Hiro Usuda/ウスダヒロ

Hiro Usuda is a video games artist.

She was born in March of 1979, in the rural countryside of Japan. Her hobby growing up was art. She enjoyed examining encyclopedias and picture books that displayed the work of foreign artists. Western art styles inspired her; she wanted to use the bright vivid colors of Japanese illustrations and the realist style of Western art, to create her own style. As an adult, she entered into vocational school to study illustration at Chiyoda Technical College in 1997.

Early in her studies she became interested in video games. Seeing the art that existed in games at the time, she was inspired by the “intricate details and sophisticated illustrations”. She applied to both Atlus and Konami while still in school, and in 1998 found out she had been accepted by Konami.

    Her first project was a 3D RPG called *Elder Gate*, which would release in Japan in June of 2000. She was involved in using SoftImage3D to design and model the 3D characters and backgrounds, and also worked on illustrations for promotional material.

She was also involved in a minor way with *Suikoden 3*, working on backgrounds that went “unpublished” according to her resume.

According to her, the project was a ‘mess’, and she was happy when she was moved to the *Silent Hill 3* team in January of 2001. Usuda Hiro would be brought onto the project as a 3D artist and background designer. The first and the last levels of *Silent Hill 3, t*he Central Shopping Center that Heather awakens in, and the Church at the end of the game, including the Nowhere portion and the final boss confrontation, are her creations.

She also worked on visual effects for the game and seems to have had a major influence on the use of lighting in various scenes. Working with the demo designer, she created a sample that showed how to use lighting to reduce the flatness of the characters, positioning the light to reflect in the character’s eyes and give the scene a sense of depth and realism. She wanted “contrast and darkness” in the background visuals.

In addition, she painted 11 paintings for the background of *Silent Hill 3*: the six mythic paintings inside the church; the three saint paintings in the chapel; the angel painting in the otherworld church hallway; and the painting behind Claudia before the final boss. Usuda discusses how she studied western religious art in order to work on these pictures, especially Caravaggio, an Italian artist known for his dramatic usage of light and shadow, as well as exceedingly violent subjects for his paintings. One record of Usuda’s work says she was also a “writer” on *Silent Hill*, which may mean she was involved in writing the myths associated with the six paintings she made for the church.

Since playing *MGS* for the first time, she knew she wanted to work on that series; and so she approached someone on the Kojima Productions team seeking a chance to interview and move to a MGS project. She got her chance, and apparently impressed them, and found herself joining the *Metal Gear Solid 3* development team in October of 2003, once again working on 3D background design. She created the level of Grozni Grad, which contains posters of her work, and *Silent Hill 3* paintings at various locations. She’d also work on the *Subsistence* upgrade for the game doing character modeling for the online features in January of 2005, and some work for *MGS4* until E3 2006.

Usuda’s art portfolio is often referred to in some form of ‘Tirn Aill’, a term that comes from Celtic myth. Posters of her work are found throughout levels she designed, including *Silent Hill*'s shopping center and *Metal Gear*'s Grozni Grad. At some point during this time she also drew a singular picture for the *Castlevania Aria of Sorrow* game that released in May of 2003, the ‘game over screen’ which also appears as a painting in the castle.

In November of 2006, she left Konami to become a freelance artist. Her most major project during this time was a series of illustrations for a Japanese MMORPG called *Perfect World.* She ended up drawing more than 100 illustrations for the game, which were used on banner ads, advertisements, posters, and appeared across the internet and in popular internet cafes.

At this point, Japanese art for video games was heavily anime influenced, with a flat style of coloring and shading; Hiro-san’s artwork, in her unique style, blended the bright and vivid colors of anime with the 3D coloring and realism of western painting, and it was a look that stood out, enough so that both her client and the president of the company called to praise her work on the game.

She did work for Sega drawing 200 illustrations for a major mecha game, she worked as an artist, illustrator and costume designer for Asobimo games, and she drew cards for Broccoli, Upper Deck Japan, Square Enix and Taito. She would partner with multiple bands to draw music for their events and CDs, including LIV Moon, AdamKadmon, and Devil ANTHEM.

Multiple magazines would interview her about her work and her process, and she would lecture on art at events in Tokyo as well as teach classes on art in Taiwan. She appeared at two anime conventions in the United States as a special guest, and her art was featured at a major artistic event in Saudi Arabia. As of June 2022, she finished her first major solo exhibition as an artist.

### Sources

#### Social Media

* Her Blog | Older Blog
* Her Website
* Twitch
* Youtube
* Twitter: Primary Account | Secondary Account

#### Articles

* Nekocon Appearance Announcement
* デジタルアーティスト Meetup！
* Wacom Art Tutorial

#### Videos

* Thoth the Scribe Interview
* Hiro Usuda at Nekocon
* 【対談動画】イラストレーター　ウスダヒロさんとの対談　\_海外からの仕事について　など