Square Enix and Magic: The Gathering developer Wizards of The Coast recently published a roundtable discussion on how the card game’s Final Fantasy expansion was designed. The interview includes many insights from Final Fantasy series creative director and character designer Tetsuya Nomura, who supervised the artwork for the collaboration and personally illustrated a card for the project
For his own piece, Nomura chose to depict FFVII’s Sephiroth (for the “Sephiroth, Fabled Soldier/One-Winged Angel” card). When asked about why he opted to revisit a character he designed 30 years ago, Nomura cited the currently ongoing Final Fantasy Remake project, but also touched on Sephiroth’s enduring popularity as a character. He revealed that when working on games and other projects, he constantly gets asked “Hey, can you make me a character like Sephiroth?’”
“It makes me think that everyone must really love him!” Nomura says. “In that sense, he’s a character that is approachable to both old and new fans, and the fact that so many people keep coming to me asking for Sephiroth! Sephiroth! must mean people love him.”
In capturing the essence of Sephiroth in his new illustration, Nomura says his goal was to capitalize on the existing personal feelings and attachments people have to him, and make sure the artwork doesn’t create a disconnect or betray fans’ expectations. “I used the fans’ existing understanding as a base and added other elements on top, layer by layer, to stir their imaginations.” He also applied this way of thinking when reviewing other artists’ pieces for the project. “Fans already have a clear image of these characters, and the artists bring their own individuality to the work. The key is to balance both—to preserve the artist’s uniqueness without straying from the fans’ image.”
