Hiroyuki Asada Illustrations Water6 min read
Reading Time: 3 minutesHiroyuki Asada Illustrations Water is the second art book from the artist this year with the first being Tegami Bachi Illustrations Shine. These two books are physically identical with hardcover bindings and slip covers.
Hiroyuki Asada Illustrations Water is A4-size, hardcover, and 120 pages. When you remove the slip cover, you see a textless version of the cover illustration. Unlike the previous art book, there is only one poster. Most of the illustrations are still full pages or spreads.
Water starts out with a few original works before moving on to illustrations from the manga series I’ll. The illustrations from I’ll are from 2001 to 2004, but because Asada is such a seasoned artist (even at that point), there isn’t a noticeable quality difference. There are changes in how he finishes his works with creative texturing, surreal lighting, and a darker color palette.
There are 34 illustrations from I’ll. It’s more accurate to count pictures than pages in this book since some illustrations are opposite empty pages. There are also pages that only have a design for aesthetic purposes.
The latter half of Hiroyuki Asada Illustrations Water features more original works that were illustrated for magazines like Kikan S and Shonen Jump. There are also a couple of tribute illustrations, including one from Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei.
The only poster in the book features a color illustration on one side and monochrome sketches on the other. Those are the only monochrome works in this collection.
Another fan-feature are the original illustrations he’s been drawing for Kikan S Magazine. Thirty-four of the illustrations are collected in here. Some feature re-imagined versions of characters from Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, The Ugly Duckling, Jack the Ripper, and more.
The art book ends with an 8-page color comic by Toshiyuki Terui with illustrations from Hiroyuki Asada. It’s more illustration than dialogue, like the kind of works in GELATIN magazine. Hiroyuki Asada Illustrations Water is an excellent art book and since it’s been years since his last self-titled collection, there is plenty to look at!
Title: Hiroyuki Asada Illustrations Water タイトル: 浅田弘幸イラスト集 Water Author: Hiroyuki Asada Publication Date: 05/02/2011 Size: 120p NDL: https://id.ndl.go.jp/bib/000011184974
