Video: Watch Acclaimed Manga Artist Kozaki Yusuke Draw Felicia From Fire Emblem Fates

I'm a seasoned artist and not a fan of manga in general or fire emblem, but I'll certainly have a watch

I'm so jealous at this artist's skills

Off-topic, looking at Felicia, I'm definitely keeping Perma-deaths off.

Wow, neat! I wish I could draw like that, but I should probably stop saying that and continue to practice. Anyway, it's always nice to see how an artist does their artwork.

I really hate the character designs in this game and I hope they hire someone else for the next fire emblem.

@Mijzelffan what?! The character designs for this game are about 10x better than the designs for all previous games maybe excluding Awakening, I don't know what to tell you

Looks good and I hope they don´t hire someone else for the next fire emblem.

@ZurrrrBlattTron
Better than Senri Kita? You're drunk.

Ok this bothers me a bit.

Considering that Japan is able to make their own custom engines and softwares, why is it that to draw, they use Photoshop?

His art for FE finally looks decent for this game and is much better than the disastrous crap he drew for Awakening, but I hope they change artist for the next game. Considering they never use the same artist for more than 2 games, they likely will.
I would like to see Fujisaka Kimihiko-sensei or Tsunako-sensei do an FE game. Fujisaka's art style would go well with a non-casual, Radiant Dawn-style home console FE game while Tsunako's cutesy and pretty art style could go well with the same style of casual gameplay that Awakening and Fates have.

I can't deny the talent here.

But I like the old fire emblem art style way more than the new anime/Manga art style.

@Artwark
Why not? Photoshop is still excellent for drawing and coloring. An artist can use any tool at their disposal. Perhaps Yusuke-sensei prefers to use Photoshop.

@ZurrrrBlattTron The early games had quite poor art (but okay character design), most likely due to the fact that Intelligent Systems only worked with hardware (development kits for Nintendo consoles) before and assisted Nintendo with some programming (Super Metroid for example). My guess is that they didn't hire an artist in the beginning, but let one of the current engineers or programmers with moderate skills do the job.

At some point Sachiko Wada joined and she was first tasked with making the in-game pixel portraits, but she was eventually responsible for character design (FE6-10). In my opinion her designs were far better for many reasons. Face features were a lot more varied, outfits and armors had a very nice balance between fun, colorful fantasy and viable realism while female characters were never turned into sex objects, which is sadly what most artists in the gaming industry do these days.

Kozaki Yusuke is incredibly talented, but his style is much more mainstream and fanservice oriented, which is a sad development for the series. Outfits are both his strength and weakness. For example, his interpretation of Anna is the one I like the best in the series, but then there are characters like Tharja and Nowi... And now a bunch of maids in Fire Emblem if.

@AVahne
Not familiar with the artists, but yeah. I would like a FE game with a more realistic tone and the classic gameplay.

What's up with the hate on his character designs?

This guys got to be one of the most talented character artists alive today. Awakening had some of THE best character art I've ever seen- And I'm so glad they brought him back for this game.

Oh well, most people love it so...

@AVahne After seeing the Nohr route, I can safely tell you it is not casual gameplay. Durability is not the be all, end all of Fire Emblem. Gaiden should tell you that.

Waifu right there hehe

@Siskan - "Kozaki Yusuke is incredibly talented, but his style is much more mainstream and fanservice oriented, which is a sad development for the series. Outfits are both his strength and weakness. For example, his interpretation of Anna is the one I like the best in the series, but then there are characters like Tharja and Nowi... And now a bunch of maids in Fire Emblem if."

This It's just true. Why IS agreed with this artists style is beyond me, probably time constraints and they rolled with it or just thinking Awakening's complete style was the way to go?

I love the look of the new characters in the new Fire Emblem! They totally make me want to see what wacky dialogue they have between each other! Can't wait to give this game a try!

@97alexk That is exactly what I was thinking haha.

