• Light/Dark
  • Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
  • We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.

Opinion: Yoji Shinkawa is the greatest artist in gaming history

RevengeTaken

RevengeTaken

Banned
Aug 12, 2018
1,711
Shinkawa is best known as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear and Zone of the Enders franchises. I believe he is the greatest artist in gaming history and his lastet work in style of Metal Gear arts for the Critically Acclaimed game, Death Stranding, is some kind of proof for that claim!


I think shinkawa is one of the biggest reasons of Hideo Kojima's reputation!
 
Hero

Hero

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,841
Up there for certain but Amano is a contender as well. The artist for the 2D Mario, Yoichi Kotabe, is ace too.

super_mario_30th_anniversary_collage_by_imaginatorvictor-d99j4zk.jpg
 
Bansai

Bansai

Teyvat Traveler
Member
Oct 28, 2017
11,337
His art is very beautiful, but it's also very "samey", so I wouldn't call him THE greatest.
 

Deleted member 18161

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
4,805
I loved that art growing up, looking at in magazines in preparation for MGS on PS1.

I do love the Mario Bros 3 / Super Mario World art though. Would that have been Miyamoto or someone else?
 
Tibarn

Tibarn

Member
Oct 31, 2017
13,375
Barcelona
I like the style, but no, it's not the best IMO. Also I feel that the art was a really small part of DS's marketing compared to MGS. It's not even in the box art.
 
Kain-Nosgoth

Kain-Nosgoth

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,629
Switzerland
he should have done the cover dammit!

Also i love shinkawa artstyle, but i wouldn't say the best, a lot of his faces are the same regardless of the franchise
 
Jimnymebob

Jimnymebob

Member
Oct 26, 2017
19,665
Amano, Shinkawa, and Shinkiro are the 3 I think of when it comes to distinctive art styles that I love.
 
Arex

Arex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,523
Indonesia
As far as artist goes maybe Amano takes the cake, but artstyle wise, yeah I'm definitely more of Yoji Shinkawa guy lol.
 

rude

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,812
Kinu Nishimura, Bengus, Akiman, Shinkiro and Akihiko Yoshida tho

Yoji is definitely among the greatest though.
 
Betty

Betty

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
17,604
Half the reason for Metal Gear's success if thanks to the designs and art direction of Yoji Shinkawa.

He just makes everything look so relentlessly cool.

One of my favourite pieces is this Raiden from Revengeance

How he manages to not include all the detail but still make everything look clear and easily identifiable makes it almost impossible to emulate him.

flat,550x550,075,f.u1.jpg
 

Deleted member 7883

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
2,387
Shinkawa, Kojima (Igavania games other than Order of Ecclesia), and Amani (the fancy shmancy character art from the older Final Fantasy games as well as the current FF titlecards) are my favorites.
 
Prine

Prine

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
15,724
Agreed. His sleek mech designs and brilliantly realised characters are the best in the industry. There's a quality in his games that put them above all in terms of art direction.
 
Fularu

Fularu

Member
Oct 25, 2017
10,609
Illustrator maybe, along with Amano but artist as, making the in-game graphics? Eh not so sure.

Pixel artists from the 16bit era (Amiga/MD/SFC/Arcade) are far far more impressive for me
 
OP
OP
RevengeTaken

RevengeTaken

Banned
Aug 12, 2018
1,711
Betty said:
Half the reason for Metal Gear's success if thanks to the designs and art direction of Yoji Shinkawa.

He just makes everything look so relentlessly cool.

One of my favourite pieces is this Raiden from Revengeance

How he manages to not include all the detail but still make everything look clear and easily identifiable makes it almost impossible to emulate him.

flat,550x550,075,f.u1.jpg
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Yeah that's definitely one of my favourite shinkawa's pieces too. fan-fucking-tastic design!
 
Roubjon

Roubjon

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,294
He's got a cool style yeah, but it takes more than a character designer to create the world in a video game. You're doing a huge disservice to every other kind of artist in the field.
 
No42.05W70.2

No42.05W70.2

Banned
Jun 14, 2018
763
When you consider that Kojima's games don't make sense anymore, it really makes Kojima look like a fraud. He's really leeching off his talented artist "collaborator" and then stamping his name on the final product.
 
MrCibb

MrCibb

Member
Dec 12, 2018
5,349
UK
There's so many talented artists that I don't think I could list any as being the single greatest, but Shinkawa is up there for sure. Everything I've seen him put out is unbelievable.
 

Deleted member 3465

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
1,240
Space
Yasushi Suzuki (Sin & Punishment) is my personal favourite...But it's a disservice to single anyone out, there's hundreds of great artists in gaming. I agree with every choice in the thread, doesn't need to be a competition
 
PLASTICA-MAN

PLASTICA-MAN

Member
Oct 26, 2017
23,702
He is quite style though but it gets very repetitive and not stand out in different games, when he worked on MGS then Left Alive and now Death Stranding, all characters looked as if they were from MGS.
Tbh, I think Masahiro Ito much more skilled and brings unique features to his thoughful creations. This artist didn't get as much spotlight as otehrs sadly.
 
Jamesac68

Jamesac68

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,414
How about in-game art, art in motion? These are nice outside-of-game images, no question, but generally when experiencing a game I'm doing it at full speed inside its world.
 
Varth

Varth

Banned
Mar 9, 2018
174
RevengeTaken said:
Shinkawa is best known as the lead character and mecha designer for the Metal Gear and Zone of the Enders franchises. I believe he is the greatest artist in gaming history and his lastet work in style of Metal Gear arts for the Critically Acclaimed game, Death Stranding, is some kind of proof for that claim!


I think shinkawa is one of the biggest reasons of Hideo Kojima's reputation!
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...


Totally agree on his relevance for Kojima's mythos. Not so much on the overall importance, even though he's high on my fav list.

Also: why did the game cover and the mag one get switched?
 
Zweisy1

Zweisy1

Member
Oct 30, 2017
561
A great artist for sure. Very tasteful work all around..

Not my favorite artist in gaming personally though. That would be Steve Purcell.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.