Yoji Shinkawa


Yoji Shinkawa is a Japanese artist. He is best known as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear franchise.

Biography

Shinkawa was born in Hiroshima on 25 December 1971. He began working for game developer Konami in 1994 after graduating from Kyoto Seika University. 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 series. He served as the art director for all the Kojima-directed Metal Gear Solid games, while also providing character designs for ' and '. He is the lead artist and character designer for Kojima Productions.
Shinkawa was inspired by anime and manga artists like Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Yoshitaka Amano as well as Western artists such as Frank Miller, Aubrey Beardsley and Willy Pogany. He also draws inspiration from French artists such as Mœbius. Shinkawa uses felt-tip pens, especially the Pentel Brush Pen, as well as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. He is a fan of heavy metal and artists such as Megadeth, Rage, Killswitch Engage and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Works

Video games

;Novels
;Films
;Toys