New Interview with Kozaki.

[veetasoy]

I guess outlandish and ridiculous clothes and armour really are needed because, to me, Kozaki has a very noticeable same'face problem.

In any case, regardless of anyone's opinion, the next game should have a new art director and lead illustrator because a franchise like this needs fresh looks.

To be fair, he was commissioned for the two games that stressed marriage and self-inserts, meaning the characters had to generally be young and attractive enough to appeal to the audience. Yeah, you'll have some units that deviate from the teen-to-young-adult-look, but for the most part, the characters were probably designed with the limitation that they ought to be sexually appealing. In past Fire Emblems, this wasn't an issue.

As for myself, I love his modern art style and use of desaturated hair colours (Hinoka being the exception). Realistic eye proportions are a huge plus, too. I do prefer Senri Kita's method of shading clothing and skin, though. Her female designs are generally better, too.

[iZallen]

round balloon boobs. Just ew. Big boobs, yeah, those happen in real life sometimes

If it's possible in real life its possible in the game then. I see no problems.

[CyborgZeta]

I only had an issue with Kozaki's facial design in Awakening, to be perfectly honest.

His Fates stuff is a big improvement in that regard.

[Zerosabers]

I really like his art we see on twitter, and I'd even prefer to have some of the characters fighting in the casual clothes he drew than what they currently wear.

If it's possible in real life its possible in the game then. I see no problems.

Balloon Boobs are not natural.

[CrimeanRoyalKnight]

He just drew another art for Takumi with his hair down.

... a-adorable...

I must say, Kozaki is very good at drawing pretty boys. I look forward to see more Fates fanart from him. I wonder if he likes the game more than Awakening; he didn't draw this much for it, right?

[ivanhellsing]

something tells me that kozaki comes to stay and It would be foolish to replace him but at the end ,neither I or any of you have the final decision and replace the art director if you wanna your reality armor n_n

[SapphireFalconWing]

something tells me that kozaki comes to stay and It would be foolish to replace him but at the end ,neither I or any of you have the final decision and replace the art director if you wanna your reality armor n_n

I hope he stays

[RidellCrimea]

I hope he stays (but I wouldn't be sad if he leaves). Just replace the art director with a new one, preferably the one who worked during the GBA era and Tellius era.

[Thor Odinson]

As for myself, I love his modern art style and use of desaturated hair colours (Hinoka being the exception). Realistic eye proportions are a huge plus, too. I do prefer Senri Kita's method of shading clothing and skin, though. Her female designs are generally better, too.

Yeah, as someone who's honestly not a big fan of huge anime eyes, this is one of my favorite things about kozaki's style as well.

[RJWalker]

I'm not seeing it. His eye proportions are not any different than any other gamenr series. Big eyes have only been present for young characters and 'cute' characters in the series and his art has this too. Look at most of the female kids. Their eyes are huge too.

[xiaopan1987]

I hope he stays (but I wouldn't be sad if he leaves). Just replace the art director with a new one, preferably the one who worked during the GBA era and Tellius era.

I would agree with this statement. I like his artwork and the extra stuff he's been sending out is really nice.

[Thor Odinson]

I'm not seeing it. His eye proportions are not any different than any other gamenr series. Big eyes have only been present for young characters and 'cute' characters in the series and his art has this too. Look at most of the female kids. Their eyes are huge too.

Maybe I'm just a GBA spriter, but I've gotten kinda fed up with some of the eye sizes I had to sprite proportionally to those faces and, well

hand them off to Astra.

I can't do it.

Granted, due to the small sizes in gba sprites, one pixel of difference in the eye can look massive.

Edited August 3, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[Book of Ereshkigal]

I'm not seeing it. His eye proportions are not any different than any other gamenr series. Big eyes have only been present for young characters and 'cute' characters in the series and his art has this too. Look at most of the female kids. Their eyes are huge too.

Even if they aren't actually smaller (and I do still they think they are on average) they're certianly drawn to be less obtrusive. Nino's eyes come across very differently in her OA than.... Nowi. And Nowi's eyes are bigger in her OA than they are in the game portraits.

EDIT:

Ahh, I think it has to do with the irises.

I never really thought about it, but her irises like take up her entire eye lol

Edited August 3, 2015 by L95

[iZallen]

Balloon Boobs are not natural.

Well... Its natural in anime then? Or they really don't know how to proportions work. Lets drop this topic now.

Edited August 3, 2015 by iZallen

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Well... Its natural in anime then?

lol

[Ownagepuffs]

Kozaki already proved himself when he drew characters that weren't under the art direction of a horny 12 year old. Remember when he drew Selip and PoR Ike? Or when he drew all the lords together?

Now he's going one step further and drawing his own characters to really prove a point. I like him, and I want him to have an opportunity to strut his stuff under a different director.

