Research Artist #3: Tetsuya Nomura

Okay, so I like video games. My favorites are Japanese Role Playing Games (JRPGs) in which you can explore a vast world, meet well written and developed characters, and usually wind up saving the world. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a grand ol' adventure. Tetsuya Nomura is a video game director and character designer for one of the biggest video game companies out there, Square Enix. He is most well known for his work in the Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts series. He is often mocked (lovingly and not-so-lovingly) for drawing characters with any of the following traits:

• Ridiculously spiky hair
• Adrogenous features on males
• An absurd amount of zippers, belts, and/or other forms of accessories in outfits
• Oversized weaponry, or weird kinds of weapons that wouldn't even function in the real world

Still, the characters he created have helped bring some of my favorite games to life, and there is something in his style that appeals to me. I briefly considered a career like his, designing characters for video games, but I don't think that's likely to happen. Anyway, here are some examples of his work (feel free to laugh at some of the absurdity and play "Guess Which One of These is a Guy). I don't have a link to a personal website or an online gallery this time, though.