Satoru Iwata’s “Directly To You” Pose Had A Hand In A Rebellious Gravity Rush 2 Design

During a recent event called “Digital Artist Meetup!” where illustrators and concept artists gathered to discuss their work, Gravity Rush concept artist Takeshi Oga shared an interesting bit on how the iconic “directly to you” pose of the late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata went into a concept design for Gravity Rush 2. [Thanks, Too.]

In his lecture, Oga discussed his different paradoxical approaches for the concept artwork that would eventually become the world of Gravity Rush. One of the key highlights was about “occasionally drawing something different than what was ordered.”

As a concept artist, your job is often to draw whatever the planner asks for. One time Oga was asked to “design a Noah’s Ark” but he didn’t draw a ship, let alone a Noah’s Ark. Oga said he’s “not sure if you could do this as a freelancer today” but back then he was working for a company where he was able to take risk of doing things the way he wanted.

For example, he was asked to “draw a machine” but instead he drew a flower. He was asked to draw a machine for Gravity Rush that can indicate where the player needs to go next after defeating all the enemies of an area. However, he told himself “machines are common, so I want to draw something that’s not a machine” and decided to go with a flower. Oga said that another reason was because when he asked the planner why it had to be a machine, he didn’t get a solid reason.

“When asked to make something that shows the path, a flower is fine too, and thinking of that is what a concept artist does,” said Oga.

For Gravity Rush 2, Oga was told “make a new flower design for the sequel,” but to Oga he took it as “I was told to do that so now I don’t want to draw a flower” and he decided to draw hands this time.

Incidentally, the hands that Oga designed was inspired from the famous “directly to you” pose from the late Nintendo President Satoru Iwata.

You can check out the finished work on the “Iwata hands” in the below footage at the 21:39 mark:

Gravity Rush 2 is available on PlayStation 4.