yoshitaka Amano

 The concept artist for final fantasy has always been one of my favorite all around artists. His style is widely different than most and we can see his beautiful use of watercolors here in this character illustration. The most compelling thing to me about this piece is the interesting use of shapes. In nearly every part of this piece the shapes being used are something completely different than one would expect. Take the sword for instance it seems to be broken up asymmetrically where the handle is oddly shaped and has its own 3 prongs sticking out of the side of it. 

The helmet and shoulder pads all come up to a point and the horn on the top of his helmet bisects and becomes two different forms pointing upwards. We can see most of the detail for the piece is directly down the middle of the design in the helmet and midsection with the bottom half of the design and the top shoulder pads holding a lot of the detail. The big shape of the cape gives the whole form a background to sit on. 

The sides of the figure is ornamented with what looks like glass bulbs or containers of different sizes that hang from his side and arm giving this a arabian feel to it.