If you take design in its broadest sense, influences stem from childhood; Things that excited then, inspire now. Consistently an advocate of modernity and popular culture, Terratag combines simplicity of design with the brazen, the bold and the boisterous; Nothing better symbolising this future love than the Japanese robot.
After 20 years, what exactly sparked off this love of Japanese Mecha has long been forgotten. A contender though, is Sigue Sigue Sputnik; their sleeve for ‘Flaunt it’ being dominated by a giant robot, their video for 'Love Missile F1-11' being inter-cut with night scenes of Tokyo, mass destruction and hardcore weaponry - all aesthetics directly lifted from Anime. Mecha (Meh-Ka) is a Japanese contraction of the English word mechanical. In Japanese, the term mecha refers to robots and/or cyborgs, but can encompass other mechanical objects, including cars, guns, computers and other devices.
Hall of Fame: By definition, a favourite artist has to be an individual that has created something flawless. For me, that person is Masamune Shirow and his masterpiece, the Tachikoma – an arachnid robot created for the Ghost in the Shell series. As the creator of Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell and Stand Alone Complex - all incredibly well written stories with great art-work and fantastic mecha design - I would have to say that Masamune Shirow is my god.
Other mecha designers I admire are Shoji Kawamori, who worked on Macross and the VF-1 Valkyrie transforming 'Veritech Fighter' and the Five Star Stories creator, Mamoru Nagano. Another heavyweight in Mecha Design is Hajime Katoki, the creator of the magnificent RX-78 GP03 Dendrobium Orchis and Virtual On video game.
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