User:Axeken/Tetsuya Nomura

Oh no! The water! I'm in big trouble if I don't fetch it!
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Tetsuya Nomura is a Japanese video game director and character designer in the famous Square Enix game company. He is the Director, Character Designer, Concept Design Artist, and Base Story Writer for the Kingdom Hearts series. He is also known for creating and directing many of the games and characters in the Final Fantasy franchise, notably the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII and other games outside each franchise.

Nomura's work with SquareSoft and Square Enix

Nomura's first job in SquareSoft was to make battle graphics for Final Fantasy IV. He then went to work as the graphic director and minor character designer for Final Fantasy VI under Yoshitaka Amano. His big break ,in 1995, was when he was employed as lead designer for Final Fantasy VII. Nomura then went on and contributed Final Fantasy VIII and Final Fantasy X before creating his own franchise Kingdom Hearts with Disney Interactive Studios and Square Enix. He also directed a CGI animated film called Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children which was released in North America on April 25, 2006. This was also Nomura's film debut, and he also re-designed the characters from Final Fantasy VII for the film. He wrote some of the lyrics for the Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack.

Many designs, quotes, battle terms and items are inspired form the Final Fantasy series and Disney.

The major games he is currently working on are Final Fantasy Verses XIII and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance.

Style of artwork

Tetsuya Nomura's games tend to be "modern" and "sci-fi". These games, in particular, also tend to have storylines that are darker in tone. In addition, his character names tend to draw inspiration from physical science and weather, in particular, the sky, land, and sea; the central character almost always has the sky-based name, such as Sora meaning "Sky" in Japanese or Ventus meaning "Wind" in Latin.

Nomura's style is very similar to the traditional anime style of drawing, but he also draws upon western influences as well. Many of Nomura's character designs for games such as Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts have been criticized for the overuse of belts and zippers, as well as for many of the male characters often have androgynous appearances, and that many of his female characters are shown wearing very revealing outfits; it has become a joke amongst fans to lightly tease Nomura's designs for these characteristics. This can noticeably be seen in Nomura's Final Fantasy X character design of Lulu, as a large portion of her dress consisted of only belts. However, his designs became much more "normal" in comparison to before the work on Kingdom Hearts II was finished. More recent designs from him, such as Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII or Aqua from Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep, do not show any excessive use of belts or zippers, but instead focus on creative accessories like ribbons or very individually designed jackets.

Nomura's art style was slowly losing its anime influences but this all changed in Nomura's participation in Kingdom Hearts. Due to the immense amount of western influences from the Disney characters in Kingdom Hearts, Nomura adopted a much more anime/cartoon look for his characters and this style has been later reused again in Kingdom Hearts II. However, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core and Dissidia Final Fantasy featured much more mature looking designs and were defined by a very detailed shading. In the Nintendo DS game, The World Ends With You, Nomura departed from the style he used in Kingdom Hearts and instead, relied on a much more traditional anime look for the characters even though there are still similarities to his Kingdom Hearts style. However, recent artworks of him for Kingdom Hearts show yet another change in his style. While the anatomy of the characters is relatively unchanged, the eyes of the younger characters like Roxas now look much more innocent then before. Also, he carried over his Final Fantasy coloring style to the Kingdom Hearts franchise.

Nomura's style has been defined by the vibrant colors in which he uses as well as the unique amalgamation of eastern as well as western influences. His work has become very well known in a large part due to Final Fantasy, and his style of artwork has been loved and criticized by many, mostly by fans of Final Fantasy to Final Fantasy VI, due to the big departure from the traditional Japanese style of Yoshitaka Amano, who was responsible for the earlier Final Fantasy titles.

Gallery

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  Sora's original design by Nomura.

• Riku KH Artwork.png

  Riku's artwork by Nomura.

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  Kairi's school clothes design by Nomura.

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  Terra's original design by Nomura.

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  Ventus's original design by Nomura.

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  Aqua's original design by Nomura.

• Sora, Kairi, and Riku (Concept Art).png

  Early sketch of Riku, Sora, and Kairi by Nomura.