At the Last of Us day that took place this past weekend, we got new merch, some free themes, and some teases from Naughty Dog. But the biggest thing was a new Last of Us poster made by the incredible Yoji Shinkawa.
If you don’t know Shinkawa is a character designer, most famous for his work on the franchise Metal Gear Solid. If you didn’t know, a lot of what makes MGS stand out is his amazing art. He’s basically a key-figure to most Kojima games, in my opinion.
And after having seen his take on Last of Us I can’t think about him doing art for all kinds of franchises. I would love to see his take on something entirely different, like Ratchet & Clank or Final Fantasy. Whatever he touches turns to gold, and I imagine we could see a new, cool, look for basically any franchise if we gave him an opportunity.
The best counter-example I could give is that we’ve seen someone like Tetsuya Nomura, director, and designer of Kingdom Hearts, and plenty of Final Fantasy titles – make art for IPs that isn’t his. For example, there’s officially released DC figures, designed by him
Imagine the possibilities if Shinkawa just went ham. Started a full-time gig as someone who creates art for everything. I’d say seeing his take on famous Marvel characters is up there as a dream of mine.