Fumihide Aoki
Fumihide Aoki (青木文秀, Aoki Fumihide) is an illustrator and graphics artist who began working on the Shining series at Sonic! Software Planning with Shining Force II, a game for which the characters were designed by SUEZEN.
Alongside Masayuki Hashimoto, Aoki is one of two graphics artists credited for Shining Force II. Hashimoto has characterized Aoki as the game's main graphics artist and has recalled Aoki drawing the in-game character portraits.[5]
After the completion of Shining Force CD, a game with characters by Hiroshi Kajiyama, Fumihide Aoki moved to Camelot for the production of Beyond the Beyond, a PlayStation title with characters by Ami Shibata. At Camelot, Aoki continued to support the development of games in the Shining series including Shining Wisdom, another Kajiyama game, as well as the Shin Yamanouchi titles Shining the Holy Ark and Shining Force III. Aoki's work on Shining Force III includes some of the portraits found on the Premium Disc and in the Shining Force III Official Setting Compendium.[1]
Aoki has since remained at Camelot. Because the work of individual artists is rarely attributed and Aoki was joined by other more prominent illustrators, the extent of his contributions to the Golden Sun series are not well documented and are mostly inferred from artwork posted by Aoki on his Instagram. He appears to be responsible for some of the artwork for summons in the first two Golden Sun games and for some character art from Golden Sun: Dark Dawn. Fumihide Aoki's illustration of the summon named Catastrophe in the English version of the games was featured on a magazine cover.[citation needed – discuss]
Although Aoki was never a principal character designer on the Shining or Golden Sun series, he is recognized for designing the character Waluigi for Mario Tennis. In working on Mario Tennis, Aoki also created a design for a proposed counterpart and rival to Peach along the lines of a hypothetical Walupeachi, or Wapeach as the character has become popularly known by fans.[6][7]
After the press coverage of the Walupeachi artwork posted on his Instagram, Fumihide Aoki set his account visibility to private, leading to speculation of interference from Nintendo.[8][9] Aoki's Instagram, which is no longer available, also featured illustrations showing the artist's contributions to Shining Force III and the Golden Sun series. All of the artwork previously posted to Fumihide Aoki's Instagram page has been preserved in the gallery linked below.
Gallery
External Links
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yuzumpo/
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Shining Force III Official Setting Compendium (シャイニング・フォースIII 公式設定資料集, Shainingu Fōsu tsuri Kōshiki Settei Shiryōshuu). SoftBank, June 30, 1999.
- ↑ Synbios illustration, Fumihide Aoki, Instagram. September 26, 2023.
- ↑ Medion illustration, Fumihide Aoki, Instagram. September 26, 2023.
- ↑ Julian illustration, Fumihide Aoki, Instagram. September 26, 2023.
- ↑ "Shining Force II – 1993 Developer Roundtable Interview", shmuplations. [Archived] May 30, 2021. English translation of text originally published in "Shining Force II Attack Special Strategy Book Vol. 2", Mega Drive FAN, December 1993 edition. Tokuma Shoten Intermedia, December 15, 1993.
- ↑ Wapeach concept, Fumihide Aoki, Instagram. December 1, 2023.
- ↑ "Waluigi creator reveals scrapped ‘Bad Peach’ designs — behold Wapeach", Polygon. Michael McWhertor, December 1, 2023.
- ↑ "Wapeach, an evil Princess Peach variant, revealed by Waluigi designer", GamesHub. Leah J. Williams, December 6, 2023. [Archived] December 29, 2023.
- ↑ "Waluigi creator shares then removes designs of Wario-style Peach", Eurogamer. Liv Ngan, December 4, 2023. [Archived] December 13, 2023.
Staff Directory
| Shining Staff | |
|---|---|
| Artists | Yoshitaka Tamaki・Hiroshi Kajiyama・SUEZEN・Fumihide Aoki・Shin Yamanouchi・Tony Taka・Masaki Hirooka・Yuriko Nishiyama・pako・Noizi Ito・Shishizaru・HACCAN・Ryota Murayama |
| Musicians | Masahiko Yoshimura・Motoaki Takenouchi・Motoi Sakuraba |
| Writers | Masaki Wachi・Sami Shinosaki |
| Translators | Victor Ireland |
| Programmers | Kan Naito・Yasuhiro Taguchi・P. E. Jareth Hein |
| Directors | Kenji Orimo |
| Producers | Hiroyuki Takahashi・Shugo Takahashi・Tsuyoshi Sawada |
| Related Staff | |
| Artists | Masanori Sato |
| Translators | Jon Rodgers |