If there's one thing that I'll always remember after watching Studio Ghibli's Whisper of the Heart a few years ago, its those fantastic dream sequences that the protagonists conjures up.
The guy's work was just so different from what I had seen up to that point. However, it wasn't until a few years later that I would learn the identity of the background artist. Why'd it take so long? I don't know... I guess I was just lazy.
Here's a brief rundown on the guy's life:
1948 Born in Osaka, Japan
1971 Graduated from Kanazawa College of Art.
1985 Comic book, The Tales of Iblard, published by Seishinsha and Co. Ltd.
1994 Collection of paintings, The Natural History of Iblard and published by Cacoosha. (volume II and 1997; volume III and 1999; volume IV and 2003)
1995 Took charge of art in the visionary scenes of “The Story Given Me by Baron” in the animated film and Whisper of the Heart
(A production of Studio Ghibli/Screenplay, storyboard and production: Mr. Hayao MIYAZAKI and Direction: Mr. Yoshifumi KONDO)
2001 Exhibition “INOUE Naohisa - Iblard 2001” (Beltin Poile and Paris) A picture Book “The World is your collection” by Cacoosha. A collection of picture and story “I heard that in Maze city” by Kodansha.
2003 Exhibition “NAOHISA INOUE Recent works” (Caelum Gallery and N.Y.) Professor at Seian University of Art and Design
2007
Director: IBLARD JIKAN
2008 - Present
More Exhibits...
The guy's released a bunch of artbooks throughout his career, and has appeared on numerous exhibits. One of Mr. Naohisa's "recent" accomplishments is directing Iblard Jikan, a feature length "film" that brought his original paintings to life. Reception was mixed, but I don't care.
What's Iblard Jikan? According to one of the few websites dedicated to Mr. Naohisa's world, Iblard is described as...
Fragments of forgotten memories...Nostalgic days that are sure to come again...IBLARD is made of such elements.
Beyond that, I have no idea. However, sure looks darn pretty.
If you're starting to get the impression that this post is just an excuse to dump Mr. Naohisa's wonderfully exquisite works, you're probably right. But if these pictures are already worth gazillion words, shouldn't that be enough!? (Excuse me?)
If you're one of the few people who are wondering how the heck did he paint that way, you can go check out a little "How to" he did on his website. If you wanna buy some merchandise... good luck.
And... that's it. Phew! Oh, and like most blog posts about Mr. Naohisa, I feel I have to post a video on that Iblard thing. Here's the trailer. In Japanese.