The character designer for Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem, known as toi8, recently posted on the game’s official blog and gave some insight about himself and his part on the game. In addition, toi8 has also been involved in projects such as .hack//The Movie and Chain Chronicle. Here is what he had to say:
Hello. I’m toi8, and I’ll be in charge of the main character designs for Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem. As for when we began talking about this title, it was around the time I finished working on a piece of light novel cover art. It was around the time that I was handling one-shot work, and asked myself “what should I do next?”
As part of the generation that grew up on Nintendo consoles such as the Famicom and Super Famicom, the name “Nintendo” has a very special meaning to me. I remember being very excited upon hearing about the [Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem] collaboration.
Years later, I’ve finally been able to see it take form right before my eyes, and I find myself filled with deep emotion.
Now, let’s quickly talk a little bit about the character designs. The stage of the game is set in Shibuya, and the background shows a gorgeous world, so the character design’s direction will go with a highly saturated, gorgeous look.
Everything I’ve drawn up until now has been low saturation, so this will be a challenge of colors!
Siliconera, who translated the blog post, summarizes the next part in which toi8 describes the differences in the kind of work he does. Essentially, toi8 explains that oftentimes artists only illustrate “single-sheet” work on a project, like concept art or a cover, which he personally finds is the type of work he prefers. Designers, meanwhile, have far more work and responsibility, and thus he has accepted his role as Character Designer as a personal challenge. Continuing, he says:
I’ve received help from all kinds of people, and as a result we’ve achieved the characters and the backgrounds shown in trailer, which is something I haven’t been able to do up until now, and I’m proud of it.
As far as characters go, we have discussions such as “what should we do in terms of bust size?” with suggestions like “they could be large and have glasses to go with them,” and “no, glasses are no good,” and so on.
The character art he provided in the blog post (seen above) is that of Tsubasa Oribe, a character seen prominently in the Nintendo Direct trailer, wearing glasses here, probably just to make that discussion about busts and glasses all the more poignant. In any case, it is certainly a good thing to hear candidly from those working on the game, especially those who feel challenged like toi8 is. Though information is still pretty scarce, every little bit of information about Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem is good to hear, especially straight from the designers’ mouths. The crossover project is being developed exclusively for Wii U with a TBD release date.
