Daisuke Shimodaira - A Master in the World of Magnificent Junk Art [2/2]

When he was little, Daisuke Shimodaira entered the world of making things by hand from plastic models. Up until that point, he seemed to be an ordinary young man. However, after that, he somehow wasn’t so ordinary anymore.

“First, I would build the model according to the instructions to get what’s called a plain build. From there, the next step would be to paint the model, but in my case, I would immediately strip down the parts and try to make something else with them.”

From the beginning, he was an eccentric young man who walked a different road than ordinary plastic model builders. This doesn’t mean that he never did things like detailing parts or machining raw materials; of course these are common in the world of building models. However, at the same time that his friends were beginning to build scale models, they were doing things like learning nothing but coating and weathering techniques or immersing themselves in building dioramas, while he was becoming engrossed in the world of building from scratch, well on his way to becoming a master model builder.

“I didn’t go the same route as others. I didn’t go the route of painting; I don’t paint.”

The first work he made out of metal scrap parts was Mechagodzilla. However, this wasn’t crafted after the series Kiyuu; it was an original Mechagodzilla. Since that time, he continued creating new lifeforms using thrown away metal scraps, and the rest is history. Even though it’s easy to use shapeless parts in his creations, he doesn’t take the easy road. Instead, he uses the part’s shape to complement his design. To him, using such parts or supplementing color feels somehow like cheating.

Before we brought our chat to a close, we asked about the state of his studio and whether he has a sea of parts scattered around.

“Oh, I organize them! I make sets based on parts that are the same or parts that form a pair. I do this because usually living things always have bilateral symmetry, you know?”

I guess this is what you would call the wisdom of a master.

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Photos by Tetsuya Hara