Entry 3 - Insights and Findings

Here are some insights and finding about both artist I had discovered in my research.

VOFAN

His interest in drawing started from reading manga when I was young.

He loved a game called Virtual On, and the fact that I’m a big FAN of the game… I did not put much thought into coming up with a pen-name so I just used VOFAN.

A self taught artist

Found his current visual style around 10 years ago. Before that, he would draw and illustrate in the style influenced by my favourite artist at the time but as I kept on drawing, I managed to develop my own style and I stopped following in the shadows of other artists.

Recent inspirations are Okama-sensei and Makoto Shinkai.

His works are based of the feeling and personality he desires

He was graduated in Department of Architecture

Pastel colors with no outlines utilising shades to denote depth and different objects

Most images use soft and natural lighting and compositions are similar to photographs (likely because of his initial works in photography) with clean cropping, lots of background and interest perspectives.

Learnt photography for drawing at first, but photography have become one of his hobby now.

Skills learnt from camera are useful in illustration, such as the composition and the skills to color.

SHOJI MEGURO

Given his passion for technology, it was only natural that his interests extended to electronic musical instruments

He was encouraged by his mother to learn the Electone organ and also went on to learn the trombone

As a kid he was interested in Classical music

During his highschool years he became interested in

T-Square, jazz fusion band

Casiopea, jazz fusion band

Herbet Alpert

Graduated with Fluid Dynamics

Joined Atlus, suffered from lack of creative freedom

Casted aside his ego during work

Crucial point of his career came was the creative freedom on one game Digital Devil Saga

Popularity came from the Persona series, staple song "Aria of the Soul"

Continued to produce more Jazz mix Rock music as his central focus

Directed the port over version of one of the games

Cites T-Square, Casiopea, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky as some of his musical influences

Musical characteristics are good, smooth linked tunes

Entry 2 - Sound Artist

Shoji Meguro

Shoji Meguro is a composer and director at Atlus best known for his work on the Megami Tensei series. Born in Tokyo on June 4, 1971, Meguro became familiar with technology from a young age, given his parents owned a small family-run factory. Given his passion for technology, it was only natural that his interests extended to electronic musical instruments. When four or five, he was encouraged by his mother to learn the Electone organ and also went on to learn the trombone. As a child, Meguro wasn’t fond of mainstream music and instead listened primarily to the classical music of Beethoven and Tchaikovsky. The themes for several film and television programs also left quite an impression on him, and he went on to interpret such scores on Electone. The artist’s tastes diversified during junior high school. He grew to enjoy jazz fusion artists such as Herb Alpert, Casiopea, and T-Square; although distinct from his current musicality, he gained long-term inspirations from their smooth melodic songs. He even started to warm to J-Pop. While Meguro wasn’t particularly academic, particularly struggling at maths, he became very passionate about playing music.

Shoji Meguro was selected as my inspiration because most of my passion for video games came from the music behind the game. Often listening to his works motivates to push on forward to my dream and unlike most sound artist, he found fame from his job rather from his previous works. His job as a music composer has really pushed him forward among many sound artists.

Exmaples of his work can be found here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eh3FgVv24-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcE4-6QGgpc

Entry 1- Visual Artist

Vofan

VOFAN is a Taiwanese artist mostly known for his unique, border-less art style that uses a lot of bright pastel colors and soft, natural lighting. He is the illustrator for the Monogatari light novels, having drawn every cover in the series along with illustration pages and promotional artwork.

Not my first pick, but one of my many inspirations, VOFAN was one of the early artists that piqued my interest into illustration. What did however, made him my selection was his ability to learn something new in order to improve on his craft. 

Here are some examples of his work.