bocs

Paul “Otaking” Johnson creates his own brand of anime illustrations and animations. His work is vibrant, eclectic, obsessively detailed and is largely influenced by Japanese and Korean artists, most notably Masamune Shirow, Ryūsuke Mita, Satoshi Urushihara and Hyung-tae Kim.

Paul slaves away over a hot computer to produce all of the artwork and animation for indie games company, Studio Trophis, as well as producing his own extensive body of work.

He also loves to court controversy, garnering the ire of many when he released his documentary on “The Rise and Fall of Anime Fansubs“. He certainly doesn’t shy away from the fire when it comes to his strongly held views.

Somehow, he manages to do all this whilst still doing his job as a professional Japanese-English video games translator.

I have a life long interest in anime, Japanese animation and when I first arrived at Sheffield, I joined all of the societies going and in the end only two of them stuck, one of which was the Anime Society. That’s where I met Paul for the first time, firstly, I was struck by his hair which was slathered in so much gel that it didn’t look much differen from a helmet, then, I was awestuck by Paul’s talent. So, I immediately demanded that he showed me more of his work, and teach me how to do what he does.

Eventually, we moved in together, and I was always quietly (or not so quietly) looking over his shoulder as he worked, and being excited by his latest project. Especially so when I saw him collaborating with another housemate, Richard Perrin, on their first game, the White Chamber.

Almost ten years on from when I first walked into that auditorium, I’m now a graphic designer using the computer for pretty much all of my work, and I can honestly say that Paul has taught me much of what I know about working with digital artwork. For that, I’m grateful to him. For sharing his knowledge, his talent and mostly for providing me with much of my inspiration for pursuing art and design beyond my GCSE years.

Paul Johnson is Yvonne Tsang’s choice for the christmas bocs nadolig exhibition.

Tags: animation, anime, fansub, Japanese, Otaking, Paul Johnson, Sheffield, translation, translator, Yvonne Tsang

This entry was posted on 28 November 2008 at 4:54 PM and is filed under Yvonne Tsang, artists, bocs, exhibition. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.