こんにちは西村キヌです。

このたびスチームボーイ氏との数奇な縁によって、キャラクター原案として参加しました。スペースボーイとハルの2人が加わることでAZUKIワールドが少し賑やかになれば嬉しいです。

よろしくお願いします!

Hello, this is Kinu Nishimura.

By a stroke of fate between Steamboy and myself, I had the chance to work as the original character designer for the Azuki Anthology series project. I sincerely hope that my designs for Haru, and Spaceboy were able to add more colors to the Azuki world!

Azuki community, nice to meet you all!

スチームボーイとは2002年?コミコンで出会っています 当時カプコンの下請けでゲーム内デモ用のイラストを担当していたのがUDON社

その中に飛び抜けて上手い絵描きがいて、会ってみたらなんと19歳だという "名前はアーノルド 若くて上手いやつめ~"

こやつ将来この分野で天下を取る可能性があると思い、それを伝えて握手して別れました "時は流れてこのお話をいただいた時

スチームボーイは中国系カナダ人で名前はアーノルドだと聞いた"

そんな奴が何人も居るとは思えない、もしやコミコンで会ったあの19歳か?

話半分で確認してもらったところまさにあのアーノルドで驚きました

あれから20年、ビッグなアーティストとなった彼とこうして一緒に仕事できることになり本当に嬉しいです

I actually met Steamboy in 2002 (I think) at Comic Con. At the time, UDON was a subcontractor for Capcom in charge of illustrations for the demos of their games.

One of the artists was especially talented. I got the chance to meet him, and was surprised when he turned out to be only 19 years old. 'My name is Arnold', he said. He was young, but tremendously good at what he did.

I told him that I thought there was a chance he could become one of the top artists in our world in the future, shook his hand and left.

Time went by, and when I was asked to join the Azuki project, I heard that Steamboy is Chinese-Canadian, and that his real name is Arnold. I couldn't fathom there would be multiple people with the same traits... I thought, maybe he's the 19-year-old young man I met at Comic Con?

Doubtful at first, I asked the team to check, and indeed, it was THAT Arnold! Totally mind-blowing.

It's been 20 years since then, and I'm really happy to be able to work together with him, now that he's grown to become a great artist.

In my youth as an aspiring artist, I would study the artwork of Capcom and Kinu-sensei until the twilight hours. Her character designs and illustrations opened my eyes to the power and potential of character art. Since then, so much of my personal art style, as well as how I think about character design came from studying Kinu-sensei’s work. This includes Azuki.

Meeting her at comic-con at such an early and impressionable time in my career was almost too much for my brain to process. In truth, I don’t remember much about the meeting itself, but I will always remember the support that she showed me, her encouragement that I was on the right path, and the inspiration she gave me to chase after something truly legendary.

Being able to work with Kinu-sensei now 20 years later definitely feels surreal; we are truly blessed to have her lend us her masterful skill. In many ways I’m reminded of how much more there is to learn from her. Her work on Haru and TK was a treat to behold; we’re very excited to see them come to life in the anthology series!

Thank you Kinu-sensei for making the Azuki universe more awesome, and for always being such an inspiration!

超カッコ良い男にしようと意気込んで描いたスペースボーイ

先日全話配信があったキングゲイナーを見て ゲインだなこれ....となりました

まあ私が一番いい男だと思うデザインにした証拠であると思っていただければ幸いです

From the get go, I designed him to look like a super dope character.

A while back, I did a streaming marathon of all the episodes of "Overman King Gainer", and I was like, "Oh wow, This guy is totally a chad"… and that became an early inspiration.

Well, I hope everyone sees that as proof that I was able to design the coolest guy on the block.

元のデザインでは松本零士作品のトチロー的な鍔広の帽子をかぶっていましたが AZUKIさんからもっと鍔を小さくしてほしいとリクエストがありました

その方がAZUKI世界に馴染むと言うことだと思いますが 特徴の無いキャラは物語の主役にはなれない(モブキャラになってしまう)

なのでハルもスペースボーイも主役を張れるだけの特徴あるデザインにさせてもらいました

The original design had a wide-brimmed hat like Tochiro, a character created by Leiji Matsumoto, but the AZUKI team requested a bucket hat design with a smaller brim instead, to blend more into AZUKI's street fashion style.

While designing characters, it is critical to make sure the main character have enough stand-out traits, that distinguish them from mob or side characters.

That's why I designed both Haru and Spaceboy with enough eye-catching traits to make their designs worthy of main character of Episode 1.

パンダコパンダのミミちゃんのような、おだんごを連ねたお下げがハルのトレードマークです ロングショットでもはっきりと判別できる特徴的なシルエットですが

アップになると髪のディテールがしっかり入っていたりして 漫画のキャラクターが現実に居たらこうだろう!と思えるデザインになっています

Haru's identifying characteristic is her pigtail with buns hairstyle that's similar to Mimiko from "Panda! Go, Panda!".

She has a silhouette that is recognizable immediately, even from far away, but her hair is also really detailed when she's in a close-up shot. I think of her design is that of a manga character if they existed in real life.

ハルは最初、登場の際のスカジャン姿と 男の子に見えるようなパーカ姿の 2種類の衣装を考えていましたが

AZUKIさんがパーカの方を推したことと 確かに5分間の作品で着替えの効果は疑わしいということで このデザインに落ち着きました

At first, I designed two versions of Haru for her first scene--the first with a sukajan (a Japanese jacket similar to varsity jackets), and the second with a sweatshirt to make her look like a tomboy.

The AZUKI team liked the sweatshirt version better, and thought that a wardrobe change could make it too confusing for 5 minute anime, so we settled on this design.