Artist Profiles

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This feature is a tribute to the amazingly talented men and women who have contributed greatly to the fighting genre. They have created some of the most inspiring artwork in video game history... And history itself. Below you'll be able to learn about some of the most recognized fighting game artists and see samples of their amazing artwork. (updated 9-27-09)

Bengus (AKA CRMK)

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Bengus has been with Capcom since the beginning of the Street Fighter series in 1987. He played a huge part in designing the original Street Fighter cast and Darkstalkers cast. Bengus is known for drawing characters "disproportionately," with extra large, defined muscles, and big hands & feet; but can also draw in several other amazing styles. His unique drawing style has forever stood out among the best comic/manga artists of all time.

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Popular comic book artists such as Joe Maduera, Jeff Matsuda, and Humberto Ramos have also borrowed from his style. Even professional illustrators Jason and Heather Martin have stated that Akiman and Bengus are some of their biggest influences. The artists at Udon also model the Street Fighter characters closely to how Bengus drew them in his prime. He is without a doubt a legend, and of the best video game artists of all time.

Edayan

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Among the best Capcom artists of all time is Edayan, known for his spectacular work on the Rival Schools series. He also did character artwork for Street Fighter EX 1 and 2, Warzard, and the cover art for the original Street Fighter Collection. He also amazingly mirrored Bengus's art style from Street Fighter Alpha in Street Fighter Alpha 2. The way he draws faces and expressions really makes his characters come alive, and his characters always seem to be in a dynamic pose even when standing upright. He's also a master at making clothing and other tiny details stand out... an amazing artist, and one of my all time favorites.

Akiman

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Akira Yasuda was born on July 21, 1964. "Akiman" joined Capcom in 1985, and has done artwork for a ton of Capcom games... To name a few: Street Fighter Alpha series, II, III, Third Strike, Final Fight, Warzard, Star Gladiator, Power Stone 1 & 2, and many others. He was also involved with anime, including Gundam and Overman King Gainer. He officially left Capcom in 2003 and started working as a freelance artist. Among other things, he was featured in the Initial D live action movie as a Red Suns Member, and also appeared in Tomie: Rebirth as Waiter.

Kinu Nishimura

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Kinu is a female Capcom artist. She started around the time of Cyberbots, she did the character portraits for that, Powered Gear, the D&D games, Gaia Master, Cannon Spike, the SF 3 portraits with the sketchy lines, as well as the Capcom version of the portraits in the Capcom vs SNK series. Her style is pretty easy to spot, she often uses a painted style as seen in the CVS portraits.

Shinkiro

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Shinkiro was born December 14, 1962. He got his start as an artist for SNK, where he provided character designs and many cover illustrations for various Neo Geo games, including King of Fighters 94-2000, and the Metal Slug series. His style was always incredibly unique due to his "realistic" airbrush style of drawing characters. A "face" drawn by Shinkiro has always been easily recognizable, as he uses the same general format/shape for drawing all male and female characters respectively. He only got better over the years, and soon enough his artwork almost appeared as if it were a photograph instead of a drawing.

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Shinkiro was laid off in 2000, due to SNK's bankruptcy, and was almost immediately thereafter employed by Capcom! He began doing cover artwork for various Capcom games, including Dino Stalker, Final Fight One, Resident Evil: Dead Aim, Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts, and Dead Rising. Shinkiro still does artwork for Capcom, and has also done cover art for American comics such as Spider-Man Unlimited and Udon's Street Fighter comic series.

Daigo Ikeno

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Daigo Ikeno is a well known character designer & illustrator for Capcom Japan. He's best known for his work on Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, Capcom VS SNK 2, Devil May Cry 3, Dead Rising, Onimusha 2, and is the lead artist for Street Fighter IV.

Falcoon

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Tatsuhiko Kanaoka, better known by the art-name Falcoon, is a Japanese artist working for SNK Playmore. He has been involved in several iterations of The King of Fighters franchise. Falcoon had worked with the old SNK back in 1998 as a designer. He was also a card designer in SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters Clash. Falcoon started as a fan-artist doing renditions of different company games such as The King of Fighters, Street Fighter, and JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. From there he grew quite a fanbase that made SNK Playmore take note. He also created the in-game artwork for SNK vs Capcom Chaos.

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With his dynamic poses, interesting proportions, awesome use of color, and great sense of clothing detail; Falcoon stands out as a character artist, and has drawn countless amounts of characters in his unique style. Falcoon mostly contributes on character designs and is the one responsible for most of the new characters starting from The King of Fighters 2003 to the current installment of the franchise. He is the one responsible for the alternate designs and new characters seen in the KOF: Maximum Impact series, and is the KOF:MI series' producer and art director. KOF: Maximum Impact 2 is the first game he has produced and it is assumed that he will be focusing more in this series with NONA and Hiroaki taking charge of The King of Fighters XII.

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