#I SPENT LIKE 5 HOURS ON THISSSSS

[mekatrio]

TAKING back what i said bc im realizing that its instead on a case by case basis, and that there are several illustrations that are in fact illustrated by the anime's key animators;

like this one ⬇️ is definitely illustrated by yoshihiro takeda, their distinct shading style + style of drawing eyes gives it away

while this one is very obviously drawn by yoshitaka yashima ⬇️

with that said, there's still definitely a group of non-animator illustrators, and ive tried to identify some of them down below... under a read more tho bc again, i didnt realize that i would end up making this post this long lol

(also, i say they are non-animator illustrators meaning that they arent listed as animation directors, but its entirely possible that they may have worked on the anime as like, key animators or smth)

artist 1:

this artist has worked on an Overwhelming amount of digimon promotional materials... like a large amount of adventure + 02's promotional art ranging from album covers, calendar art, etc, seems to be done by them. their style is characterized by their squarish-face, the wide distance between the eyes, and their even wider mouths!

artist 2:

this characteristics of this artist's style is SO similar to artist 1 (wide mouths, similar body proportions), that i spent a good few hours deliberating on whether they were the same artist or not... but i eventually decided that these must be two different artists bc of the following differences:

the biggest difference is that this artist draws taichi's hair much more wavier, in that his hair follows more curved lines as opposed to artist 1's more pointed lines

sora's eyes are much more rounder than artist 1's

face shapes are less mishappened and more rounder than artist 1

also, the characteristic of this artstyle really resembles katsuyoshi nakatsuru's art, specifically their concept art of film 1 taichi, and is what made me consider the possibilty that maybe nakatsuru worked on promotional artwork for adventure/02 (btw im not entirely sure that nakatsuru is illustrator of this specific concept art, just that theyre the credited character designer)

whether artist 2 is actually nakatsuru or just an artist with an artstyle that resembles nakatsuru, im still not too sure.

artist 3:

im certain the two album covers (middle row) are drawn by the same illustrator, and that the two DVD covers (bottom row) are also drawn by the same illustrator, but whether both of these illustrators are one person is something im not too confident on, since theres quite a variation between artstyles.. (namely, the width of the faces)

...however its possible that it's just the coloring style that is making these pieces look so different from one another. the cover for the movie collections looks like a balance between both styles, so maybe these really are all done by one artist... maybe 🤔

artist 4:

at first i thought the Brave Heart cover was drawn by artist 3 bc of how much taichi resembled that artist's style, but after realizing that yamato's hair on the Keep On cover is drawn nearly identically to how it is on the Brave Heart cover, i'm certain that these were both drawn by the same artist. (also, the rendering of taichi's hair on both covers is similar)

and im also classifying that the I Wish cover is drawn by this same artist, bc of how hikari's hair shading, mimi's face shape + spacing between the eyes + mouth shape, and the angle of sora's face is similar to how they are on the Keep On cover.

these two album covers also look like they could be by this same artist, but yet theres enough variation between these 2 covers and the first 3 that im not entirely confident...

what makes me think they could be done by the same artist:

the spacing between mimi's eyes are rather consistent between all the covers

taichi has a line indicating a bottom lip on the Brave Heart cover, which wallace and daisuke also have on the film 3 cover

the thin slender fingers on both of these covers are similar to the fingers found on the Brave Heart + I Wish cover

and what makes me think otherwise:

the face shape on both of the covers differ quite significantly from each other And artist 4's face shape

the cover with all 4 girls is much more cleaner... the balancing of the body proportions are very different from the other albums.

the rendering style (lineart + coloring) of the film 3 cover is very different from all the other covers, though this may just be a deliberate artistic choice as it's a album cover for the film instead of for the anime

so i really have no idea whether these last 2 covers are even drawn by artist 4, or even the same artist to begin with ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

final thoughts or whatever, i just need a divider so it doesnt look like im still commenting on artist 4:

theres still a Lot more artworks with styles different from these 4 which i havent been able to find enough examples of to be able to group them under one probable illustrator... so my suffering still continues. it's made even harder by the fact that sometimes these artists are trying to replicate the style of another artist... also classifying illustrations under one probable illustrator is one thing, but to find the actual name of the artist is a whole other thing too......

so much art. so many illustrators. nearly impossible to find the credited illustrators, especially in english. MY PERSONAL HELL CONTINUES

its kind of a given and i should have expected it, but now that im able to distinguish most of digimon adventure's animation directors apart, its become very (belatedly) obvious to me that the artwork for additional material like album covers and magazines illustrations are in fact illustrated by a group separate from the animators...

....though im thinking that majority of them are illustrated by katsuyoshi nakatsuru. that is if im correctly understanding that majority of adventures developmental material were created by them. though another name i ought to look out for is soh moriyama too... hmmmm