The artist best known for his work on the Final Fantasy series has taken on a different kind of assignment, as he has drawn an illustration for the cover of the Italian version of Vogue. Yoshitaka Amano is a Japanese artist who has created character and costume concepts for numerous fantasy and science fiction franchises, but he is most famous for the artwork that he has contributed to almost every Final Fantasy game.
Amano's association with the Final Fantasy series dates back to the first game in the series. He was the character and logo designer for the first six Final Fantasy games, before taking more of a backseat role and only creating promotional artwork for games like Final Fantasy VII. Amano created a lot of unused designs for the Final Fantasy series, some of which the fans have preferred over what made it into each game. He has also worked closely with international creators on franchises outside of the Final Fantasy series, including a short story with Neil Gaiman that put David Bowie in the role of a Sci-Fi hero.
The latest Amano project is a collaboration with Vogue, as there are seven variants of the January 2020 issue will include illustrations of women, rather than actual photographs. The reason for this is to outline how important fashion illustration is, which is why all of the artists who contributed covers were basing their images on real women. In the case of Amano, he created a cover for Vogue Italia and was working on a photograph of a model named Lindsey Wixson-Young, who was pictured wearing a Gucci dress. Young discussed the photo on her Instagram page. Vogue Italia isn't the first magazine that Amano has created covers for, as he infamously created a cover for Illustration magazine that depicted Aerith from Final Fantasy VII in the nude.
Amano was an important figure in the creation of the Final Fantasy series. His artwork was a key component in helping the series to be noticed in the days when the Dragon Quest series was the dominant force in the RPG market in Japan. It's just a shame that the 8-bit and 16-bit machines struggled to accurately reflect his artwork, with playable character sprites only bearing a superficial resemblance to their concept art.
The modern Final Fantasy games will often use Amano artwork in its promotional material, but his character design days are long behind him. Amano is sixty-seven years old, but he doesn't appear to be slowing down. He recently collaborated with the creators of Magic: The Gathering and created artwork that merged the classic Final Fantasy style with Magic: The Gathering. The days of the elaborate character designs of Final Fantasy V and Final Fantasy VI are over, but Amano is still gracing the world with his beautiful artwork.
Source: Vogue, Lindsey Wixson-Young/Instagram