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During my visit there (I had given Amano direction in previous communications) I was able to see the work in progress. To be honest, when I saw what he had done, which was little more than a pencil sketch with just a small bit colored in, I began to worry for our deadline, which was due about a week later. I wasn't sure if he would have enough time. A week later, though, his assistant emailed me to let me know the image was ready, and asked where to send it. I gave him our mailing address, but he sent me a small jpeg of the image in the meanwhile, which is exactly what you see on the cover (minus the text). It was unbelievable the leap the image had made in a week. It was then that I realized just how fast Amano works.

When I wasn't taking pictures, I did a fairly lengthy (for the time) interview, which went about an hour or so. He told me stories about how his son would stay at a room in the back of the studio, and even showed me his son's slippers lying around. All the while his studio assistant Yoshi toiled away in the background, stretching canvasses and prepping materials for Amano. The most memorable thing for me was when I asked Amano during our interview "So, you're more than busy enough doing exhibitions and private commissions, you surely didn't need to take on this EGM cover. So why did you choose to do it?" He simply turned to the translator and replied "Because James asked me to do it." I almost didn't know how to reply to that, as it was both flattering and humbling at the same time. I've known Amano-san for over a decade now, probably going on 12 years or so, and I've done many interviews with him, and even got him to design my wife's engagement ring for us, so it's really a trip down memory lane to remember this first of many special events I'd be involved in with Yoshitaka Amano.

One tidbit Shoe forgot to mention was that Amano had actually forgotten to sign the painting. Since we obviously wanted to get $10,000 dollars worth of Amano-ness out of this deal, we actually ended up scanning his signature from one of my signed artbooks of his, and then Photoshopped the signature onto the painting. Yeah, it was cheating, but obviously no one noticed until I mentioned it just now. The funny thing is that Shane Bettenhausen and I spent a lot of effort putting this cover story together. The Amano thing was just a part of it. On the other side of the country, Shane and I were down in LA meeting with Final Fantasy X's scenario writer and checking out the game. I barely remember anything any more from those days (Shoe has a much better memory), but it's nice to see how our hard work has held up over time. With so many game magazines in the world, I really think this was one of the most memorable, landmark game magazine issues ever created. Any mag can take a render and slap in on the cover, but how many mags can get Yoshitaka Amano to do a special piece specifically for them?"