YUJI KAIDA

There are a few artists whose work has become so synonymous with the art on model boxes that the work has fired the imagination of model builders around the world. Possibly the top three of all time would be Shigeru Komatsuzaki, James Bama, and Yuji Kaida. This year the model program at G-FEST 31 is lucky to have Master Kaida as a guest, someone whose work has inspired us all.

Yuji Kaida is one of Japan’s most celebrated kaiju illustrators, affectionately known as the “Monster Painter”. After graduating from Kyoto City University of Arts' Department of Design, he moved to Tokyo in 1978 and became independent as an illustrator.

Focusing on character illustrations of monsters such as Godzilla and Ultraman, and giant robots such as Gundam, he has created many illustrations for magazines and book covers, plastic model packages , most famously countless Bandai model kit boxes from the 1980s and beyond, music software jackets, card games, posters, and more.

His stunning artwork has brought Godzilla, King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla, Mothra, and many other kaiju to life in collections such as The Godzilla Art of KAIDA Yuji and Godzilla Illustrations, with many collections of his works also published in England and France. In 1997, he won the Seiun Award for Best Artist in recognition of his outstanding contributions to science fiction and monster art.

In recent years, he was in charge of the Japanese poster illustration for the Warner film King Kong: Skull Island (selected as one of Rotten Tomatoes' 24 Best Movie Posters of 2017) and created the Japanese domestic version poster for Steven Spielberg’s Ready Player One.

From his early days on Uchusen magazine, where he created blueprints of characters like Robby the Robot and other sci-fi greats, and created science fiction art for the magazine that actually encouraged the creation of original garage kits, he rose to become a sought after illustrator for model kits, videos boxes, movie posters and more. Yuji Kaida has inspired kaiju fans and science fiction fans alike. G-FEST and the model program are proud to have him as a special guest.