Daigo Ikeno

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Ikeno, illustrator and art director for Capcom with a focus on promotional work and character design. There's usually no context in these designs besides the character itself; their purpose is to effectively represent the character as a one-off piece of art. Sometimes the character is doing something and sometimes they're simply posing like a model for a photographer, or a carved statue. Taking the context out of the image really changes it. The focus is entirely on the character, not where it is, why it's there or what it's doing (in relation to its setting)

I'm going to look at his promotional/concept art. These depict a character in an illustration that makes clever use of colour, gesture, details and brush strokes that reflects and emphasises the personality of the character.

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In each piece above, there's something within the illustration that represents the character, from its gesture to the colour of the aura. Colours can be linked to personality traits and emotions; here's a colour wheel I found online that that does a good job of linking them. It's not an official representation of personality traits, it's more of a feeling that the colour infers. They aren't all spot on, but it's relatively close.

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Colour Theory - Changing The Message

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Above, I've altered the colour of the clothes and aura of an evil character to see its effects. The default purple is quite mysterious and powerful, altering to medium dark blue makes him seem calmer, more collected. With the green, he seems more approachable, as if you could trust and turn to him in need, (perhaps why green is associated with "Go"), yellow implies that he's more energetic and happy, red makes him look angrier, as if he's about to launch an attack, the icy blue makes him look sharp and cold, but equally hot, as a bright blue is the hottest part of a flame, and lastly taking the colour away entirely makes him look confident, deceptive and deadly, as if it's the last thing you'll see before facing this warrior. In conclusion, changing the colour completely alters the context of the character.

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Depicting a Character and/or Concept in Statues

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"Because of the nature of the hero it represented, the statue soon came to symbolize the defense of civil liberties embodied in the Republic of Florence"

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Statues are made to represent a something or someone, and quite often through association, to symbolise an event or concept. The reason I'm looking at the nature of statues is because Ikeno's pieces are for a similar purpose. There's much concept behind what the character is and what it represents, but that's the nature of a statue; it represents a concept, it doesn't necessarily show it, as, say, an illustrated graphic novel would.

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In a more relatable argument, these Amiibos, produced by nintendo, are made to physically represent their characters. The character is doing a pose that reflects their personality, and is something that helps define them.
The top left we have the determined, confident hero, Fox, traits emphasised by his sprint and motivated expression.
The top right we see Samus, although in a very heavy duty armour, she is a very beautiful, slender character underneath. This is represented in her pristine, shiny finish and perfect cat-walk posture.
Bottom left we see Kirby, this cute little character that you just wanna squeeze, is sat down as if perhaps he's fallen over. He just wants to play, and we can see that in his adorable face and gesture.
And lastly, bottom right we see Mario, the hero of Nintendo in quite a neutral, ready for battle stance, wielding fire (something he's associated with). The fire represents that he was the spark, the kindled flame that helped ignite Nintendo's success. There's not much else to say except that his expression and posture suggests that he's ready for anything, and happy to take on the challenge, something that's very appropriate to the character.

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Experiment: Sketches

Below are my sketches for my experiments. I'll be adding some colour and digital effects in photoshop next. Each illustration puts emphasis on the character's personalities. The first, she's feisty but intelligent, being reflected by the inky effects' direction and the well executed roundhouse.

The second character is protective, defensive but has a dominant personality, he protects the people he loves, keeps them close, represented by his arms in the guarding position close to his chest, but his legs, spread apart wide represents his dominance (as he is the leader of his settlement in the story).

And the last illustration shows a very graceful but focused character. She's on a mission and knows what she wants, implied by her expression, the grace of course is reflected in her floating pose.

Development:

For this character I've chosen an orange/red theme to imply anger and passion. The orange applies very heavily to her character, she's a teenager and is going through a lot, leaving her feeling confused and helpless. Mixed with the red suggests that she's a very conflicted, troubled character.
One clean kick is her gesture in this image, reflecting her efficiency and intelligence over brawn and aggression.

I've discussed the pose for this character already.

He's powerful, aware, proud, respected, appreciated, loyal and important, which is why I've chosen a green to represent this character. Being the leader of his settlement in the story he's from, these traits apply to him.

My last character, Tahlia. I feel that yellow seems to suit her, I can't picture her in any other colour. According to the colour wheel, this yellow reflects a sensual and hopeful energy, which is very appropriate for her. Inspired by Quentin Tarentino's Kill Bill, she wields a sword too (not shown here). I've done strokes of paint implying fast movement, and there aren't too many splashes of static paint, helping emphasise the movement. Her graceful gesture adds to the sensual trait she has, and the fact she's floating upwards implies that she's hopeful and strives to achieve.

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Ikeno's promotional art is heavily influenced by the same inspiration for Statues. His pieces represent characters and their concepts. Some of the pieces have become iconic in the Fighting Game Scene, like symbols for the characters, and in association, the real people who play as these characters in the games. The art helps us to get to know the characters, without really knowing anything at all. This style of Visual Language is very symbolic, and is what sets Ikeno apart from other Illustrators



Bibliography and Reference List
1, http://www.pinterest.com/valdeirroch/daigo-ikeno/ (Capcom, Street Fighter 3 Third Strike Character Select Portraits)
2. https://img.neoseeker.com/v_concept_art.php?caid=10898 (Capcom, Super Street Fighter 4, Various Promotional Art Pieces)
3. https://elainthemiddle.wordpress.com/2013/02/06/emotion-color-wheel/ (ELA, Middle School English, Language Arts, 2013)
4. http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=9575 (George Washington sculpture, Horatio Greenough)
5. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Michelangelo-David_JB01.JPG (Jörg Bittner Unna, Wikipedia, 2015)
6. (This theory was first proposed by Saul Levine "The Location of Michelangelo's David: The Meeting of January 25, 1504, The Art Bulletin 56 (1974): 31–49)
7. http://www.nintendo.com/amiibo (Nintendo Amiibo webpage, 2015)