Makoto Kobayashi: The Cult-Favorite Mecha Designer
Born July 13th 1960 in Tokyo, Makoto Kobayashi is a renowned Japanese illustrator, anime director, modeler, manga artist, and mecha designer.
He is extremely skilled in both illustrations and 3-D physical model building, and has also even been working on 3DCG designs in recent days.
What made Makoto Kobayashi rise to fame was perhaps his most celebrated works for the legendary "Z Gundam" and "ZZ Gundam" series. Aside from working on his own personal creations, Makoto has done many illustrations and mecha designs for other artists, manga, and anime. Within the Z Gundam & ZZ Gundam series, Makoto designed the Mobile Suits MARASAI, BAUND DOC, GAZA-C, ZZ GUNDAM, THE-O, and more. His signature, thick, heavy-styled designs caught the eyes of many Gundam fans, leading to him gaining a cult following of mecha-enthusiasts.
Out of his numerous Gundam Mobile Suit designs, "THE-O" and "BAUND DOC" also got the special treatment of getting featured in other titles, with the altered names "GEO" and "GAMPF".
After working on the several Gundam Mobile Suit designs, Makoto went on to create his own original manga and anime titles, with the most well-known probably being "DRAGON'S HEAVEN". DRAGON'S HEAVEN is also another heavily mecha-themed manga, and has a ton of Makoto-style robots in it as well.
Take a look at some of Makoto Kobayashi's insanely detailed, highly influential mecha illustrations and designs above.
