Yōji Shinkawa

Yōji Shinkawa

Yōji Shinkawa ( Japanese 新 川 洋 司 Shinkawa Yōji ; born December 25, 1971 in Hiroshima ) is a Japanese illustrator and conceptual artist . He is known for his designs of characters, sets - especially mechanical objects in the video game series Metal Gear and Zone of the Enders .

person

General

Yoji Shinkawa was born on December 25, 1971 in Hiroshima. He is Art Director at Kojima Productions and is best known for his illustrations and character designs for the video game series Metal Gear Solid and Zone of the Enders. He has the blood type "AB". His zodiac sign is Capricorn. Born in the year of the pig, he is a fan of heavy metal music and artists like Megadeth and Yngwie Malmsteen .

Educational path

Since childhood, Yoji Shinkawa has been a creative spirit in many ways. This was already evident in the young Shinkawa in elementary school. He often received praise for his drawings. He was also enthusiastic about the art of others, so he was a big fan of anime. Especially "Gundam" and "Five Star Story". Anime that attracted attention through gigantic robots and that inspired him artistically. Reading was also a part of his pastime. Especially mangas here. In an interview, Yoji Shinkawa revealed that he was a fan of the "old" mangas. He means Ashita no Joe and Ganbatte Genki.

He graduated from high school and took art classes in Tokyo during the summers to develop his talent. He received great support from his high school teacher at the time. He recognized his talent immediately and prepared him for his later educational path.

As a result, the young Shinkawa attended an arts-oriented college. In an interview with IGN, he said that he had a lot to do with oil painting there. This helped him refine his techniques. However, he taught himself his comic book style. During this time, designs were created that later became very important for his projects.

Occupation: career

His professional career at Konami began in 1994. Konami is now one of the largest video game companies in Japan. Apparently, Hideo Kojima was immediately enthusiastic about him when he saw the 3D model he had made for the interview. First he worked as a “debugger” for the game Policenauts. Later he had the task of taking care of the artistic part of the console implementation.

His skills did not go unnoticed and so he was called by Hideo Kojima to work as character designer for his upcoming project, Metal Gear Solid. The game released on Playstation One is one of the most successful games ever published and should have a lasting impact on the video game industry. His designs for the Metal Gear Rex, Solid Snake, Meryl Silverbrugh, and many other characters in the game can be seen as critical to its success. Through this work he became very famous.

He also worked on Zone of the Enders, where he took many designs straight from his student sketchbook. They were mostly influenced by robot anime.

Occupation: Attributed Work

Yoji Shinkawa is now "Art Director" for Konami Productions. The following titles can be assigned to him, whereby he has fulfilled different tasks:

• 1994: PC9821 "POLICENAUTS" debugging
• 1995: 3DO / PS "POLICENAUTS" Graphics
• 1998: PS "METAL GEAR SOLID" Character / Mech Design, Illustration Director
• 1999: PS "METAL GEAR SOLID: INTEGRAL" Character / Mech Design, Illustration Director
• 2000: GBC "METAL GEAR GHOST BABEL" illustration
• 2001: PS2 "ZOE (ZONE OF THE ENDERS)" Mech Design
• 2001: PS2 "METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SONS OF LIBERTY" Character / Mech Design, Illustration Director
• 2002: PS2 "THE DOCUMENT OF METAL GEAR SOLID 2" illustration
• 2002: PS2 "METAL GEAR SOLID 2: SUBSTANCE" Character / Mech Design, Illustration Director
• 2003: PS2 "ANUBIS ZONE OF THE ENDERS" Mech Design
• 2004: PS2 "METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SNAKE EATER" Character / Mech Design, Illustration Director
• 2006: PS2 "METAL GEAR SOLID 3: SUBSISTENCE" Character / Mech Design, Illustration Director
• 2006: PSP "METAL GEAR SOLID: PORTABLE OPS" character
• 2007: PS3 "METAL GEAR SOLID 4 GUNS OF THE PATRIOTS" Character / Mech Design, Illustration Director
• 2010: PS3 "METAL GEAR SOLID PEACE WALKER" Character / Mech Design, Art Director
• 2014: PS3 / PS4 "METAL GEAR SOLID: GROUD ZEROES" Character / Mech Design, Art Director
• 2015: PS3 / PS4 "METAL GEAR SOLID: THE PHANTOM PAIN" Character / Mech Design, Art Director

