Earlier this week, we published an article about Keisuke Uyama’s upcoming English translation of his bestselling novel, Love Like The Falling Petals. For the first time ever, the popular, romance novel is receiving an English translation. Media Do International and Clover Press are partnering together with publisher Shueisha for a Kickstarter campaign for the first-ever English publication of the book. The Kickstarter went live earlier this week, and in less than 24 hours, it reached its goal of $2,500. Kickstarter rewards for this project are still available and you can support the novel by pledging here.
Interview With Heikala – Love Like The Falling Petals Cover Artist
The novel itself is known for its vibrant colors and its iconic Japanese cherry blossoms. To better explain the artistic process behind the English cover design, we got the opportunity to speak with Tokyo based artist Heikala. Originally from Finland, Heikala works from Tokyo, Japan and this is what they had to say about working on the cover of Keisuke Uyama’s very popular novel,
Krystal: After watching the Netflix series, did that influence the character design on the cover?
Heikala: I think the Netflix film had some effect on the character designs, but while I was reading the book, I also made notes of Misaki’s and Haruto’s characteristics and sketched the characters primarily according to what was written in the story of the two.
K: What was challenging about making the cover for this novel to best convey the story to anyone picking the novel for the first time?
H: I love creating artworks that have an underlying story behind them, so the challenge was to make a piece that somehow conveys the full arc of the story in the book without giving too much away.
K: I noticed that the characters on the cover are not facing the reader; why is that? Is there a special meaning to that?
H: Even when the artwork is super colorful and vibrant, conveying the feeling of budding love, the fact that the characters are facing away gives the artwork a wistful feel to it, a beautiful sadness to the moment.
To learn more about Heikala’s art process, check out their video on coloring the cover,
Process of painting the cover artwork for Keisuke Uyama’s ’Love Like the Falling Petals’ 🌸✍️ pic.twitter.com/j3z9jgcbmr
— Heikala (@heikala_art) June 14, 2023
Make to sure check out Love Like the Falling Petals on Netflix or the novel, by making a pledge on Kickstarter.
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