Character and Monster Designers.

[DSP]

So I've recently gotten into Garo and I've got to say the Horror designs are absolutely beautiful, it was to my pleasant surprise that it was Yasushi Nirasawa who designed them, whose work on blade and den-o has included some of my most favourite monster designs.

So the reason I'm making this thread is that I wanted to find out about the different, suit/monster designers from tokusatsu.

One person I want to find out about in particular is the orphenoch designer from Kamen Rider Faiz whose name I forgot and am having a terribly difficult time finding out who it is as the most hits I get from google are of those saying just how much they love the ol orphenochs but never mentions who made them :/

So feel free to post some of your favourite designers, and of course some designs themselves as I feel this is a thread that is useless without pictures to accompany the names.

So to start off things;

Yasushi Nirasawa - GARO, den-o, blade etc

A few examples of his work.

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[Igadevil]

The Orphenoch were designed by Tamotsu Shinohara, who goes all the way back to the 80's for creature designs.

Nirasawa is the man though, up there with Ishinomori himself when it comes to monster designs. The Undead are still the reigning champions of the Heisei era IMHO, the perfect fusion of his own style with Ishinomori's and the classics, right down to many of them being deliberate homages to past characters. His other stuff is amazing though, and at least for all of 5 minutes, he's one of the nicest guys I've ever met. I hope they bring him back on Rider for the next series.

The Zodiarts fella, Kia Asamiya, is pretty good too. They put out an artbook recently with all his Fourze stuff.

 

[Shougo B'Stard]

Yutaka Izubuchi (the villains from Dynaman through Flashman & Kamen Rider Agito and OOO) is my favorite. As far as Sentai is concerned, he's pretty much the first one to get away from the idea of having monsters who are based on items or comically exaggerated and just let monsters be nasty looking monsters. (Maskman and Liveman's combo of Ichigo House and Naoki Hagiwara tried to really keep the spirit of Izubuchi's work, and I really like their stuff, too.) I'll try scanning a couple of my favorite designs later.

But I also like a lot of Tamotsu Shinohara's work (my favorites are the Turboranger villain, Kakuranger's Gasha Dokuro and Rio and Long's suits in Gekiranger), and Keita Amemiya's older stuff.

 

[Glamador]

Count me among the Orphnoch lovers. Favorite Rider Kaijin group hands down.

The Grongi were very interesting aesthetically as well. I never really even took notice of Blade's though...very forgettable to my mind. The Horrors from GARO though...boy are those some fantastic monsters.

 

[Ivanhobe]

Can i ask who was the monster designer for V3?

I ask mostly because, well, just look at the designs of Machine-Gun Cobra and Pickaxe-Shark, not to mention my all time favorite: Toad-Boiler.

 

[LaZerwolfX]

YAY Design Discussions!:anime: My personal favorites are the Orphnoc, and the Greeed

 

[FreedomR8G6B1]

When Steve Wang did Dragon Knight, did he design the Xaviax Suit? I know he did some of the Zoanoid stuff in Guyver. I'm surprise that Wang didn't at least do some new stuff for DK.

 

[DSP]

Thanks Iga! I agree with Nirasawa being quite something, his designs are always so skeletal and I love how they translate to the screen, especially in Garo where they are all outfitted to be more realistic than in Kamen rider.

With Steve Wang being mentioned I adore his monster designs, I remember watching Guyver Dark Hero and just being amazed by the zoanoids and of course Guyver himself looking much better than the first film.

Regarding DK, I think he did do the Xaviax suit, it certainly looks his style. Wish he'd do some stuff for Kamen Rider actually, he'd seem perfect for it. Actually just before I was about to hit send on this message I found this:

http://www.myspace.com/stevewangfx/photos/34035577#{"ImageId":66118516}

It's his myspace with productions pics of Xaviax.

 

[FreedomR8G6B1]

The Zodiarts fella, Kia Asamiya, is pretty good too. They put out an artbook recently with all his Fourze stuff.

Everytime I hear Kia Asamiya, I'm constantly reminded of this show...

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oNFpVOfxp4"]Silent Mobius Opening - YouTube[/ame]

With Steve Wang being mentioned I adore his monster designs, I remember watching Guyver Dark Hero and just being amazed by the zoanoids and of course Guyver himself looking much better than the first film.

Regarding DK, I think he did do the Xaviax suit, it certainly looks his style. Wish he'd do some stuff for Kamen Rider actually, he'd seem perfect for it.

The fact that Steve said this during Morphicon...

http://youtu.be/BRSRKcfEfSE

Heck...I wanted to see something like this be a reality...