Ayami Kojima

Ayami Kojima (小島 文美, Kojima Ayami) is a Japanese artist who started out as an illustrator for various novels before moving into the field of conceptual game design. In the west, she is highly regarded for her work on the Castlevania series as a character designer. Her talents were discovered after working as a secretary. Among her hobbies include reading shonen manga and watching creepy movies, the latter being more of an inspiration to the development of her unique style.

For her paintings, Kojima mainly uses a mix of traditional mediums such as Conté crayons, India ink, acrylics, etc. Her art style is mostly characterized by dark surreal imagery, incorporating contrasting values and color tones reminiscent of the Baroque style. Furthermore, the amount of intricate drawing techniques she uses are made all the more impressive by the fact that she is self-taught.

Works for Koei
Kojima has done illustrations and concept artworks for the following titles listed below.
 * Ishin no Arashi Bakumatsu Shishiden
 * Söldnerschild Special
 * Dynasty Warriors 7 (artbook illustrations for Lu Xun and Zhenji)
 * Samurai Warriors 3 (artbook illustrations for Nobunaga, Nō, Mitsunari, Ginchiyo, and Muneshige)