's the responsible for the character designs and concept art of franchise such as Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts.

BIO
Tetsuya Nomura was born in Kochi prefecture Japan on October 10, 1970. Fans of his art probably know him best for his work on the Final Fantasy series, and for his habit of often influencing his character art designs with his personal tastes in fashion and silver jewelry. Originally starting off in a vocational school creating art for advertisements, Nomura was hired by Squaresoft at the age of 21 to work on battle monster graphics for Final Fantasy V in 1991. Pleased with his work, Squaresoft next appointed him as graphic director for Final Fantasy VI in 1994, and in the following year, gave him the role of character designer for the production of Final Fantasy VII.

Nomura's first major character design role, FFVII. Nomura's involvement in Final Fantasy VII didn't stop at character design. He created storyboards for the many impressive summon sequences, covered monster and logo designs, and even had some influence on major key events in the story, including the idea for Aerith to die. The huge worldwide success of Final Fantasy VII further secured his position as one of the controlling minds behind the series' design and direction. Nomura worked closely with director Yoshinori Kitase on the development of Final Fantasy VIII, heavily contributing to ideas for a 'lighter' story and a school setting. He acted as lead character designer and battle visual director, setting the feel for the game with his designs for characters, clothes, weapons, and Guardian Forces, as well as sequences for limit breaks and summons. He also added personality details and some choice vocabulary for the characters he designed.

Illustration for Parasite Eve II. At about the same time, Nomura's design talents were hired into other games, including Parasite Eve, Brave Fencer Musashi, and Ehrgeiz. When Square entered the PlayStation 2 era in 2000, Nomura served as character designer for the company's first major titles on the system, The Bouncer and Final Fantasy X. It was shortly after that Kingdom Hearts would mark his first role in fully directing a game, while still providing the concept art and character designs as well. The game was well met, and Nomura resumed the same role for Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Kingdom Hearts II.

Nomura's clothing designs are a hot topic among his fans. Nomura has often cited the Final Fantasy series' original character artist Yoshitaka Amano as a great inspiration with his detailed whimsical illustrations, even crediting him for the idea behind Edea's design in FFVIII. He also credits motion pictures, music videos, and magazines as a frequent source of inspiration when drawing and making storyboards. His interest in motion pictures has further been demonstrated in his direction of the CGI film Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, in which he also served as character designer for. Nomura employs a variety of mediums when drawing, but he most often uses the contemporary technique of first making sketches on paper, then scanning the lines and further processing the art on computer, where most coloring is done digitally. Early sketches on paper are often created with mechanical pencil, though he has also been known to make use of colored pencil, as found in his illustrations for Final Fantasy VII.

Currently, Nomura continues to be a busy and influential designer in video games, overseeing the art direction in the three Fabula Nova Crystallis: Final Fantasy XIII projects for PS3, as well as director for Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Other present projects are Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for the PSP, and It's a Wonderful World for DS.

Artist's Video Game Work
1992 Final Fantasy V (SNES)
1994 Live A Live (SNES)
1994 Final Fantasy VI (SNES)
1995 Chrono Trigger (SNES)
1996 Super Mario RPG (SNES)
1997 Final Fantasy VII (PS)
1998 Parasite Eve (PS)
1998 Ehrgeiz (PS)
1998 Brave Fen. Musashi (PS)
1999 Parasite Eve II (PS)
1999 Final Fantasy VIII (PS)
2000 The Bouncer (PS2)
2001 Final Fantasy X (PS2)
2002 Kingdom Hearts (PS2)
2003 Final Fantasy X-2 (PS2)
2003 Final Fantasy XI (PS2)
2004 Kingdom Hrt. CoM (GBA)
2005 Sam. Lgn. Musashi (PS2)
2005 Kingdom Hearts II (PS2)
2006 Dirge of Cerberus (PS2)
2007 The world ends with you (DS)
???? Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
???? FF Agito XIII (PS3)
???? FF Versus XIII (PS3)

There's a lot a could talk about this artist, speaking about his style that's very iconic and that if you look at the artworks of all this games in order you can tell the evolution in him.
What I find more inspiring at this point of creating a character is his ability to make iconic and unique personalities and looks on his characters.
I assume that his passion for fashion is what gives a really outstanding costume, but at the same time he designs a personality in the character that manages to stay in your memory. Once you play several games in which this characters appear you can easily tell which ones he design.

Right...like I said he's been one of my influences, but not that I've decided to leave this kind of style, I'll try to make this artist one of my last manga-concept artist...
(but still...LOOK AT HIS WORK!...isn't he amazing?)