Book Review: Shining Hearts: Collection of Visual Materials

This is Udon's translation of the original Japanese art book シャイニング・ハーツ ビジュアル設定資料集 that was released in December 2011. It's for the PSP role-playing game Shining Hearts.

The book features the concept art for the characters, locations, enemies and in-game items.

The bulk is made up of characters created by Japanese pinup artist and character designer Tony Taka. He has designed for several Shining games and has his own artbook Tony's Artworks from Shining World. The character art are in the form of full page pin-up style illustrations and also the concept sketches with notes. The costume designs are very elaborate.

There are a few pages of interview talking about the world, the characters and the designs. Strangely, even though they talk about the Chibi versions of the characters, there aren't any main character Chibi art except for the villagers.

The environment art is mostly sketches and printed rather small. There are also designs for the ships. the bread and food from the game. The fish are very realistic and comparable to illustrations from fishing magazines.

This is a nice visual companion for the game. Also recommended to those who like pin-up style Japanese female character art.

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The book's a review copy from Udon Entertainment.

Shining Hearts: Collection of Visual Materials is available at Amazon (US | CA | UK | DE | FR | IT | ES | JP | CN)

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