In 1988, Kow Yokoyama and Makoto Kobayashi stood atop the artist and model making scene. Their illustrations and model work appeared in anime, magazines, video games, and a collaborative artbook called Two Factory.
Tag: garage kit
The Resin Punks Never Left
The spirit of the ’80s garage kit boom lives on today via companies like Max Factory, Kotobukiya, and Wave.
An Introduction to the Volks Super Dollfie
As the story goes, the idea behind the Super Dollfie came when Volks’ head sculptor created a large, realistic, ball-jointed doll as a present for his wife. The wife of Volks’ founder subsequently saw the doll and was enchanted, wishing for the ability to offer something like that to customers.
Garage Kit Heroines: Gall Force Star Front
Seemingly everywhere during the VHS era, this early standout in the girls n’ guns genre began as a 3D photo novel and a series of garage kits.
The 1/220 Scale Gundam Garage Kits of Kazuhisa Kondo and Makoto Kobayashi
There’s never been a shortage of Gundam garage kits, but in the 1980s multiple manufacturers offered up a plethora of kits based on the designs of Kobayashi and Kondo in an unusual scale.
SMH: The Magazine for Sex, Violence & Resin
Though it lasted for less than twenty issues, SMH gave artists and model builders the opportunity the flex their creativity outside the constraints of normal hobby magazines.
10 Years of General Products
The shop that Daicon III built spent ten years selling garage kits, posters, t-shirts, and doujinshi to the otaku generation.
8-Bit Anime: Cruise Chaser Blassty
What happens when a mediocre PC game from the 1980s outlives its lifespan thanks not to the quality of its gameplay, but the strength of its design work? That’s Cruise Chaser Blassty, a collaboration between game developer Square and animation studio Sunrise.
Kow Yokoyama’s SF3D Original
From scratch-built origins to widespread influence; our look at the influential sci-fi model kit series celebrating its 35th anniversary this month.
Character Goods of 1984: Neko Mimi and Combat Jyou
One of Kenichi Sonoda’s first professional gigs was designing characters for garage kits.