art

General

Yoji Shinkawa himself claims that his style is the result of the many styles that he copied from other artists. Among them are Japanese artists such as: Yoshikazu Yasuhiko and Yoshitaka Amano. As well as western artists: Aubrey Beardsley, Enki Bilal, Jean Giraud and Frank Miller.

Emergence

At the age of 12 or 13 he discovered the first time "Western" comics in the import department of a bookstore. This encounter is an important event in the development of his style. He was very impressed with the way these comics were drawn. He found it to be very detailed and despite the fact that he did not understand the content, he was able to roughly follow the plot. In an interview he is quoted as saying: “Wow! Drawing can be done this way too! ”When he looked through a Western comic for the first time.

In another interview, Yoji Shinkawa explains why he works with brushes. According to him, he first tried to work with a so-called G-Pen. Books that teach how to draw manga also often suggest using a G-Pen. But he was dissatisfied with the result of this drawing tool. One day he discovered "Arion" by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko. He admired the lines of the drawings. They had a particular style that resulted from the use of a brush. As a result, he decided to work with brushes and imitate this technique.

Tools: Analog

His most important tool is what is known as a Pentel brush pen. Also known as the Pentel Brush Pen. He almost exclusively uses Pentel brush pens for his designs. In an interview he explained that he used two different brush pens. One with a slightly frayed tip and one in good condition for particularly beautiful lines. In the same interview he explained why he doesn't use normal brushes for his work. According to him, he has tried different brushes many times. But they were either too fine or too yielding for him.

In addition to the brush pen, he likes to use thin ink, for example for shading. In an interview, he stated that he prefers to draw in black and white. So he doesn't have to worry about the colors. Correction ink and a correction pen are also part of his repertoire.

Some of his works include a rough texture that is said to resemble Japanese paper. It's a bit coarser than normal paper. This texture is created in which Yoji Shinkawa paints common copier paper with thin black ink, photocopies and then scans it so that he can process the texture digitally. He uses this technique frequently.

Tools: Digital

When it comes to working digitally, Yoji Shinkawa prefers the creative programs Adobe Photoshop and Corel Painter. Whereby he clearly differentiates here. Painter uses for all drawing work that is digitally necessary, whereas he uses Photoshop for coloring his designs. In an interview, however, he stated in the same sentence that he prefers to draw on paper, as it is not possible to simulate a real brush tip satisfactorily, with all its subtleties and coincidences. Coloring his work is easier for him to do digitally because he can make corrections at any time. Or use other color styles without having to do a completely new design. He mentioned several times that he uses a Mac. Most of the time he never scans his original drafts. He prefers to make a copy in black and white using a copier. He then uses this copy for scanning, as it looks a bit coarser.

Tools: imagination of the viewer

Another very important tool of the Japanese art director is the viewer's imagination. This means that many of his works look a bit “unfinished” at first glance. This is because some places were deliberately not drawn to the end and instead left white. However, this is not noticeable negatively. On the contrary, the imagination is stimulated to replace the missing parts. A very deliberate stylistic device with a great effect.

Web links

• Yoji Shinkawa at MobyGames
• Yoji Shinkawa in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} IGN Interview , The Art of Design: MGS2 & ZOE Yoji Shinkawa talks about designing robots, using analog in the digital age, and Snake's mullet.
2. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g} KCEJ An interview conducted by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan (KCEJ) with Yoji Shinkawa. ( Memento of the original from June 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ The Art of Metal Gear Solid 1.5  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Interview from the art book