Interview With Kagaya | Japanese Great Illustrator

05/04/2009 · 69 comments

In this post, Psd-tutorial.com features one of the best Japanese artists, KAGAYA. If you don’t know much about KAGAYA, I recommend that you look up his amazing artwork. I first discovered his art in 2004. Since then, I often use KAGAYA’s artwork as my computer’s wallpaper.

KAGAYA is best known as a digital artist. Born in 1968, he has created artworks relating to the universe including CG animation pictures, digital prints, posters, illustrations for astronomical books and magazines. The main themes of his work are the universe, the blue planet, and humankind as a part of the universe — their dreams and yearnings. His artistry and scientific accuracy enable him to embody the beauty that integrates all the elements of the universe. His constellation pictures are made into jigsaw puzzles, which are gaining popularity around the world.

Fantasy Art by Takaki

Interview with KAGAYA :

Q: How do you draw and paint your paintings ?

A: I use a computer in my painting. I paint thoroughly on computer with an electric pen called graphic tablet like with a brush on canvas, looking at a monitor of the computer. I used to paint with a brush or an airbrush in acrylic paint until 1995.

Q: Do you draw and paint thoroughly by hand ?

A: Yes, I do.I usually finish my works solely by painting ( on behalf of drawing ) with a graphic tablet by hand. When I work out a composition, however, I use so called 3D computer graphics or photographs. Some of my illustrations of celestial bodies are finished with 3DCG technique.

Q: Do you paint real persons or models ? Or do you paint imaginary figures ?

A: It depends. In most cases I paint characters I imagine in my mind. When I start to paint a person, I imagine what her personality is,what her appearance is and what air she has,then I go on painting further details for many days. In this process, if necessary, I ask a model to pose with a light on just as I imagine.

Q: How do you make a composition?

A: To start up, I draw a rough idea-sketch on paper by hand. I get most of my ideas in my daily life. They might come up to me from my memory or inspiration I got when I traveled various places in the world or when looked up the starry sky. After the rough-sketching, I go straight to painting on computer. Thanks to Digital Method I have developed for myself, I can draw objects and paint colors at the same time by painting. I can make good use of it because it is easy to erase,re-draw and re-paint on a “canvas” of computer. As I usually paint stars as they really are in the sky, composing on computer is convenient for me to find the best matching of objects and figures with the position and lightness of the real stars. I sometimes alter original composition drastically. I referred to three dimensional model by way of 3DCG to draw objects like buildings. I always care much for posing of figures, lighting on objects and coloring tone of paintings. They are important factors for the whole atmosphere of each work.

Q: How long do you take for a piece of work ?

A: I don’t take much time in rough-sketching on paper, nonetheless I cannot tell exactly how long it takes to make out my imagination on computer. In some cases I make rough-sketches and reserve them for a few years, and in others I make up rough-sketches in several minutes and go straight to paint them. It takes a week or two to finish composition on computer. Next process is painting, but some of compositions are not painted at this stage and are to be reserved for another few years.When I solely concentrate on painting to the further details,it takes me three to eight weeks to finish a whole work of painting. To sum up, I take several minutes to several years for idea-sketching and three to eight weeks for painting.

I recommend you to download artworks of KAGAYA here: