Katoki and his influence?

[Kuruni]

But Katoki, for me, is still below Okawara. That man can churn out very different designs that I love: X, X Divider, Airmaster/Airmaster Burst, Freedom, cleaning ups of the GAT machins on SEED, and Astray M1. He seems to be the perfect fit for cold, mechanical, sagacious, antromorphic war machines, while Katoki seems to fit for to-sell pretty figures.

And Strike Freedom, Juaggu, Jurick and Brawrello...look at those four, and repeat your last sentence again, please.

I think Okawara does fine work when there's..."condition" to his work. He did great super robot like GaoGaiGar, and equally great real like Scopedog. But when it come to Gundam, his works often lacking..."hook".

[Mythgarr]

But Katoki, for me, is still below Okawara. That man can churn out very different designs that I love: X, X Divider, Airmaster/Airmaster Burst, Freedom, cleaning ups of the GAT machins on SEED, and Astray M1. He seems to be the perfect fit for cold, mechanical, sagacious, antromorphic war machines, while Katoki seems to fit for to-sell pretty figures.

And Strike Freedom, Juaggu, Jurick and Brawrello...look at those four, and repeat your last sentence again, please.

Well, Strike Freedom is still mechanical, sagacious, antromorphic war machine. Made more so with the ominous backpack wing...

Juaggu, Jurick, and Brawrello. Well, those are ugly. But then again, those are fit for purpose design that really follows Zeon's design principle, eh?

[ShadowCell]

sagacious

you keep using this word. i do not think it means what you think it means.

[Mythgarr]

sagacious

you keep using this word. i do not think it means what you think it means.

Kinda

Everytime I saw "sagacious" in a writing used to describe something, my meant automatically translate it as: grand of stature, emanating aura of power.

[ShadowCell]

that is completely not what it means

[AmuroNT1]

Sagacious means shrewd or clever.

[Kuruni]

Juaggu, Jurick, and Brawrello. Well, those are ugly. But then again, those are fit for purpose design that really follows Zeon's design principle, eh?

No, ugly only applies to S-Freedom, these guys are cute. So cute that I doubt one can draw them if they think they're machine .

[JEFFPIATT]

there late-70's early 80's mechanical design style the MAN-00X-2 Brawrello keeps the demon shark look of the MA-04X Zakrello but includes the wire guided hands that went in the zeong and mounts two of the MAN-03 Braw Bro wire guided remote guns. MIP had an habit of making there MA units look like space monsters the production MA-05 Bigro tones this down a lot. the other units are zeonic trying really hard to build an ms that will work under water well.

[Mythgarr]

Anyway, this is a thread about Katoki.

I wonder why wasn't he chosen for SEED lines, at least for the designs of Raider, Calamity, and Forbidden? Has he done some Katoki style of those Gundams?

[nacho-wan]

Well, I love Katoki's designs. He has this right mix of robustness and elegance on his arts.
Gundam designs that I love from him is The GP-01 Zephyrantes (non FV) and GP-03S Dendrobium Stamen. ..

Dude, Katoki only did the GP-03. 01, 01fb and 02 are the only Gundams made by the one and only Shoji Kawamori.

As for Okawara, You have to give it to him. The guy is quite versatile. Gravion, Gaogaigar, the entire mecha cast of the original Gundam. He has a lot of misses, but it is logical for someone whose gallery is as big as him.

No matter what Katoki does, he won't influence mecha design like Okawara did.

[DuelGundam2099]

As for Okawara, You have to give it to him. The guy is quite versatile. Gravion, Gaogaigar, the entire mecha cast of the original Gundam.

The entire Braves series including the spinoff Betterman both characters AND monsters of the week, the mecha cast of VOTOMS, Dougram, Zambot 3, Daitarn 3, Trider G7, Layzner, L.Gaim, Dragonar, Dunbine, Xabungle, the Eldran trilogy, etc. This guy is THE designer of classic mecha.

[BlackLion]

Katoki has created some of the most iconic and influential mecha in recent history, from the EW Gundams to the Sentinel series (the very definition of excess), Unicorn, and let's not forget Virtual On.

Katoki's style has definitely changed the mecha genre and influenced its artists into a much more mechanical and clean look that, if you take a look around Pixiv at least, has become the de-facto style and pose for mecha designs. Everything can be seen redrawn in his model kit style, from the Turn-A even to Gao Gai Gar. I call it the Katoki Filter, which tends to homogenize mecha designs and even them all out into a consistent look.

My opinion is that his designs are consistently good, as in they never go too extreme any more and stick with a proven proportion and detail formula. I consider his best works to be his older ones, when he used watercolors and nonstandard poses.

