Virtua Fighter Characters Drawn By The Charadesigner Of Shenmue

[Yokosuka]

First time I see these very rare concept artworks of Virtua Fighter.

The style widely evokes the one of Kenji Miyawaki.


This one is even more striking


In comparison, Kenji drew these concepts arts for Joy:


Since Kenji is credited in Virtua Fighter 4, there's little doubt they were not drawn by him.

Any idea where to get his artworks of other VF characters?

 

[Miles Prower]

There’s more of that art on the ‘Virtua Fighter 4 Passport’ disc that came with the JP Shenmue II on Dreamcast. Not sure if they are saved online anywhere

 

[Yokosuka]

I emulated VF4 Passport and unfortunately, it's really a passport. You needed online to be given access to the artworks.

 

[Miles Prower]

I emulated VF4 Passport and unfortunately, it's really a passport. You needed online to be given access to the artworks.

Really? I've used it tons of times on an actual Dreamcast and viewing the artwork didn't require a connection...

 

[Yokosuka]

Finally, I could access the gallery. In fact, I needed the "VF History" GD-Rom, not the Passport.


I managed to extract all the artworks.




Some of them were sketches:


They recall the two Shenmue artworks found in the source code of Shenmue.link:



More Kenji's art for VF4 there:

Kenji's art for Shenmue:

https://www.shenmuedojo.com/media/2d-art/

 

[24Nathan]

Very interesting stuff. Would like to see if there is any more of this out there. I know someone from Assembler has a prize Virtual Fighter 3 artbook.

 

[Miles Prower]

Yes, the history disc was a separate thing wasn’t it...sorry