Short answers, pulled from the story.
Yoshikazu Yasuhiko is best known for being the character designer and chief animation director of Mobile Suit Gundam, the original anime series that began in 1979. Critics have credited him with defining the look of science fiction anime characters throughout the 1980s by establishing Gundam's visual style.
Yasuhiko made his manga debut in 1979 with Arion, the same year Mobile Suit Gundam premiered. He became a full-time manga artist in 1989 after working for years in animation, having dreamed of manga since childhood.
Yasuhiko joined Mushi Productions' training school in Tokyo after moving there at age 22, applying to a newspaper advertisement on a whim in order to make a living. He admitted he had no interest in animation and did not know what the job would entail at the time he applied.
Yasuhiko created The Origin in response to a request from Sunrise, driven by his belief that subsequent Gundam installments distorted the theme of the original 1979 series by overemphasizing Newtypes. He stated that the perpetrators of the 1995 Tokyo subway sarin attack were undoubtedly familiar with Gundam and the Newtypes, and that he needed to correct the distortions in how the work was understood.
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin has more than 10 million copies in circulation. The manga ran for ten years, from 2001 to 2011, and earned Yasuhiko the 2012 Seiun Award in the comics category.
Yasuhiko draws directly onto BB Kent paper in pencil without making any preliminary memos, sketches, or names. He inks his work with a Sakuyo brush, going through two or three brushes per 30-page chapter, and draws panel borders first with a fineliner pen. He does not use white ink, instead inking around negative space he leaves open intentionally.