Mentaiko Style Art
 

Anyone have any idea as to the Mentaiko styles of artwork? Are they CG? How would one go about drawing them?

Also.

Feel free to suggest any special equipment needed.

Fairly sure he draws them in pencil and pen, has them scanned and converted to digital images and colours them with a computer.

Backgrounds and things would be cell-shaded by computer but probably also drawn by hand and scanned/converted to digital.

Could be wrong.

As for equipment, you could do it from home with a good scanner and cheap old version of photoshop - however most of the difficulty is skill. Technical stuff aids and to a small amount compensates - but if you want to start messing around with digital compositing you probably want to take a course or something.

I think he also works directly on the computer. I've recently seen one of his drawings put next to the reference photo and the colors were really close and the poses too, so I think he does work directly digitally as well.

Probably the only essential things you would need are: experience/practice, a wacom tablet (or another drawing tablet in general), patience and a good drawing program, like photoshop or SAI.
And don't be afraid to use references, if you're just beginning :)