When I put up my first post from the Atlus Art Exhibit I mentioned that I would be following it up with another post highlighting the concept art on display. Looking back at the photos I took at the Atlus Art Exhibit it seemed like too much to cram into one post and separating the concept art from Catherine: Full Body and Persona 5 Royal just seemed like the logical place to piece things.

As part of the Atlus Art Exhibition Gallery Nucleus had Shigenori Soejima, the character designer for both Catherine and Persona 5 Royal on site for the opening reception as a special guest. A longtime employee for Atlus, Shigenori Soejima has worked on all the Persona games since as well as its parent franchise, Shin Megami Tensei. Since Persona 3, Soejima has been the character designer for the series, taking over from his mentor Kasuma Kaneko.

I always love it when Gallery Nucleus is able to have special guests available for their shows because they always bring a little extra to the event. The last time I remember going to Gallery Nucleus for a videogame-themed show with a special guest it was the Yakuza 6: Essence of Art Exhibition and they had Daisuke Sato, the Yakuza series’ General Producer on site to do a live panel and Q&A and tattoo artist HORITOMO who was responsible for designing the tattoos for the games do a live art demonstration.

Since Soejima was the character designer for both Catherine: Full Body and Persona 5 Royal it’s only appropriate that as part of the Atlus Art Exhibit they had some of Soejima’s concept art from both games on display.

There’s something about concept art that I’ve always found fascinating. I think it’s being able to visualize the evolution of something from an initial idea to the final product is what I really find interesting. I especially love it when the artists scribble leave notes just because I really like to know what was going on in their heads when they were creating something.

Normally I try to avoid being one of those “bloggers” who just bullshits 1 or 2 sentences and just photo dumps their memory cards, but honestly there’s really not much else I can tell you about the following pieces, even if Soejima scribbled notes on them I highly doubt he would do so in English.

Anyway, enjoy the concept art from Persona 5 Royal and Catherine Full Body.

Persona 5 Royal Concept Art

Catherine: Full Body Concept Art