Rui Tomono is a professional illustrator and manga artist who works as a character designer, storyboard artist and conceptual artist for game developers and animation studios. He is especially known for his Giga Momotaro Kitan series of graphic novels describing sinister paranormal phenomena, where agents of an elite organization exorcise demons threatening to destroy the entire populace. In addition to his personal work, Tomono was the conceptual designer for the TV anime Black Rock Shooter DAWN FALL and production designer for the TV anime RWBY Hyosetsu Teikoku . He was the character designer for EARTH WARS from OneorEight Inc. and ZERO ESCAPE: Zero Time Dilemma from Spike Chunsoft Co. He was also the conceptual artist and creature designer for Dead Mark Switch from Experience Co. and served as the conceptual artist for the CG anime series The Relative Words from Crafter Inc. for Hulu Japan.

The diverse and multitalented artists of Studio Hard Deluxe are among Japan's leading art creators and illustrators of science fiction, fantasy and animated movies, creating illustrations and special effects, retro culture, manga, cosplay, photography and other visual arts. The studio has worked on over 2000 gaming and game-strategy books as well as the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game and is currently developing designs for magazines, videos and publishing books such as How to Create Manga: Drawing Clothing and Accessories .