takani yoshiyuki
Takani Yoshiyuki (高荷 義之, born December 18, 1935) is a legendary Japanese illustrator known for his paintings of realistic, as well as fictional, military hardware. His illustrations have been used as packaging art for numerous resin kits and movie posters for several decades.
Takani began his career by doing boxart for military aircraft, tanks and battleship model kits in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then he has done art for several science fiction and mecha shows from the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Among them Uchuu Senkan Yamato, Gundam, Sentou Mecha Xabungle, Macross, Orguss, Kikou-Kai Galient, Transformers, Neon Genesis Evangelion and many others.
Since the late 80s he also created the box art of several action and military themed video games. Takani was responsible for drawing the cover artwork for Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake and contributed to additional illustrations in the Japanese premium package editions of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes and Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Snake Eater.
Takani's work and life has inspired the careers of many notable Japanese realistic artists in the last decades.