is a Japanese artist. He is best known for collaborating extensively with video game director Hideo Kojima as the lead character and mechanical designer, and art director, for most of his games, including the entirety of the Metal Gear Solid franchise and the Death Stranding duology.
Shinkawa was born in Hiroshima on 25 December 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 the art director for later console ports of the game, and as the lead character and mecha designer for Metal Gear series, working alongside Hideo Kojima. He served as the art director for all Metal Gear Solid games, while providing character designs for ' and '. After Kojima left Konami in 2015, Shinkawa also left with him to become the lead artist and character designer for Kojima Productions, where he worked on Death Stranding and its sequel .
In his work, 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 MÃ Âbius. 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.