Yoshitaka Amano

Yoshitaka Amano was born in 1952 in a small town at the foot of mount Fuji in Shizuoka, Japan. As a child, he reveled in making unbroken loops of drawings on the huge paper rolls that his brother brought home from his job at a paper factory. "I don't remember a time when I wasn't making drawings," he recalls. After a year of training, Amano took part in designing characters for many of Tatsunoko's greatest cartoons, including Gatchaman (released in the US as G-Force and Battle of the Planets), Hutch the Honeybee, and Cashaan: Robot Hunter. Yet after fifteen years with the animation studio, Amano began to grow restless. He tendered his resignation at the age of 30, exchanging his established career for the precarious life of a freelancer. "Even the tax authorities questioned my decision," he remembers. "But once your life is too stable, your creative dies." He went on to collaborate with numerous writers, creating close to 20 illustrated books that have sold millions of copies. These works include Hideyuki Kikuchi's Vampire Hunter D, Kaoru Kurimonto's Guin Saga, Yoshiki Tanaka's Arslan Chronicals, and Rasen-O (Spiral King) and Chimera by Baku Yumemakura.

His artistic success won him access to yet another format in the 1980s; concept illustration for videogames. His first project, Final Fantasy, became an international hit. He also created character designs for the games Front Mission, Gun Hazard, Rebus (released asKartia in the US), and Emblem of Eru (to be released in Japan by Capcom.)

Amano pushed his boundaries even farther in 1997, when he began creating work in New York City. His 1997 "Think Like Amano" exhibition in New York City's Puck Building presented a retrospective of his work, and debuted his series of ambitious New York paintings. 1998 saw the premiere of 1001 Nights , a collaborative film/music project with composer David Newman that was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The 3D computer graphic animated film was produced by Yukio Sonoyama and premiered as the inaugural event in the L.A. Philharmonic's innovative "Filmharmonic" series. Also in 1999, Amano has joined for the first time with Neil Gaiman to introduce a new edition of the wildly popular Sandman series.

To see more of his work go : http://www.amanosworld.com/