Hiro Usuda
Illustrator
Japan
Biography:
Hiro Usuda is an illustrator from Japan. She has changed her career from a 3DCG designer to a freelance illustrator after leaving Konami Digital Entertainment in 2006.
Over the 8 years working for Konami, she has been responsible with environmental design, 3DCG modeling and texturing for the following titles: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (Until 2006 E3), Silent Hill 3, and Silent Hill 4. Other titles she has been associated with include Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Elder Gate.
After becoming a freelance illustrator for over 6 years, she has been responsible for the main visuals and character illustrations for the Japanese server of the MMORPG game, Perfect World. Aside from the gaming industry, she has been associated with printed publications such as the covers of the translated versions of The Elenium and The Tamuli (all 12 volumes) by David Eddings, and Safehold series by David Weber ,SF Magazine's S-F Magazine Gallery(Hayakawa Publishing Corporation) , a tutorial with recorded work-in-progress on ImagineFX Issue 77, interviews (twice) for Fantasy Magazine from China, CD jacket and booklet for Yggdrasill Minstrelsy, trading cards for Dimension Zero (Broccoli), covers for Matsuura Junna series by Kazuhiro Uraga (all 9 volumes), illustrations for Mephisto (literary magazine) Shomotsu Karyudo by Tsuyoshi Akagi, special costume design for Shining Force CROSS -Reference Book- (SEGA&Hobby Japan) and so forth.
She has also participated in the art show in Japan's first "The 65th World Science Fiction Convention".
In the recent years, she has been collaborating with Victor Entertainment's symphonic metal band LIV MOON by providing illustrations for the band.
Convention Guest Appearances
- AnimeNEXT 2013 - June 7-9, 2013 in Somerset, NJ, USA
- Nekocon 2012 - November 2-4, 2012 in Hampton, VA, USA