@IceAnt573
It's not just the loss of durability that irks me; that's just the tip of the iceberg, or rather the final nail in the FE coffin. They've removed so many things with Shadow Dragon since it was supposed to be a remake of the original, and only kept the weapons triangle. With Awakening, since it was a brand new game, they could've brought everything back. Things like the magic trinity, height advantages, weapon weight, biorhythm, and other things. Instead, they threw all the old things away and just built on the terrible reclassing system they introduced with Shadow Dragon (admittedly it's at least better than it used to be) and replaced Rescue with Pair-up. Even legendary weapons became insignificant toys.
It seems like now they're just rebooting the entire franchise by throwing almost all the old out and taking things in a new direction. I guess it's not a bad thing, but these games don't feel like Fire Emblem.
I guess Nohr MIGHT appeal more to me with the higher difficulty, but the overall gameplay system is still as casual as Hoshido.

@AVahne excuse me? Senri Kita had the ugliest character designs the GBA games had nice designs but the radiant games had characters that looked like they came from a generic, corny 80's Anime

I'll give the longer version a watch later, always fun to see artist processes.

Regarding character design, I really like the GBA Fire Emblem (Lyn FTW!), but I enjoyed Awakening as much too. At the end of the day, his FE characters is popular, so IS definitely did a right choice. I'm happy to see him returned.

@AVahne Do you not know the gameplay elements that Fates has? Personal skills are back, Capture is back on select units, Shove is back on a specific class, Rescue is back on a specific class, a new skill that switches your unit with an enemy unit after you kill the enemy unit has been added, Pair Up has been reworked and split into Attack and Guard Stance, reclassing does not reset levels anymore, Dragon's Vein changes map design (and make it more interesting) and be beneficial to some units and detrimental to others. Weapon weight got replaced with a more complicated system of an individual weapon having its own benefits and weaknesses. The magic triangle hardly meant much in the GBA games and met practically nothing in Radiant Dawn with only two dark magic units you can't even get on a first playthrough. If you're talking about the wind, fire, thunder triangle PoR/RD had, that hardly meant much either with magic units having a high RES stat.

I swear, whenever the topic is Fire Emblem the comment section is filled with complaints.

I guess to anyone who says that Kozaki's style is very fanservice-ish. Keep in mind that he doesn't have the final say on things and that IS is the one that decides what should be used and what shouldn't.
Also keep in mind that Kozaki doesn't draw the entire character. He simply does a concept base for characters while another artists does the armour.
If you're going to complain about the character design then don't blame it Kozaki, who doesn't have the final say and just does concept base instead of the entire characters.

Felicia is too adorable.

@ZurrrrBlattTron Yes because Mrs. Mc Booby Lady is better than Lyn. You can't seriously say the New Fire Emblem designs are better than the old without making yourself look like you just start out with Awakening. Corny 80s anime designs are miles better than weebish post 2000s anime designs.

@Chaoz No, it´s not superior to Lyn, but this artist knows his stuff and it clearly shows in this video. You´re just one of the many FE fanboys that are stuck in the past and cannot accept that the series can´t just re-use the same type of art in modern iterations of the games. I admit that I prefer the older looks of fire emblem, but the new models for the characters are certainly appealing, this is a game that truly excels for me as a fire emblem fan.

I LOVED THE DESIGN!

@Chaoz I got into the Fire Emblem franchise before Awakening and even I believe that the art here looks better than the older ones. the characters are vibrant and colorful and varied. the art is clean and smooth unlike games prior. Hell, Marth looks better than ever in this game than his previous incarnations.

also...facepalm...you're misusing the term for a weeaboo...don't be a jerk

@Chaoz Not really. It's all based on personal taste, so you can't really say for certain that the old designs are better or vice versa.

@SamirMalik Weeb4life, yo

@Artwark anywhere can make their own software and engines, it's not a Japan exclusive skill.

Plus, if the artist is comfortable with and experienced in Photoshop, why go to all the effort of making a whole new bit of software which they'll then have to learn just for the sake of it? That makes no sense at all, it would be a complete waste of resources.

@DreamOn What kind of art do you make? I'm kind of interested xD.

@Fudgenuggets a weeb obsesses over everything from Japan. as you can clearly see, I didn't

@Therockbrothers Graphic design for business materials. Mostly boring art but I like it

I love this art...and I looooved Awakening's art as well. I mean, I may be a little biased since I grew up and currently still quite enjoy the manga/anime fanservicey style, but you have to admit that the art is definitely not bad, in fact very good in my opinion, even if it isn't your cup of tea. The artist is very talented as well. I will that my first FE game was Awakening, so I may have a small soft spot for it and it's art style, along with my background, but all the same, the art is still not bad.