TUJ Art Erika Hirayama is a half Chinese and half Japanese who currently active in Tokyo. She is a games concept artist and character designer, and her eye-catching designs are influenced by her culture experience. She is also an artist who challenges the boundary between analog and digital art forms by combining the two features.
Character Designs
Traveler (Character Design), 2023
5,787 x 4,093 p
raveler, Object (Character Design), 2023
5,787 x 4,093 px
Bard (Character Design), 2023
8,185 x 11,589 px
Bard, Clothes (Character Design), 2022
5,787 x 4,093 px
Bard, Back (Character Design), 2022
5,787 x 4,093 px
Bar Owner (Character Design), 2023
5,787 x 4,093 px
Artist Statement
To be a concept artist and character designer was always my dream from a young age. The satisfaction and the excitement of creating and visualizing a character, the process of helping the character become alive always fascinated me. Also, as digital slowly dominates the modern world, I want to be an artist that successfully challenged the idea of physical analog drawing and digital drawing as well.
I am a Chinese Japanese girl who born in Japan and raised in China. During my time in Shanghai, China, I discovered my interest in art with my best friend there. I was strongly influenced by her and was able to learn a lot from her about drawing since she was the best artist in my class in elementary school. And my first contact with character design was also during elementary school, where there was a tradition that continues my entire 6 years of elementary school: based on a novel, we are encouraged to create a character and storyline, then expended it, combine the story with other characters made by another classmate. I also came across a digital device as a drawing medium that I used as a main drawing medium for today. After elementary school, I moved back to Japan, where I started to learn a lot about concept artist and how it actually works. In Japan, I met my first concept artbook, which brings me on the path of becoming a concept artist. I was amazed by the artwork in the book, and the whole unseen process of creating one single character. Even though I was not able to learn how to draw a concept art and character design, I still managed to learn it from self-taught materials and the experience that I got from my lifetime.
I was able to access digital drawing during my youth, and this deeply influenced me who I view the relationship between traditional art and digital art. There is clear difference between digital art and traditional art, some might also debate that digital art is not an art. One of the reason people say so is because that traditional art is usually being created physically, while digital art created on electronic devices. My main goal is to challenge and combine the difference between digital and traditional based on my experience throughout these two methods. In addition, the AI generated drawing phenomena that hit the art world encouraged me to create this digital-traditional art furthermore. Even though AI generated art is still debatable to be an actual art, I want to create something that AI could not established. People in modern society can no longer be separated from technology, and I want people to experience integration through my art works.
In the future, I hope that I can accomplish to be a successful concept artist who works for several platforms. And as an artist who developed a unique art style that could inspire other artists as well as others has inspired me. Separated from the work of being concept artist, I would like to create a personal workshop that is dedicated to exploring the relationship and creating the artworks that combine technology and tradition. Motivate my community for stepping forward and have eyes open experience into the post-modern art form.
As a concept artist and character designer, I am in the process of exploring my work field and who could go further to reach my goal. Through building my experience as the concept artist and character designer in various fields not only just games, but also movies, animation, TV shows, events, and so on, I will be able to establish my goal as a great concept artist and character designer. While as an artist who want to develop the furthermore about the concept of traditional and analog art, I am searching for a better way to express and show how the two aspects could be combined, and exploring much deeper interpretation for why we should no longer view technology and traditional as a part.
Artist Information
Erika Hirayama
Phone Number: 070-3839-4869
Email: hrymcarrier@gmail.com