• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.

Tomomi Kobayashi's art is one of the most striking in the industry, worked on one of Square's most popular IP, yet still doesn't have a wikipedia page

Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,847
Kazuko Shibuya was the sprite artist and graphics artist from Final Fantasy ONE to NINE and didn't have her wikipedia page until 2019. Her work was absolutely crucial to the series, she was the one who came up with the distinctive blue style of text boxes in the series. But at least it finally happened after her name was put on the map for her immense contributions to the series.

Tomomi Kobayashi has it bad too despite her immense feat. She is literally the character designer of the SaGa series, the same kind of work as Tetsuya Nomura, Akihiko Yoshida, and other character designers from the same company. From 1992 to 2019. 26 years career with the series. It's baffling she never had a page to this day. I just don't get it. I'm ass with editing wikipedia, the editors there shot down everything I ever contributed :(

Anyway, art appreciation page. I don't think there is any artist at Square who has her level of variety. All her characters are so strikingly different and she has been to the task for 26 years. She has the most impressive record at the company, and that company is a powerhouse of artists.

ILLUSTRATIONS

UfslyuJ.png

0NJhu4a.png

UcEjmvH.png

ABpexYk.png

HNOFEvG.png

Igtep38.png

xz8QEzF.png


CHARACTER DESIGNS

MirzOko.png
uhRVM2u.png
jJ2lhUb.png
bA931PC.png
KfLJETa.png
O4Rhjpc.png

LsklOKA.png

X8t5ute.jpg

DAXxE7J.jpg

jlJlbva.jpg

pB7rAy5.jpg

neoczH0.jpg

N8NSaG6.jpg

MKCKbWb.jpg

yti5odotfjek.jpg

red_alkaizerqekn1.png

ergfghfghfhb0jm9.jpg



screenshot_2019-11-112ckm4.png

screenshot_2019-11-11w2jwq.png

screenshot_2019-11-11zsk58.png


I have much much more but I must stop, I hope you appreciated this art of someone as unappreciated as her.

Romancing SaGa 3 was released just today and the designs and graphics of this game were done by Tomomi Kobayshi and Kazuko Shibuya, worth checking out the work of these two skilled artists working together.
 

Syril

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,895
Yeah her art is amazing but I've had a lot of trouble finding it because her name isn't well-known on the English-speaking internet. What you just posted is the most art of hers I've ever seen in one place.
 
808s & Villainy

808s & Villainy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
42,700
Honestly always preferred her art to Amano's. His usually had wonky proportions. But art also seems to have the issue of all the men looking like pretty boys, but then again so does Ayami Kojima's art (Castlevania) and I'm a fan of that soo 🤷🏽‍♂️
 
Hanbei

Hanbei

Member
Nov 11, 2017
4,089
I didn't see "image heavy" in the title, so my Internet connexion just collapsed.
 
Bomblord

Bomblord

Self-requested ban
Banned
Jan 11, 2018
6,390
Nothing is preventing you from making the page OP that's the entire concept behind wikipedia which is a crowd sourced encyclopedia.
 
ryushe

ryushe

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,813
I said goddamn...

I've seen a few her pieces before but I am also guilty in not knowing who the artist was. Will definitely remember that name from now on.
 
Kirabochips

Kirabochips

Member
Oct 29, 2017
70
She's the true heir to Yoshitaka Amano. Such a shame her work was overshadowed by her male counterparts. Of course, it doesn't help that SaGa isn't that well known in the West. Anyway she deserves far more recognition in the industry.
 
OP
OP
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,847
Hanbei said:
I didn't see "image heavy" in the title, so my Internet connexion just collapsed.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
God, I'm sorry. I didn't have the space in the title but I also entirely forgot about it.

Bomblord said:
Nothing is preventing you from making the page OP that's the entire concept behind wikipedia which is a crowd sourced encyclopedia.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
I know but I'm very bad at wikipedia and as I said editors shoots down my contributions most of the time despite being sourced and stuff. Video game editors are no jokes
 
joe1138

joe1138

Member
Oct 28, 2017
925
Thank you for sharing, OP. I really appreciate the effort in shining the spotlight on an artist who might have otherwise gone unnoticed by most.
 
Fjordson

Fjordson

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,010
My god. Absolutely incredible. Ashamed to say I didn't know her name before this morning, thanks OP.

Any chance she has an artbook out there?
 
MilkBeard

MilkBeard

Member
Oct 25, 2017
7,778
I always loved her artwork. As others said, on par with, if not better than, Amano's character designs.
 
Bane

Bane

The Fallen
Oct 27, 2017
5,904
Fantastic stuff, very similar to Amano. And while I do prefer his style, this is great on its own. It is indeed a shame she's so unknown.
 
Maxim726x

Maxim726x

Avenger
Oct 27, 2017
13,048
I remember really liking the cover art for SaGa Frontier back in the day...

His work is instantly recognizable.
 

Deleted member 3093

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,956
Not at all surprising, Wikipedia is terrible on every level when it comes to women. Real women, fictional women, and female editors are very much deprioritized.
 
Garlador

Garlador

Banned
Oct 30, 2017
14,131
I admit, I was unfamiliar with them. For someone who actively seeks out video game art and artists, that kind of blows my mind they've been at Square Enix so long and slipped under my radar.
 
PlanetSmasher

PlanetSmasher

The Abominable Showman
Member
Oct 25, 2017
115,460
Controversial statement: I actually like her art more than Amano's. They both come from a similar school of artistic thought (and both have a trend toward designing obvious pretty people), but Kobayashi's art is far, far, FAR more diverse. Hair color, skin tone, hairstyles, Kobayashi actually has her characters differentiate far more than Amano does, especially since Amano loves to go for low-detail color work, leading to a lot of emaciated, ghost-pale platinum blonde people who are really only differentiated by their clothing.

Kobayashi's female characters also very much feel like women designed by a woman, meaning her female characters exude far more personality in artistic posing and facial design alone rather than just being "HERE IS THE FETISH I PICKED FOR THIS GIRL TO BE".

She's great. I wish she was getting more work.
 
AllEchse

AllEchse

Member
Oct 29, 2017
4,125
Her art is really nice, but I guess not many people even knowing about the SaGa series limits her reach.
 

Deleted member 29280

Banned
Nov 1, 2017
1,844
Those are some good illustrations. But I'm going assume she's not as popular internationally because the art and its style kind of speaks "budget Amano" and has worked for less popular games than Final Fantasy.
 
Wulfric

Wulfric

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,963
Damn, with that style, it's no wonder she was the one responsible for translating Amano's art into sprites. Incredible stuff.
 
OP
OP
Dreamboum

Dreamboum

Member
Oct 28, 2017
22,847

Deleted member 3093

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
4,956
Dreamboum said:
The IRPO team are all gorgeous and it hurts me fuse scenario was cut, especially considering Ren was Emelia's fiancé


that's dope!!!! idk if it's considered reliable source but this interview is extremely valuable between kazuma kaneko aznd tomomi kobayashi http://shmuplations.com/kobayashikaneko/

thank you
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Dawg I literally pushed for shmuplations to be a reliable source a couple months ago so I could add them to the Ayla, Lucca, and Celes articles ahaha. Don't worry, I have a ~lot~ of sources to add, including multiple Shmuplations ones.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.