Shinkawa talks about his career, MGSV and the series in Game Informer interview

One of the most important people behind the Metal Gear Solid series is art director Yoji Shinkawa, who has designed many of Metal Gear’s memorable characters and  mechanical designs. Game Informer conducted an interview with the talented artist.

Metal Gear Solid was the first professional project Shinkawa worked on. Before being hired by Konami, he was an art student. His first job was to design the famous Metal Gear REX itself, which proved to be a difficult task. Eventually Shinkawa built a model of the mech first and made the final design from there.

Shinkawa likes both working on new characters and on existing characters for a new installment in the series. This is because even existing characters are treated as new ones. He did note that entirely new characters are more difficult because you have nothing to base it on.

On the subject of designing MGSV’s huge open world, Shinkawa said that it was a lot of work to create all the necessary assets, especially since he wants everything to look good. But the game is being created by an entire art team now, whereas in the early days it were just around six people.

Unlike Kojima, Shinkawa doesn’t feel a strong desire to move away from the Metal Gear series. While the idea to work on something new sounds appealing, Shinkawa feels blessed to be able to work on a series that has been running for so many years, and Metal Gear is really something he wants to take care of and embrace.

There is a lot more in the 14 minute interview, so be sure to check it out.

Source: Game Informer