Following the teasing of some prototype figures for Wonder Festival 2014, character designer Kyoji Asano speaks on the difficulties of illustrating the Pyscho-Pass characters.
Psycho-Pass character designer Kyoji Asano has the job of taking the original character designs of Akira Amano to adapt them for not only animation but also for 3D works, such as figures. The figures are set to be revealed this weekend at Japan’s Winter Wonder Festival 2014.
Asano’s job as character designer involved work in taking Amano’s designs and cleaning them up for animation, specifically cleaning up layered lines into a single line. Asano also helped create active poses for the characters, something he said does not come freely to him. To help in this, he collects reference images from photos and movies he thinks suits a particular character. Out of the characters Shinya Kogami, Akane Tsunemori, and Shogo Makishima, Asano said Kogami was the easiest to draw; this was partly due to Kogami’s angry nature, but Asano also frequently draws Kogami. He holds his gun strongly in one hand with a strong, feet shoulder-length apart stance. In comparison, Asano illustrated Akane holding her gun with two hands due to its weight, and she holds it low while running.
But of the three, Asano points to Makishima as the most difficult to illustrate. Makishima is complex, and his facial expression often doesn’t match how he precisely feels. In particular, his face is hard to articulate, Asano said. He called Makishima scary, but he often smiles and laughs.
Asano hopes Psycho-Pass fans enjoy the to-be-revealed figures. He never expected to see his “flat illustrations” become three-dimensional.
Psycho-Pass first aired as a 22-episode anime series about inspectors and enforcers using a system that measures people’s mental states for tracking down criminals. A second season is currently under production.
Source: Union Creative (Japanese) via CrunchyRoll
