Metal Gear and Death Stranding art director wants to design a car

Metal Gear Solid and Death Stranding art director Yoji Shinkawa wants to design a real life car.

Speaking to Edge magazine (spotted by VGC), Shinkawa was asked about any future ambitions.

“One day I would like to design a car – a real car,” he replied. “This has been a long-held ambition for me.”

He continued: “Aaron Beck is a concept artist who makes and customises cars that he designed. To look at models of cars or planes and think, ‘Isn’t that something you ride on?’ and then to build one in real life is such a big-scale project. I admire that.”

Shinkawa is responsible for the iconic Metal Gear Solid artwork and character designs, but designing a real car is certainly a leftfield, if solid, ambition.

He references Final Fantasy’s Yoshitaka Amano as a key inspiration for his style, whose “influence played a big role”.

“As for the style of working with 2D and modelling in the design process, I think I’m heavily influenced by Kow Yokoyama and Makoto Kobayashi, who I’ve admired since my middle-school days. I’m sure everyone these days mainly uses CG, but I haven’t jumped on that ship quite yet,” he says.

Shinkawa also discusses his working process with Kojima, stating its similarity to costume design due to the importance of clothing or tools.

“I consider the plot and make a number of rough sketches, and go through them to find the ones that I like,” he says. “I may come across something that I randomly made and find some potential use in it as well.