Favorite Final Fantasy concept artist?

[ThePersonInFrontOfYou]

So, who is your favorite Final Fantasy Concept concept artist?

In case you don't know of all of them, here are some examples of their work.

I assume most of you at least know Tetsuya Nomura. He's the one who is most commonly associated with the series at this point. He does character designs for Final Fantasy to this day, and he also did character designs for The World Ends with You and Kingdom Hearts.

Examples:
Cloud official art
Yuna, a la FFX
I can tell his style has grown.

Yoshitaka Amano was the original character designer for the series, and still designs logos and promotional art for the series, although his designs aren't as prominently featured. I personally think it's because his style looks better in 2D than it does in 3D. His art has been featured in many other places, notably Vampire Hunter D.

Examples:
FFIV promotional art
Final Fantasy II packaging

As this is a Crystal Chronicles guild, I'm sure most of you are familiar with Toshiyuki Itahana's work. He did the designs for The original FFCC as well as Crystal Bearers. In addition, he also worked on Final Fantasy XI online and the Chocobo's Dungeon games.

Examples:
Final Fantasy Crystal Chonicles promotional art
Early FFXI concept art

And now, Akihiko Yoshida. He did the concepts for Final Fantasy XII, Tactics, and the remade characters for FFIII DS. He has also worked on some of the tactics ogre games.

Examples:
Fran and Balthier
Final Fantasy III characters

So, who is your favorite and why?  

[Yoshikazu]

of course my favorite artist would have to be Itahana,
then Yoshida, Amano, and lastly Nomura

the reason why i like Itahana, is because when i look at some of his work like these
Image 1
Image 2
Image 3
Image 4

his artwork, always to me seem like either a classical painting or it came from one of those old time children fantasy story

Yoshida, is the same as Itahana to me. His artwork, seems more laid back and always seem like the people in his artworks are having a fun time.

Amano, I like his work, cause it alwasy reminds me of the old asian woodblock paintings. The people and environments are so whimsical as well that they almost seems that if you try and digitized it into a game. you will never capture its essence.

Nomura, he is a damn fine artist, and like you said. he has grown tremendously from the time he started at Square till now. The only problem that i have with his art is his characters. Though there is nothing wrong with drawing "anime" style its a damn popular style, I tend to do it alot as well. His characters seem so "cookie cutter" (same as mine as well), no matter how pretty he makes them look. And he always seem like he has to go over the top with his characters, plain or normal looking isn't good enough for him. [Insert joke here about zippers and chains].
Another thing about him, is that when we think he is gonna ******** up a beloved character (in this case Vivi from FFIX), i think he did a damn well job with it, Vivi looks alot more cuter and childlike with his KH2 outfit. And when we think he is gonna do a good job with a beloved character it turns out bad or nothing much has change from its original design (haven't seen one yet but bound to happen)  

[palaven]

Although I admire Amano's skills, I really love Yoshida's work. I've been obsessed with his art since Tactics, and to me it looks really detailed, skilled and unique, unlike Nomuras. lol

I love Yoshida the most, but I also love Itahana's work.  

[ThePersonInFrontOfYou]

I'm a big fan of Amano. I found his work through Final Fantasy and I am now a fan of his work overall. I have a gallery book of his art from various points of his career, and I look at it very often. I love his Final Fantasy stuff, moreso for the older games. I never liked the silkscreen pictures he did for VII and VIII, although I love how he can make Sephiroth look threatning . I just love his loose, detailed style. It's like no other.

I like Itahana as well. His work is always vibrant, creative, and nice to look at. The Crystal Chronicles games would not be the same without his brand of creative designs.

I never really cared for Yoshida, although I won't deny that he is a great artist. I didn't like his FFXII stuff very much, but I think that the FFIII DS stuff looks really good.

As for Nomura... I never really cared for him much either, but it's hard not to form an opinion about him, since he's all over the place. I must admit, he has gotten much better over the course of his career, and he is better at making his characters look more uniquethan he used to be. Compare concepts of the main casts of FFVII and FFX. Cloud n' Pals look like paper dolls compared to Team Yuna.
I don't like most anime styles, and Nomura is no exception. He's not bad by any means. His work is just not my cup of tea. Although I really Don't like the styles he used for TWEWY and Kingdom Hearts. His other stuff is just "meh."