Character Profile - Gein


- I guess there were people who guessed the motif from the name Gein: it's Edgard Gein, a true
vicious killer that made chairs and lamp shades with parts of dead bodies. Gein was a mix of
Edgard Gein and a puppet-master, that had become necessary due to the course of the story. 
  I don't know if it was because of his popularity, but when I displayed his face, I've got
a huuuge booing (laughs). I had a image of craftiness for him, so I thought it was only natural
for him to be a little senior, but it looks like there are plenty of readers that believe that
"masked men are always beautiful". I think, "hey, why would you use a mask if you had a 
beautiful face, goddamnit!", but now I also think that no one would be happy with a wrinkled
skin old man, so I regret this a bit. 
  Indeed, "to be depressed with the masked character's face" is completely against the idea of
a masked characters. I want to do next a nice masked character like Shar from the Gundam series.
  And the division Gein made about the "functional beauty" and the "aesthetical beauty" reflects
my own concept of beauty. 

- There's no particular motif of his design. At the beginning, when I sketched him for the
illustration of the volume 18, he became quite similar to a ninja of a manga, so I started it
all over again. (the final illustration is the second version for the comics). And I took the
cerimonial dress from the "puppet master" (a keyword for Gein), the mask and the black vest
from the "stagehand" idea that I had for Gein, and finally the skull from the "necromancer" 
image I had because of the usage of dead bodies. Mixing all that, I've got the final design
for Gein.
  The texture part of Gein is different from other characters, keeping the shining parts to a 
minimum. This is a test I'm now making, aiming at the next work, about how can I reduce the
troublesome shining parts, that has become a great handicap in drawing "Ruroken". The result
is better than I expected and just that made me feel this design was a success.