Artists Galore
The other day I met one of my friends... friends... who is a super CGI maniac. That in itself isn't so amazing, not really news at all really...but the thing that surprised me is that this person is only 20 years old.
Her personal webpage is here at Ransei.org. The stuff is seriously quality. Of course I know nothing about CGI, and maybe it just looks good to me cause I don't have an eye for it... but you be the judge. She saved up money by working part time jobs while in school, a common story in Japan, and bought a PC, and some graphics hackin’ software like Shade and Photoshop and whatnot. Now she is enrolled in a specialty school (専門学校) and is rockin’ the house. Job all lined up and everything.
It seems to me that it is more common in Japan for young people to get seriously involved in this kind of trade, and attempt to make a living out of it. Actually, it may just be that I am in Tokyo, and it happens to be a super city with all sorts of crazy people, and I just happen to be meeting the artists… but then that wouldn't be a very interesting discussion now would it. It would be interesting to know the percentage of people striving to become graphic designers in NYC vs Tokyo...
Even if this little observation is completely off, why is it that most of the hot games with beautiful graphics come out of Japan? And what about all the slick anime? Is it just a culture thing? Why are all the artists in Japan?
The world (or just me) may never know...
-Harvey
Posted by Harvey at September 09, 2003 01:26 AM
Serious talent is right, though. It's pretty fun to search around on the Internet for this kind of artwork, even if one (me) has no actual talent for it whatsoever.
I think CG artwork is one of those things that never really caught on in the U.S. or European countries, whereas it was actually a pretty huge trend in Japan a couple of years ago. Of course, there are many people who still work night and day today, but it was one of those "hayari" things - suddenly everyone with a bit of knowledge in graphics applications decided to create their own female characters. :)