So Spoiler question. thoughts on the new lucifer design? does that at least seem good?
It's really bad. It's on the level of Satan--literally.
Doi is just... he's a great artist. He excels at stylish, semi-realistic people. This extends from Trauma Center's scrubs to SMT4's Samurai garb.
Designing demons, however, requires completely different skills like abstract creativity and a range of global inspirations & context that Doi just doesn't seem to have--even for demons that probably were not designed to fit mandated archetypes (like Satan).
Like, this guy was educated at a fashion school and you know he's going to draw some killer sketches and art of models in crazy or just mundane, well-composed outfits. As stated, this skill of his is evident in the Trauma and SMT4 character art.
But starting with 4A I feel there was just a drop off in quality in his work. Characters, demons, and even body proportions: characters have flatter, unshaded faces; demons, well, what more can I say; and there's just some technical anatomy goofs that doesn't make sense on some designs like Mermaid's "impossible thigh" (in the artwork her left thigh extends too far below, and 3D models fix it; see below) and Idun's looooong torso.
Doi sometimes feels like he was thrown into the ocean without a life preserver and to stay afloat he's desperate to draw anything people might like, not necessarily designs that fit SMT. Thus he returns to the usual wells of tokusatsu, Devilman, and sexy/cute girls. He has been successful in that he's produced popular works but from my perspective the creativity on display isn't sufficient for a series like SMT.
The pop culture intersection is always a good way to illustrate it. Kaneko used pop culture to emphasize demons' traits during the 32-bit era (mostly) because those games were more rooted in modern reality than traditional SMT games. Doi's pop culture usage subsumes the traditional for mere references that people might find appealing: Ultra Odin, whateverthehell tokusatsu Zeus, and Idun's J-pop idol-ness--and these in mainline games, not Devil Summoner. Both artists “copied,” but Doi's choices aren't as careful and just feel random and unfitting for the demons (and games) in question by comparison.
And all of this does apply to Lucifer, I promise, lol.
doi’s latest illustrations are made with 3D in mind to be fair. he said that in a commentary. they’re created simultaenously with the 3d model. idun’s long torso thus is a minor issue as long as she is proportional in 3d