A very tall image. it's got 7-8 different quotes on it, an image of Satomi Asakawa, and screenshots of various games that influenced her early in her life and career.

A very tall image. it's got 5-6 different quotes on it, screenshots of animation and film that influenced Asakawa, some images of her senior project from DigiPen, and some images of the first characters she designed for Ocarina of Time.

A very tall image. It's got 4 different quotes on it, an image of Satomi Asakawa, and screenshots of characters she designed for Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, and Pikmin 2

A very tall image. It's got 2 different quotes on it, and a big collage of art of characters that Asakawa's team designed for Twilight Princess. It also has some photos of her, including some from Twilight Princess development and one from a few years after she retired from Nintendo.

Trying something new today!

Zelda Dev Highlight:
Satomi Asakawa, Character Designer

In (mostly) her own words, Asakawa's game dev career from start to end!

#Zelda
#TwilightPrincessQuote, #OcarinaOfTimeQuote, #MajorasMaskQuote
#AsakawaQuote

Full image:
drive.google.com/file/d/1ywWD...

PEOPLE: - Satomi Asakawa, age 48. Character designer for Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Spirit Tracks, & Skyward Sword. Character Design Lead for Twilight Princess. - Rodney Alan Greenblat, age 58. American artist, graphic designer, and children’s book author. QUOTE: Asakawa: To be honest, I first bought Nintendo games and started playing them after I turned 20 years old, around the time of the Super Nintendo. The first time I really got into a Nintendo game was Rare’s Donkey Kong Country and later Banjo-Kazooie. I was really attracted to Western-style character design. I was also really influenced by Rodney Alan Greenblat’s work. Even before his most famous game PaRappa the Rapper came out, I was a big fan of his earlier computer game, Rodney’s Wonder Window.

Asakawa on the first games she really got into on Nintendo consoles, 2019.

Source: DigiPen.edu

#AsakawaQuote, #GreenblatQuote

www.hyruleinterviews.com/0a38f5f6d4c8...

PEOPLE: - Satomi Asakawa, age 48. Character Designer for Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Spirit Tracks, & Skyward Sword. Character Design Lead for Twilight Princess. QUOTE: Asakawa: I didn’t realize it until I grew up, but my dad was the manager of a SEGA arcade, so when I was a young child, I’d go to the arcade he managed and was allowed to play games 10 times for free. I played a lot of Galaxian and Space Invaders. Ever since I was a toddler, my dad had a tennis video game for our TV in the house. He loved mechanical things and new gadgets — they were a big hobby of his. So in that sense, I was familiar with video games since my early childhood.

Asakawa on being exposed to video games at a young age through her father's work, 2019.

Source: DigiPen.edu

#AsakawaQuote

www.notion.so/0a38f5f6d4c8...

PEOPLE: - Satomi Asakawa, age 48. Character design for Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Twilight Princess, Spirit Tracks, and Skyward Sword. QUOTE: "Q: Was it common for you to step outside your explicit role as a character designer and animator at Nintendo? Asakawa: Since Nintendo did not have enough production staff [during Twilight Princess development], it was necessary for a single artist to do everything from character design to modeling, animation, and even general game direction. It was very fun and interesting! But nowadays in the video game industry, there’s more division of labor. I think that I worked there during the last era when an artist got to do all those different kinds of work."

Asakawa on the last era when artists got to wear many hats, 2019.

Source: DigiPen

#Zelda
#TwilightPrincessQuote
#AsakawaQuote

www.notion.so/0a38f5f6d4c8...

PEOPLE: - Satomi Asakawa, age 48. Character Designer for Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Spirit Tracks, & Skyward Sword. Character Design Lead for Twilight Princess . QUOTE: "Asakawa: I realized mental health management is the key to your overall long-term health at work. The employees who come to Nintendo are very good at what they do, and they’re great workers. But it also takes a lot of time and effort to make a game. I used to talk with some of my colleagues and coworkers and became a sort of counselor for them. So in the office, not only was I an artist, I was also playing a role in some staff’s mental care. I gradually learned more about mental health and therapy, but at the company, I myself was also overwhelmed by all the work I needed to do as an artist. So I couldn’t really allocate too much of my time to being a therapist for my coworkers!"

Asakawa on why she left the game industry to become a therapist, 2019.

Source: DigiPen

#AsakawaQuote
www.notion.so/0a38f5f6d4c8...

PEOPLE: - Satomi Asakawa, age 48. Character Designer for Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Spirit Tracks, & Skyward Sword. Character Design Lead for Twilight Princess . QUOTE: "Asakawa: I had been learning English conversation since high school, but learning English and having to use it at DigiPen was so hard! All the classes and tests were in English. The hardest parts were the presentations and speeches I had to give in English in front of the rest of the students. I was embarrassed to speak broken, childish English, even though I was a 26-year-old adult. I prepared all my materials so I could communicate my work to everyone, not only in English but visually as well. I showed them my 3D textures and images of my work progress during presentations. I did something similar on tests too."

Asakawa on having to give presentations in a second language at school, 2019.

Source: DigiPen

#AsakawaQuote

www.notion.so/0a38f5f6d4c8...

PEOPLE: - Satomi Asakawa. Character Designer for Majora’s Mask. QUOTE: "Asakawa: NPC characters are always created by considering how they will be seen, and only have a small number of bones and polygons. To get the player to empathize with them, we use lots of motion and facial expressions to show off their personalities. We usually have a model when we create our characters. For example, the monkeys [in Majora’s Mask] were based off a cat I had bought. If anything, the monkey's faces look cat-like, right? Next, the giant turtle was modeled after the famous Japanese twins Kin and Gin, of which Kin happened to be in the news at the time for passing away. The beaver brothers also have special names! Younger brother Shtick (the one holding branch) and older brother Twig (the swimming beaver)."

Asakawa on her approach to NPC characterization in Majora’s Mask, 2000.

Via The Hyrule Journals.

#Zelda
#MajorasMaskQuote
#AsakawaQuote

www.notion.so/24fa4198de74...