Did Akira Toriyama draw the kanzenban covers?

[Kingdom Heartless]

That's right! He did say that! See what I mean?

I do love his paint style these days but how he draws his characters recently, they just look kind of crude... Something is just way off about them.

These pictures were still done years ago... his art style has changed even more since then!

[Attitudefan]

That's just great

[dbgtFO]

I mean, he can, and I agree with you. Where is the interview where he states he could still easily draw in the "Dr. Slump style" whenever he wanted to, and that part of what made him continue to change his style was fans complaining that the characters were too angular... which made him want to draw them even more angular!

The very first answer in his Daizenshuu 1 interview.

[medama_oyaji]

I think the Kanzenban covers are great! Part of the appeal of them, to me, was seeing classic Dragon Ball characters and situations portrayed in a slightly evolved style. I mean, it's not like he drew it in the crazy simplistic Cowa! style or anything. I know Toriyama said he could go back and draw in his old style, but I think it's a lot to ask for an artist to limit themselves that way.

I will agree that the coloring is a little weird on some of them. I think my biggest issue with them is the coloring in the eyes. And I wish that he'd stuck with the one color image with black & white images as backup motif. But we've seen so many illustrations in the Z-era art style, and I think the drawings on the covers are pretty cool.

[SylentEcho]

I agree that the appeal of the Kanzenban also lies in the change of art on the covers, but personally I like his Dragon Ball style the best up until the Freeza-Artificial Human arc. It started to change after that gradually.

[Attitudefan]

I agree that the appeal of the Kanzenban also lies in the change of art on the covers, but personally I like his Dragon Ball style the best up until the Freeza-Artificial Human arc. It started to change after that gradually.

I think it gradually changed during the fight with Vegeta. I compare Vegeta to a chapter before and he looks quite different. It didn't get to the point where the style really changed until the end of Freeza. By then, it was hard to tell if it was the same person drawing DBZ at that point. The muscles on the shoulders grew, foreheads became flat and jaws became prominent.

[SylentEcho]

Yeah, I noticed that actually. I didn't mind it really, but I really prefer the old style. My favourite style is from the Ma Junior arc till early Freeza.

[son veku]

I had a question as well, and I may as well ask it here: Are the Kanzenban still in print? I've bought a few, and would like to know if there's an urgency to complete the collection?

Yes, like the tankōbon volumes, the kanzenban are all still in print and available through most online retailers, like Amazon Japan. If you do buy a few, go ahead take a look at the very last page and it will tell you what edition it is. I know the tankōbon are up to somewhere around their 80th edition, but I'm not sure exactly what edition the kanzenban are currently at. We know there's at least a 3rd edition, but I'm sure by now there are more editions beyond that. Anyway, I'm just curious...

Wow, 2002. No wonder the art style looks so different.

Yeah, by the time the kanzenban were being released in 2002, Toriyama's style had changed quite a bit. Although I've always attributed a lot of the differences to the fact that after he finished up Dragon Ball he switched over to doing everything digitally on a computer.

I read in a online interview about his drawing style and it says he only does the color digitally.
And dont the picture have texture like they stick out some.

[Perfect]

I know the tankōbon are up to somewhere around their 80th edition...

So, I have to retract the statement I made earlier, as I was completely wrong with this one. Last I had checked that's where they were, at least estimating forward based on some of the tankōbon volumes I own. But apparently as of July 2004, they were releasing their 123rd edition! Based on that, they have to be at least up to their 150th by now. Japan loves them some cheap Dragon Ball tankōbon apparently, even with the kanzenban still being available. That's just craziness!

What's the difference exactly between each edition? Is it just a way to tell each printing set from each other? I know that eventually the volumes became "refreshed", but other than that, I really haven't heard of a difference.

[Ashura]

Yeah, by the time the kanzenban were being released in 2002, Toriyama's style had changed quite a bit. Although I've always attributed a lot of the differences to the fact that after he finished up Dragon Ball he switched over to doing everything digitally on a computer.

This is all just my 2 cents, but, I've been studying a lot of Toriyama's art lately and have wanted to write an article about how his artwork has progressed from before Dragonball until now though have no real outlet for it. So, here.

One thing I agree on is that the digital thing did affect his style greatly, but I don't know if it's the reason his construction changed so radically. His style changed pretty dramatically through Dragonball itself, and by the end he was drawing less round and more angular pretty progressively. His coloring style changed leaps and bounds as well, from flat colors to very stark, very anime-esque blocks of color for shading with two or three tones.

With the move to digital, though, I think the biggest change in his style using computers is how his coloring is not quite as good, and is almost terrible in the earlier digital Dragon Quest stuff. If you look at some of the earlier digital art for Dragon Quest games, for instance, the artwork is pretty much badly airbrushed in Photoshop, and it's only when he gets to Dragon Quest IX where it starts looking better, picking stronger tones... though even it still has a very airbrushed feel, it's just not as pronounced and a lot of the art is built in a higher resolution.

If you compare this to the the Cell and Buu era stuff, his coloring consisted of a very solid, somewhat contrasty line technique which had developed from the more light painting he did in the earlier DB stuff.

One of the biggest things I think makes the digital coloring look different is, especially if you look in the Daizenshuu, is that the paints and markers he used for the analogue stuff brought out the paper texture of whatever artboard he was painting on. This added more texture and life to it. Further, the variance in amount of media applied also shows through and creates more variation versus the more digital 1:1 approach he seems to be doing of applying solid colors and airbrushing.