[nacho-wan]

Katoki has created some of the most iconic and influential mecha in recent history, from the EW Gundams to the Sentinel series (the very definition of excess), Unicorn, and let's not forget Virtual On.

The Ext-S Gundam isn't an excess it its an extraordinaire superior Gundam!

[Kuruni]

As for Okawara, You have to give it to him. The guy is quite versatile. Gravion, Gaogaigar, the entire mecha cast of the original Gundam.

The entire Braves series including the spinoff Betterman both characters AND monsters of the week, the mecha cast of VOTOMS, Dougram, Zambot 3, Daitarn 3, Trider G7, Layzner, L.Gaim, Dragonar, Dunbine, Xabungle, the Eldran trilogy, etc. This guy is THE designer of classic mecha.

Strike L-Gaim and Dunbine from your list, those are Mamoru Nagano's and Yutaka Izubuchi's works. Add to the list, however, is Galient and that's one truly amazing work. I've said it before and I will say it again, but Promaxis is coolest grunt mech in my book.

[HellCat]

The contrast between Okawara and Katoki is something I noticed back when I watched Wing 10 years ago. Okawara has given us some real icons but its quite blatant that he isn't really a mechanical designer. Part of that is being asked to draw so many pointless variants of existing designs but with Wing as my gateway I remember how much I loved Katoki's stuff and how dissapointed I was with Okawara's. The OZ suits just seemed so much better thought out; compare the Tallgeese's massive thruster pods to the dinky ones the likes of Shenlong get.

Okawara just seems to guess at things whilst Katoki's education in mechanical design is on show. Okawara throws in random vents, panel lines and details that look like some weird approximation of mechanics. Katoki's stuff shows actual knowledge.

At the same time, my interest in Katoki is smaller now than it was 10 years ago. It's fair to say that he has his own hang ups and issues. Pretty much all the Federation designs in Unicorn for instance run together to me and the lines make me think of them as 'french fry robots'. However, I think Katoki's passion comes over well. His FIX photos are really ambitious and I love his attempts to inspire imagination by putting iconic giant robots into realistic settings. It's heavily influenced some of my own Photoshop/modelling attempts.

[nacho-wan]

I agree with most of your points HellCat, except on the mechanical designer designation. Okawara is arguably the first mechanical designer in animé story. Maybe his background in arts is lacking for such a thing, but his passion on pushing forward made an opening for more formally prepared designers. To me Okawara is the grand father of anime mechanical design.

[Kuruni]

I agree with most of your points HellCat, except on the mechanical designer designation. Okawara is arguably the first mechanical designer in animé story. Maybe his background in arts is lacking for such a thing, but his passion on pushing forward made an opening for more formally prepared designers. To me Okawara is the grand father of anime mechanical design.

So you're another guy who refuse to acknowledge existence of Osamu-sama?

[nacho-wan]

Well, not exactly. Sure he did Astroboy and he is monumental to the overall anime art style but his legacy is too broad unlike Go Nagai's super robot style and Okawara's real robot which are centered on the mecha genre.

[JEFFPIATT]

the major difference is that Okawara was trained in an era where robots were designed to look like humans in armor this thinking is evident in the tv series where sometimes the gundam has shoe shaped feet. Katoki has an degree in mechanical engineering and his lineart leans towards the walking tank/ jet fighter look with sharper edges and panel lines while Okawara has rounder edges and more human looking mecha.

[flamingtroll]

People have to remember that Okawara mostly designed mostly for hand drawn animation while Katoki designs for 3D animation, model kits and novels. Even the cleaned up V /V2 Gundams havea lot less details and visually quite dissimilar to the Katoki style we are used to in the line arts.

Okawara just seems to guess at things whilst Katoki's education in mechanical design is on show. Okawara throws in random vents, panel lines and details that look like some weird approximation of mechanics. Katoki's stuff shows actual knowledge.

I think Katoki's mechanical background is being given too much credit for his designs. A lot of the details on the suits are peusdo-realistic mechanical details that are not particularly sensible. They just look "realistic" because they are borrowed from real life (and modern) counterparts. Case in points, the aircraft fin antennas on S gundam even though the unit is designed for space; the jet intake in the shield on the Zeta PlusA1 that is supposed to be an extra jet engine, to give the MA mode a fighter silhouette; Xeku Ein's mono eye radome for the beam smartgun though the eye has very little range of motion. What Katoki does well is well proportioned mechanical drawing with great details that looks familiar with real life mechanical parts (nuts and bolts, service panels etc), but nothing you really need a lot of engineering knowledge for. The drafting like precision also makes his designs very easy to turn into models.