#I do hope they hire Toshiyuki again to maybe draw an Effie alt or

[childofaura]

If you're doing roasts now we might as well get Kusakihara out of the way.

I'm sorry anon, but... Kusakihara Toshiyuki isn't a bad artist in my opinion. So I apologize, but this one ain't gonna be a roast, I know I'll be hated for praising this artist but again, it's 100% my opinion.

Let me just establish this right now: The only reason why I dislike Ryoma Kitada's artwork so much isn't (just) because "horny". I've said it before but you can have fanservice on the mind and still have great art, like Cuboon, Maeshima Shigeki, or Okuma Yugo. It's only when you're so focused on drawing big tits or muscle that you completely neglect every other important aspect of the artwork, like Kitada did. Like... Kitada neglected almost every important aspect of FEH artwork that I cover, which is:

-Expressions

-Anatomy

-Posework

-Details and effects

The only thing that Kitada had going for them was their colorwork was actually good. But everything else was so clearly poor quality.

So moving on to Kusakihara Toshiyuki.

They've drawn Noire, Rhajat, Easter Loki, B!Marianne, Rinkah... And Mustafa. Friggen Mustafa, lol, THAT was a character I wasn't expecting them to draw.

And yeah, when you look at their artwork, Toshiyuki likes drawing their busty women:

But that's not necessarily a bad thing? All these characters were naturally busty from the start, so it's not like Toshiyuki took a flat character and made her chest huge.

And aside from that, Toshiyuki has some lovely color work and great posing most of the time:

I included Marianne's because while she's not necessarily in an action pose, she looks relaxed, like she's floating, which is a great natural feeling. Forgot to mention the way they draw clothes adds to that motion as well.

Though when I say "great posing most of the time", there is a miss:

But to give them credit, even though Marianne's attack pose does the same kind of bending, it at least looks more plausible and less like she snapped her spine:

Also they all have some toned muscle, which is really neat to see from an artist drawing female characters (I mean Rinkah is a given, but Marianne, Rhajat, and even Loki on her artwork have some visible muscle).

And again, they drew MUSTAFA. The very much a manly man Plegian General:

They didn't shy away from the muscles, the facial hair, the tired and worn face and scars. An artist who has primarily drawn thick chicks very easily and perfectly drew a muscled man with a very drastically different face. Just by picking Mustafa alone they proved they have the range to draw any type of character.

Also they draw expressive faces:

And not to mention, it's clear from how they drew Rinkah, Noire, and Rhajat that they really know the character and knew what to do with them. Rinkah has very strong poses that aren't fan-servicey at all and keeps her absolutely shredded body, Noire's critical has her dark persona, and Rhajat's crit also gives her a shadow on her face. Also Marianne's critical portrait has Maurice/The Wandering Beast. And Loki has more expression with this artist than Maeshima Shigeki.

The only real criticism I can find is A) Noire's awkward attack portrait (that they ended up improving pose-wise in future pieces) and the weird way they shade noses as if the characters have a cold (which they also improved, as it's absent from Marianne's artwork and Mustafa's).

I do apologize anon, but Kusakihara Toshiyuki deserves no roasting. They're a way more capable and competent artist than Kitada or Sencha, and I'm honestly thankful that they were chosen to draw Marianne, Mustafa, and Rinkah. They're easily a 10/10.