Yoji Shinkawa

Yoji Shinkawa (新川洋司)
Shinkawa in 2008
Born	(1971-12-25) December 25, 1971 Hiroshima, Japan
Occupation	Illustrator

Yoji Shinkawa (Japanese: 新川洋司, Hepburn: Shinkawa Yōji, born December 25, 1971)^[1] is a Japanese artist. He is most famous for his character, environment and mechanical designs for the Metal Gear and Zone of the Enders series.

Born in Hiroshima, Shinkawa began working for game developer Konami in 1994 after graduating from Kyoto Seika University.^[2] He first worked as a debugger for the PC-98 version of Policenauts. He moved on to serve as art director for the later console ports of the game, then as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear Solid series.^[3] He served as the art director for all the Kojima-directed Metal Gear Solid games, while also providing character designs for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. He is now the lead artist and character, mechanical and environment designer on Kojima Productions.

Shinkawa's illustration style is generally praised as original and artistic, yet technically accurate. According to himself he is inspired by anime-related artists like Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Yoshitaka Amano,^[4] but also more western-related and less contemporary artists such as Frank Miller, Aubrey Beardsley and Willy Pogany^[5] and is also a big fan of French artists such as Mœbius. Shinkawa uses ink pens with a brush-like felt-tip preferring the Pentel Brush Pen and both Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter for his creations.^[6] He is a fan of heavy metal and artists such as Megadeth, Rage, Killswitch Engage and Yngwie Malmsteen.^[7][8]

Works

Video games

• Policenauts (1994)
• Metal Gear Solid (1998)
• Metal Gear: Ghost Babel (2000) (promotional illustrations)
• Zone of the Enders (2001)
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2001)
• Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner (2003)
• Fu-un Shinsengumi (2004)
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (2004)
• Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (2004) (revised character portraits for re-releases)
• Fu-un Bakumatsu-den (2005)
• Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (2006)
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008)
• Metal Gear Solid: Rising (2009, unreleased) (character & mech design)
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010)
• Busō Shinki Battle Masters Mk. II (2010) (character/mechanical designs for Justice and Mimic)
• Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2013) (character/concept artist)
• Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (2014) (character & mech design/Art director)
• Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015) (character & mech design/Art director)
• Death Stranding (TBA) (art director)

Other works

Novels

• Urban Hercules (illustrations)

Films

• Godzilla: Final Wars (monster and mecha designs)
• Pacific Rim (Poster design, Japanese release)

Toys

• Frame Arms/Frame Arms Girl (mecha/character design for Byakko)

References

Bibliography

• The Art of Metal Gear Solid
• The Art of Metal Gear Solid 2
• The Art of Metal Gear Solid 1.5
• The Art of Metal Gear Solid: The Original Trilogy
• Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots: Master Art Work
• Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker: Official Art Works
• The Art of Metal Gear Solid V
• Visual Works of Anubis: Zone of the Enders
• The Art of Yoji Shinkawa Volumes 1-3

External links

• Yoji Shinkawa at MobyGames
• Yoji Shinkawa at the Internet Movie Database