FMA sketches by Ace Attorney's character designer, Iwamoto Tatsuro
For the past week, Iwamoto-san has been posting sketches of FMA characters on his twitter as a part of his daily sketching challenge and they are absolutely BEAUTIFUL.
I really want to share his art over here and also translate his posts for you all because I think his commentaries are quite insightful for people who are interested in character design!
[Those who know their AA lore would recognize him as who voiced Edgeworth (Mitsurugi) in the games :3]
Anyways, below are his FMA sketches he's shared on twitter so far! (Contains: Ed, Hughes, Kimblee, Mustang, Breda) You can click on the dates to see their original post. I will add to this post if he shares any more sketches, it seems that he has been on an FMA roll xD
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25/11/2023
If you draw your favourite things out you will know them better! So, this is Edward Elric from #FullmetalAlchemist.
Even if you have decided on the pose you want to draw, it is better to sketch out these three first:
the moment before the pose is struck
the pose itself
the moment after the pose is struck
then decide which image works better for your art. I learned this from a really great senior of mine, and it is very solid advice.
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29/11/2023 (Translator's note: I decided to move this one to the top because it is my favourite. No I don't accept criticism.)
I have been drawing Ed's automail again.
I like it when the machine part has a distinctly different silhouette compared to the human body, so I added some original ideas to the design.
What design should I draw next? Perhaps I should draw the military uniform?
# (combined two posts because they’re the progression of the same piece.) #
26/11/2023
Again, it is the time of "drawing your favourite things to know them better!"
It feels so good to draw such great characters...
27/11/2023
My Photoshop has been crashing for mysterious reasons the whole morning, and I tried to troubleshoot in the afternoon and it was a PAIN. Computers are really difficuuuuuuuult--
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28/11/2023
Iwamoto-style drawing Masterclass: Bonus!
It is the "Give the leather and metal items a bit of flare/shine to immediately make the drawing look more complete"-jutsu!
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30/11/2023
I wanted the clothes to give off an oversized, loose impression.
Canon Hughes didn't seem to be wearing a shirt underneath... hmm.
03/12/2023
I am beginning to understand the structure of the military uniform better...
Realising the butt flap/cape didn’t actually connect to the upper jacket is a shocker to me.
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03/12/2023
A continuation of yesterday's sketch
...or so I thought, until I realized how King Bradley and Kimblee during the Ishval war had a different overcoat design, in which they actually wore a single long coat instead of a separated upper and bottom set.
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04/12/2023
When his clothes were unbuttoned, there was something that looked like an additional button on his right chest... I wonder if it could be fastened from the back?
(Translator's note: sorry, I have no idea what button he's referring to here lol)
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05/12/2023
I like how each character's personality was expressed through the way they dress. Contrary to his appearance, this person was very intelligent, which makes him such a great character.
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genuinely, the best thing about Roy and Hughes' friendship is that Roy is a brutal pragmatist who is haughty, ruthless, and often cold and Hughes is a goofball who is always friendly, cheerful, and welcoming, but Roy is the hopeful idealist and Hughes is the cynical realist
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I’m glad Maes Hughes died.
He’s a fan favorite character and I enjoy him a lot too, but I think fundamentally he’s a character who has to die. His role in the narrative is to haunt it.
I might be even more of a weirdo because I enjoy his manga characterization over his Brotherhood or ‘03 portrayal, but I love the idea of Hughes being someone the Elric brothers barely know - someone we, the audience, barely see.
Until he dies.
Because suddenly he’s everywhere. He was Roy’s friend and Armstrong’s superior officer and Winry’s acquaintance and Elicia’s father - and he was the soldier both Ed and Al knew, but didn’t actually know, that got killed because of them anyway.
In the manga Winry stays at Hughes’ place, but Ed and Al enter his house for the first time after they found out he died. For them, it’s not about losing a friend (though I am sure they liked him just fine) because that story is already Roy’s - for them it’s about realizing that this plot they’ve involved themselves in kills people that aren’t actually directly involved at all to begin with. It makes sense for their allies and friends and loved-ones to be targeted by the antagonists - but a soldier who mostly joined in because he was at the right (or wrong) place at the right (wrong) time? That’s not supposed to happen. And that’s what makes Hughes’ death so hard on them.
(and poor Elicia - abandoned children without their fathers were always a weakness of Ed’s)
But Roy? Yeah... he suffers. From the moment of Hughes’ dead on, Roy is haunted by it. By him. His best friend follows him everywhere. We see it in the way Roy only involves himself in the plot because Hughes figured something out and Roy is desperate for answers. He hunts down the homunculi to save this country, sure, but mostly so he can burn his best friend’s murderer to the ground. When Riza talks about winning against the Führer and their military dictatorship, she talks about all of them, not a hint of revenge coloring her vision - but Roy? It is telling that it isn’t a greater ideal that makes him torture Envy, but the agony of his best friend’s death.
The thing that almost breaks Roy is Maes.
No.
It’s Maes’ memory haunting the narrative.
And isn’t that beautiful?
The tragedy of it all, the horror, and the realization that Roy Mustang never really recovered from the War, that his friends are the only think keeping him in one piece, the fact that Roy Mustang is a Hero and a Monster and a fallible human capable of love.
Maes Hughes has to die to remind all of us of what Roy Mustang is capable of: love, loyalty, devotion.... and the slaughter and torture of numerous people.
His ghost is haunting the narrative - and for that I love him.
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