Biography

Yoji Shinkawa (Japanese: 新川洋司, Hepburn: Shinkawa Yōji, born December 25, 1971) is a Japanese artist. He is best known as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear franchise. He has collaborated with Hideo Kojima on many of his games. Shinkawa was born in Hiroshima on December 25, 1971. He began working at Konami 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, and as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear series. He served as the art director for all Metal Gear Solid games, while providing character designs for Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. 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, and western artists such as Frank Miller, Aubrey Beardsley and Willy Pogany. He drew inspiration from French artists such as Mœbius. Shinkawa used 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.