[CrimeanRoyalKnight]

Well, it's not like Kozaki is not at fault for part of the fanservice we have in the games :/

I'm not sure who did the clothing design, it does look a lot like his style (like Lucina's gloves) but I don't have a final word on it; he however does like boobs and butt poses and showing off thighs.

I personally don't have a problem with it all, but it's not like he is the Holy Illustrator of Unsexualized Women. In fact, I'd say cute, sexy women in sexy clothes are his expertise.

Kozaki already proved himself when he drew characters that weren't under the art direction of a horny 12 year old. Remember when he drew Selip and PoR Ike? Or when he drew all the lords together?

Yeah, Ike looked like a random JRPG hero and it took me a while to recognize Sigurd.

[Folt]

Even if they aren't actually smaller (and I do still they think they are on average) they're certianly drawn to be less obtrusive. Nino's eyes come across very differently in her OA than.... Nowi. And Nowi's eyes are bigger in her OA than they are in the game portraits.

EDIT:

Ahh, I think it has to do with the irises.

I never really thought about it, but her irises like take up her entire eye lol

Hm... looking at Nino's GBA sprite and comparing them with Nowi's game portraits, I do think they're around the same size.

But Nino's eyes does feel rather... not quite right to me, compared to Nowi's.

And I do believe that has to do with the irises.

This is somewhat of a recurring problem with the GBA portraits that have big eyes in comparison to similiar game portraits in Awakening.

That said, I don't think that is the only problem. I've thought and thought about it and I think the way Nowi's mouth is done actually makes it look more realistic compared to Nino's. As for why, it's for the fact that Nowi has teeth and Nino doesn't. Especially seen in their official art: Nowi's mouth actually has her teeth shown when she opens it wide. Now, look at Nino's official art. Are there any teeth in her smile? No? Thought so. Also, this especially stands out to me because a smile as wide as Nino's on the official art should at least have shown a row of teeth on the upper line of her mouth.

Also, in their game portraits, I find that the location of Nowi's mouth compared to where her eyes are also makes her face look more realistic than Nino.

[Thane]

I know next to nothing about art and design, so maybe I'm just completely mistaken but...isn't Nowi one of the few Awakening characters who has large eyes? I was also under the impression that aside from a select few, Kozaki preferred to draw the eyes more realistically.

Edited August 4, 2015 by Thane

[CrimeanRoyalKnight]

I'm know next to nothing about art and design, so maybe I'm just completely mistaken but...isn't Nowi one of the few Awakening characters who has large eyes? I was also under the impression that aside from a select few, Kozaki preferred to draw the eyes more realistically.

Yes and yes.

[Book of Ereshkigal]

I know next to nothing about art and design, so maybe I'm just completely mistaken but...isn't Nowi one of the few Awakening characters who has large eyes? I was also under the impression that aside from a select few, Kozaki preferred to draw the eyes more realistically.

Yes, that's why I was comparing Nowi and Nino, as Nowi was the only character I could think of that has larger than usual eyes.

[RJWalker]

I know next to nothing about art and design, so maybe I'm just completely mistaken but...isn't Nowi one of the few Awakening characters who has large eyes? I was also under the impression that aside from a select few, Kozaki preferred to draw the eyes more realistically.

Maybe it's because people have gotten so used to anime styles but no. Not really. The kids in Fates especially have this.

[Folt]

Not really. The eyes of the Fates kids are still placed much more realistically in comparison to Nino's, and would still be smaller.

[Anacybele]

To be fair, he was commissioned for the two games that stressed marriage and self-inserts, meaning the characters had to generally be young and attractive enough to appeal to the audience. Yeah, you'll have some units that deviate from the teen-to-young-adult-look, but for the most part, the characters were probably designed with the limitation that they ought to be sexually appealing. In past Fire Emblems, this wasn't an issue.

Yeah, but women don't have to be going around in their panties and have huge balloon boobs to look attractive. In fact, I find this UNattractive. And plenty of fans say that they find some Tellius characters or Elibe characters attractive. And men...well, it's actually rather hard to sexualize men. Sure, you can make a muscular shirtless dude like Vaike, but men walking around shirtless for any reason in itself, even with muscles, isn't really a sexual thing. Men do it to go swimming or get some sleep, or even fight.

Now giving a man large balls or something, that could be sexualizing them. And I'm glad that the FE team hasn't gone this far. They've had some opportunities (Frederick, for instance, with those tight pants of his, though he's near that line...), but Kozaki hasn't drawn any males with blatantly large genitals.

[Thedeathby2]

I got to say the new art director is really bad at designing armor. Kellam's orange and grey armor look terrible enough in his potrait, but his ingame model makes him look even worse especially with the lack of feet. I don't see why the art director is obsessed with giving characters oversized armor it just makes the look terrible, in one of Kozaki's sketches Effie looked so much better in something that was actually her size.