Sabaku_Stijl: The Artist

Masashi Kishimoto was born in the rural Okayama Prefecture in 1974 (Showa Year 49). He was the older of twin brothers and he loved TV shows in those days. His favorite was Doraemon. Everyone talked about it in school. However people often draw Doraemon incorrectly and Kishimoto yelled at them to do it right. He showed them how, and got into many fights about this. Kishimoto notebooks were often filled with doodles.

Even when he was playing hide and seek, he would draw figures in the dirt while waiting. Facinated by Mobile Gundam Suit, he began to fill his notebooks with Zakus, Gundams, and Gms. Dr. Slump came in later. And because of Dr. Slump, Kishimoto learned about and started loving Dragonball Z (author is Akira Toriyama).
Like always, he would draw the characters in notebooks. Akira Toriyama was like a god to him.

Because of Dragonball Z, he learned about other manga in Shonen Jump. This is where the dream of becoming a manga-ka started. He even started drawing manga, and made his first comic about a shadow ninja boy.

As Kishimoto entered middle school, the passion for drawing left him. He would always ask himself if he is too old to draw?" And the answer came when he saw an anime called Akira. Kishimoto passed the poster, and fell in love with it. He loved the style of Kaneda and the bike. The composition. The perspective. The feel. The detail. The realism. Everything. On that day, Kishimoto became manga-ka once more.

Kishimoto realized that the reason he loved the styles were because they were original. They were stylized, nothing done before. So Kishimoto tried coming up with his own style. Then he noticed that most styles incorporate different styles into one. So Kishimoto grabbed dozens of artbooks of the various artists whom he adored.

These are some of his works :

From his drawings I can see the following points :

- use thin lines for his drawings
- play alot on shadows to indicate mood
- play alot on the different angles
- OBSESSED with insane details

Why I choose him?

The reason why I chose him is because I share the same view with him regarding finding our own styles. It is very difficult to come up with a unique style of my own and the only way to achieve that is to incorporate many different styles into my own. At the same time, my design style will evolve accumulating these styles.