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of course my favorite artist would have to be Itahana,
then Yoshida, Amano, and lastly Nomura

the reason why i like Itahana, is because when i look at some of his work like these
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4

his artwork, always to me seem like either a classical painting or it came from one of those old time children fantasy story

Yoshida, is the same as Itahana to me. His artwork, seems more laid back and always seem like the people in his artworks are having a fun time.

Amano, I like his work, cause it alwasy reminds me of the old asian woodblock paintings. The people and environments are so whimsical as well that they almost seems that if you try and digitized it into a game. you will never capture its essence.

Nomura, he is a damn fine artist, and like you said. he has grown tremendously from the time he started at Square till now. The only problem that i have with his art is his characters. Though there is nothing wrong with drawing "anime" style its a damn popular style, I tend to do it alot as well. His characters seem so "cookie cutter" (same as mine as well), no matter how pretty he makes them look. And he always seem like he has to go over the top with his characters, plain or normal looking isn't good enough for him. [Insert joke here about zippers and chains].
Another thing about him, is that when we think he is gonna ******** up a beloved character (in this case Vivi from FFIX), i think he did a damn well job with it, Vivi looks alot more cuter and childlike with his KH2 outfit. And when we think he is gonna do a good job with a beloved character it turns out bad or nothing much has change from its original design (haven't seen one yet but bound to happen)

I'm a big fan of Amano. I found his work through Final Fantasy and I am now a fan of his work overall. I have a gallery book of his art from various points of his career, and I look at it very often. I love his Final Fantasy stuff, moreso for the older games. I never liked the silkscreen pictures he did for VII and VIII, although I love how he can make Sephiroth look threatning . I just love his loose, detailed style. It's like no other.

I like Itahana as well. His work is always vibrant, creative, and nice to look at. The Crystal Chronicles games would not be the same without his brand of creative designs.

I never really cared for Yoshida, although I won't deny that he is a great artist. I didn't like his FFXII stuff very much, but I think that the FFIII DS stuff looks really good.

As for Nomura... I never really cared for him much either, but it's hard not to form an opinion about him, since he's all over the place. I must admit, he has gotten much better over the course of his career, and he is better at making his characters look more uniquethan he used to be. Compare concepts of the main casts of FFVII and FFX. Cloud n' Pals look like paper dolls compared to Team Yuna.
I don't like most anime styles, and Nomura is no exception. He's not bad by any means. His work is just not my cup of tea. Although I really Don't like the styles he used for TWEWY and Kingdom Hearts. His other stuff is just "meh."