Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1521244
1 1 4 P E R S P E C T I V E | M AY / J U N E 2 0 2 4 I can't pretend I knew about One Piece when I was approached to design the first live-action series but my (grown up) kids were quick to put me out of my ignorance; "OMG Dad! Everyone knows about One Piece." And they were right: One Piece is the biggest, longest-running, and most popular manga ever, with a huge worldwide fan base, some following the story for over twenty-five years, carrying their own imagined world of the characters and story. The design challenges for this project were, to put it mildly, daunting. The One Piece world is a fantastical mixture of historical piracy, everyday reality and high fantasy. Pirate ships are painted pink and have giant duck figureheads. Evil clowns, cats and Fish- Men are pirates, and the best restaurant is a giant galleon, with a fish-head prow. The scale of the world is equally vast; this series covers only a fraction of the world in the mangas. The story moves on every two episodes to a new part of the East Blue Sea, a new world and completely new sets. Working with a large team of Concept Artists, including regular collaborators, ADG Concept Artist Matthias Beeguer, Jakub Vykoukal, as well as South African artists Fred Mpuuga, Deon deLange and André Human, the first big challenge was to discover the visual language of One Piece. In the way sci-fi movies are often period movies projected into the A M a n g a W o r l d o f P i r a t e s O N E P I E C E A B Y R I C H A R D B R I D G L A N D , P R O D U C T I O N D E S I G N E R