Also, in his earlier digital stuff, his line variance is not quite there. They're very fat lines without tapers; you especially see this in Dragon Quest Swords if you look at the hair of the heroine. (http://i.neoseeker.com/ca/dragon_quest_ ... _ynidq.jpg) Especially look at the strands at the bottom right... it just looks thick and bad and curves are just not how they should be. You can also see how, around the eyes, he has black airbrushing which overlaps into the skintones and causes a murky, dirty look.

Moving to DQIX, his linework gets a lot stronger, especially in the poster illustrations. Even still, he's doing a lot of thick lines to hide the lack of detail and nowhere near as much tapering as you get with pencils on real paper.

This is something that I worked on that shows some examples of the art used in this game:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/C1gRTnqejbS.pdf

You can tell, especially if you look at the hero artwork, that he's not doing a lot of real gradiation or shading. It's very quick airbrushing. The lines are also, again, not as tapered. Very thick, very digital, because it's easier to get clean lines that way. What is a lot better, though, is his choice of colors... so much stronger than the Swords stuff. Course, it's not as good as the posters he did for Chrono Trigger and Dragon Ball GT, but I think those poster pieces on the lefthand pages are the best stuff he did for DQIX.

One thing I think would help improve his digital stuff is if he overlaid scanned paper textures over his color blocks. That way it would add some more chaos and a bit more of that flawed element to it so it doesn't look so perfect and airbrushed.

Despite all this, I do have to say that if you look at the Kanzenban covers, you can tell he (or assistants) spent a lot more time finessing the shading and lines. They resemble his earlier works more in terms blending and tone building. (It's also earlier work, so one wonders the process by which it was created...)

One of the most interesting things I find about the Kanzenban, though, is the loose regard to proportions and just the sheer amount of fun he seemed to be having fun with things. He didn't seem to be trying to push for more canon designs or even consistency between the colors and their compositions. Goku on the first Kanzeban looks pretty bizarre vs. his look as a kid throughout most of the series, though I really like the artwork a lot; especially the perspective and Bulma's smirk in the car.

[son veku]

OK here is the answer

Q: What kind of drawing material did you use on Dragon Ball? What drawing material do you work with today?
A: I'm not sure if these particular brands are available in the USA, but on Dragon Ball I used G-pens [a type of quill pen], Kent paper [A Bristol board-like paper made in Japan], water-proof ink, and color inks for coloring. Today I use a Macintosh for coloring.

Q: I've heard that you are re-coloring, possibly even re-drawing, parts of Dragon Ball for a "Perfect Edition." What is it like to draw Goku and Co. for the first time in a long while?
A: I haven't redrawn any of the actual manga, because then I'd start getting nit-picky about everything. Just new cover art. To draw it again for the first time in so long produced a very complicated mix of emotions, combining nostalgia with the feeling that I don't want to draw Dragon Ball anymore.

http://www.myfavoritegames.com/dragonba ... riyama.htm

[Ashura]

In the first Daizenshuu, I think he talks about switching between markers to paints, but I can't remember offhand which order it was in (paints to markers/felt tipped pens?), and what stuff he talked about using.

I'm fairly certain right now he uses a wacom and Photoshop/Illustrator. Maybe Painter, or some other tool, but probably the former because he doesn't do much in the way of elaborate painting, and those other tools like painter are built to replicate watercolors and stuff.

[son veku]

It says he use a Mac for coloring does this mean he still uses a pen for drawing?

[Ashura]

He probably uses a computer for linework as well at this point. Looking at some of the DQ stuff, it's definitely digital.

[Perfect]

It says he use a Mac for coloring does this mean he still uses a pen for drawing?

Yes, besides one comic I believe (as far as outward mentions go from him). Also he used a "Macintosh" back in the mid-90s, which is around the time Adobe was just starting to release Photoshop for Windows. So it's entirely possible for him to have switched operating systems.

[Ashura]

http://gamersblock.net/gamefluid/wp-con ... -Art-4.png

If you take a look... it's like he doesn't even use a wacom or something... but the linework is definitely digital.

I wonder if he does pencil sketches which he scans in and they auto-vector it? Because that's the kind of result you get from auto-vectors in illustrator, actually...

[Perfect]

I can't really see him not creating a sketch with a pencil or pen beforehand, though that's just me. I prefer the old ink drawings myself, but I guess traditional artwork is becoming a relic of the past with Dragon Ball.

[Ashura]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure he pencil sketches still... most artists do at least a little. However, by the end everything's digital. I just wonder, though, if they're just super lazy and auto-vector his sketches. The weird bumpyness in the faces, for instance, are usually a relic of auto vector tracing.

Looking at the DQIX art there, it's either that, or he just uses the pen tool in Photoshop and just doesn't give a damn about how nice the lines look.

[Perfect]

If they have been, it must not have been for all that long, or at least not as evident. The kanzenban covers don't really have that bumpiness to them, from what I can see.
http://imageftw.com/uploads/20120324/001.jpg

[Ashura]

I see a lot of the same issues to be honest, though the JPG compression is so bad on that picture it's hard to tell if it's the jpg artifacting causing a lot of the bumps, pencil marks, or what. Realistically, a clean jpg at hi-res will reveal what's going on in terms of design if you can get something that's not a scan but closer to the final digital. It's not uncommon to scan in "clean" pencil sketches and color those digitally, too; in fact, the keyart for Overman King Gainer was this way.

(Fun fact: All the keyart for Noir were elaborately painted cels which were scanned in in high resolution and then photoshopped together tastefully.)

I do think there was a lot more polish put into the Kanzenban covers, however.