Close Up: Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Official Art Works Book
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Official Art Works
As with the previous games in the Metal Gear series, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker gets some of its art works published in a book, called the Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Official Art Works. It contains official promo material, sketches, concept art works and image boards. The book is published by Square Enix, and was released in Japan in 2011.
As Yoji Shinkawa is the art director of the series, the book contains mainly his work, although there is also some nice art by others, such as Ashley Wood (who contributed to the comic book style cutscenes in the game).
The book has over 200 pages, divided into 6 chapters:
Chapter 1 – Official Art: this section covers the artworks used for promotion and packaging.
Chapter 2 – Character: as the name suggests, here you can find illustrations on each of the game’s characters. What’s interesting is that it contains concept art and early sketches as well, so you can see the previous designs for some of the characters before they were finalized.
Chapter 3 – Mechanics: the mechanical designs from the game: the AI weapons, vehicles, the AI Pod and sketches.
Chapter 4 – Backgrounds: the game’s environments and locations can be found in this chapter. Mostly digital paintings, but also some CG renders and drawings of details from the environments.
Chapter 5 – Artist Demo: this looks like some sort of story board meant to give an impression of what the cutscenes were going to be like. There is also an ‘image board’, consisting of panels with rough sketches.
Chapter 6 – Other Works: miscellaneous artworks from the game, such as all the faces of the recruitable soldiers and concept art for the Monster Hunter crossover section that was included in Peace Walker.
The last few pages of the book consist of some short sections dedicated to Yoji Shinkawa himself, showing how to draw like him, and what his work space looks like.
Unfortunately, as this book was never published in the west, all the descriptions and captions for the artworks are in Japanese. Then again, there isn’t a whole lot text in there, since it’s obviously mainly about looking at the great art works. And obviously these don’t disappoint. Shinkawa is a master at his craft, as evident by his dynamic and recognizable drawings.
Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker Official Art Works
Published in Japan by Square Enix
ISBN978-4-7575-3115-4
Let me guess. You bought this from Ebay?
BTW I have it and it is fantastic. I recommend to everyone who likes Metal Gear, especially if you are a MG fan. Great piece of art.
Nope, from a UK store that sells imported merchandise.
Which UK store did you buy it from? Been looking to get my hands on this for some time but had no luck!
Otaku.co.uk. They also sell on eBay but the web store was cheaper. They didn’t have it in stock though, so it took a while.
His work never ceases to amaze me.
I saw a bit of this artbook once (wish I could get one, would have to spend time looking for it though) and aside from being awesome I saw something in there that I wish was in the game but wasn’t. There was art for a monster hunter MG Ray, which I saw and I was disappointed that we did not get both REX and RAY in MGS-PW as monster hunter missions, REX was really cool and RAY would have been even cooler, I wonder why they decided not to put RAY as a monster hunter mission monster, would have been really cool.
Never played that part, but yeah, that would have been nice.
I have all of them: MGS1(still in it’s package, numbered), MGS1.5, MGS2, MGS4. I missed this but my next get will be the MGS 3 Extreme Box.
That’s awesome. The MGS1 art books are quite valuable.
i loved the artbook i have it myself (amazon has it for like $50 and to me it was worth every penny) the bonus storyboards of cut out story were really cool.
They need to remake this game in the FOX Engine already.
I HAVE THIS BOOK!
Amazing artwork of course.
Always wanted to get this a few years ago.
Very surprise it looks thin by the looks of it.
And yes Otaku is a trusted source. They have the latest Japanese imports ready to be shipped world wide
http://otaku.com/
I would also like to add Animebooks.com since they too have official license Japanese artbooks/guides etc
Here’s the Metal Gear Rising Japanese complete guide
http://www.animebooks.com/megerireofop.html
Thanks for the tip. But do they ship to Europe as well?
Anyway, the PW book isn’t really thin, it’s over 200 pages, which is actually slightly more than the MGS4 art book.
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Anyone have MGS HD Collection Artbook?
Is it worth a buy?
Here are some photos of it: http://www.metalgearinformer.com/?p=668, whether it’s worth it depends on the price I guess.
wow, that artbook looks really beautiful, i wonder if the collection i’ve seen on sale over here has the same book… because to box where everything comes in is different here
I think the book is the one thing that’s the same in US and EU.
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YES. Kojima is making a new trailer (E3 I guess.) right now. Nyx, you should check it out (to be honest he is teasing about new trailer for some time but now it’s 100%)
https://twitter.com/Kojima_Hideo/status/457092732763127808/photo/1
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