Kow Yokoyama: Tanks, Robots, and Mecha

Kow Yokoyama is a Japanese illustrator/visual artist who specializes in mecha-inspired illustrations and 3-d creations. Much like many other Japanese artists, his persona is kept very low-key.

Born 1956 in Kita-Kyushu City, Yokoyama always had a strong passion for tanks, military vehicles, and robots he saw in magazines & manga. Since a very young age, he had always been creating models of the things he liked. At age 11, Yoyokayam's illustrations that portrayed the future of his hometown, titled "The Future of Sarakurayama", won an award, proving his skills as an artist to those around him.

He moved on to pursue his education at the Musashino Art University College of Art and Design Department of Japanese Painting, and graduated in 1980.

After graduating University, Kow went on to work as an illustrator at a Sci-Fi Magazine. While working, Kow always was creating models as a side hobby. In 1982, his model he had created for Japanese Magazine "Hobby Japan" had great response from readers, critics, and editors

This led to a never-seen-before type of series starting, titled "S.F.3.D ORIGINAL", which was a photo-diorama-manga series depicting a future war on planet earth. The series soon changed it's name to "Maschinen Krieger ZbV3000", with model kits from the series still being sold to this day.

Kow Yokoyama and Maschinen Krieger ZbV3000 still have a very strong fanbase and cult-status today, almost 40 years after the original release of the series. Check out some of the wild, future-punk images and creations of Kow above.