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kradeelavIt's a very little known fact in Hellsing's fandom that there's six rare JP-only artbooks containing animation pre-production work of the OVA, all with the name of "Ryoji Nakamori".
Even I had been in the fandom for well over 5 years with an active interest in sakuga animation before realizing it. Regardless, over the next 5 years I made a point to collect all six of them - and I hope this post will shed a little light to these suckers.
Ryoji Nakamori-san (sometimes spelled Ryouji) was one of the key animators in Bleach, Lupin III, Tokyo Mew Mew, Monster, Angel Sanctuary, among others - no animation novice. However he held by far the most key/lead roles with Hellsing; Animation Director & Character Design & Chief Animation Director & Key Animator, all-in-all. Something about his style worked shockingly well at bringing Hirano's (mangaka) art to life in a way that made sense to animation principles, while keeping the spirit of gonzo exaggeration. I think he's criminally underrated, to be honest, cue this post. :P
While all of these artbooks contain his art, they're not the same - Two were an exclusive in I think one of those blue-ray tin packs (with art that skews more cleaned-up), as listed below ....
... and the other 4 are simply unlabeled collections of his rough work across a specific breadth of years that the series was live. There's nothing about author or publisher other than a "Wild Geese" at the back as well.
Most of them pop up on ebay every so often in varying degrees of availability and cost ... as I know ... too well. (You can easily spend ~$200USD on each including shipping, though I distinctly remember haggling on most of these. That last one tho, man. Brutal for such a skimpy thing comparatively, and it's also the rarest.)
I attempted to scan these nicely back in 2020 at 600dpi -and it's still on my bucket list, as I'm one of those "data wants to be free" folks- but my printer gave out after 10 pages of the first one, and well, I don't have as much time these days.
THAT being said, I've taken a metric ton of pictures for my own drawing reference, and outside of somebody else scanning it, this is probably the largest collection of images from these books you'll find on the net. Feel free to reshare, would like credit as kradeelav if you do, but I'm not going to hunt you down if it doesn't happen.
~120 pictures downloadable in this zipped mediafire folder >> https://www.mediafire.com/file/eomyxfhzcv5d7xg/Ryoji+Nakamori+Hellsing+Art.zip/file
Spoilers for hellsing ultimate, content warning for hellsing-levels of gore, nazis, general gonzoness. Some images may be a little skewed / perspective warped but they're reasonably faithful. Skews towards Alucard/Integra/Walter/Seras and the Major because I draw those the most. Happy to take a few pictures of other characters requested, no questions asked. Just shoot me an email or comment here.
Hope you enjoyed the writeup. :>
Even I had been in the fandom for well over 5 years with an active interest in sakuga animation before realizing it. Regardless, over the next 5 years I made a point to collect all six of them - and I hope this post will shed a little light to these suckers.
Ryoji Nakamori-san (sometimes spelled Ryouji) was one of the key animators in Bleach, Lupin III, Tokyo Mew Mew, Monster, Angel Sanctuary, among others - no animation novice. However he held by far the most key/lead roles with Hellsing; Animation Director & Character Design & Chief Animation Director & Key Animator, all-in-all. Something about his style worked shockingly well at bringing Hirano's (mangaka) art to life in a way that made sense to animation principles, while keeping the spirit of gonzo exaggeration. I think he's criminally underrated, to be honest, cue this post. :P
While all of these artbooks contain his art, they're not the same - Two were an exclusive in I think one of those blue-ray tin packs (with art that skews more cleaned-up), as listed below ....
- Hellsing Ultimate Series Production Art Collection (also known as) Hellsing Ultimate Steel Book Collection I
- Hellsing Ultimate Series Production Art Collection III & IV (also known as) Hellsing Ultimate Steel Book Collection II
... and the other 4 are simply unlabeled collections of his rough work across a specific breadth of years that the series was live. There's nothing about author or publisher other than a "Wild Geese" at the back as well.
- Ryoji Nakamori Works 2005-2007 "Hellsing I-III" (~190 pages, landscape orientation)
- Ryoji Nakamori Works 2007-2009 "Hellsing IV-VI" (~190 pages, landscape orientation)
- Ryoji Nakamori Works 2009-2011 "Hellsing "VII-IX" (~190 pages, landscape orientation)
- Ryoji Nakamori Works 2011-2012 "Hellsing X" (~32 pages, portrait orientation)
Most of them pop up on ebay every so often in varying degrees of availability and cost ... as I know ... too well. (You can easily spend ~$200USD on each including shipping, though I distinctly remember haggling on most of these. That last one tho, man. Brutal for such a skimpy thing comparatively, and it's also the rarest.)
I attempted to scan these nicely back in 2020 at 600dpi -and it's still on my bucket list, as I'm one of those "data wants to be free" folks- but my printer gave out after 10 pages of the first one, and well, I don't have as much time these days.
THAT being said, I've taken a metric ton of pictures for my own drawing reference, and outside of somebody else scanning it, this is probably the largest collection of images from these books you'll find on the net. Feel free to reshare, would like credit as kradeelav if you do, but I'm not going to hunt you down if it doesn't happen.
~120 pictures downloadable in this zipped mediafire folder >> https://www.mediafire.com/file/eomyxfhzcv5d7xg/Ryoji+Nakamori+Hellsing+Art.zip/file
Spoilers for hellsing ultimate, content warning for hellsing-levels of gore, nazis, general gonzoness. Some images may be a little skewed / perspective warped but they're reasonably faithful. Skews towards Alucard/Integra/Walter/Seras and the Major because I draw those the most. Happy to take a few pictures of other characters requested, no questions asked. Just shoot me an email or comment here.
Hope you enjoyed the writeup. :>
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-26 06:28 pm (UTC)and i LOVED the write up. OMFG!!!!
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-26 08:53 pm (UTC)