Kota Yamaji is a 3DCG artist and illustrator whose work lives at the intersection of fashion and visual arts. Once a graduate of Tama Art University's Department of Graphic Design, and currently a lecturer, he builds boldly colored figures whose garments feel both impossible and convincingly real.

Working with Marvelous Designer, Cinema 4D, and ZBrush, Kota uses cloth simulation to chase a kind of realism that pure sculpting can't easily reach.
Drawing on his portfolio "Digital Fashion Project," we talk with him about his encounters with digital art and Marvelous Designer, where his ideas come from, and how he thinks about the future of digital fashion.

Meet the artist

First, please introduce yourself to the community.

My name is Kota Yamaji. After graduating from the Department of Graphic Design at Tama Art University, I began creating illustration and moving-image work using 3DCG. I currently also teach 3DCG as a part-time lecturer at Tama Art University.

Tell us how you got into art and creation, and how you came to teach CG at Tama Art University. How do you see the potential of 3DCG within art?

Since I went to an art university to begin with, if you think of "creation" in the broadest sense, my first real starting point was probably preparing for the art school entrance exams. But when it comes to digital art specifically, the trigger was learning 3DCG software during my university years.

3DCG isn't limited to digital media—it can be applied physically as well, through things like 3D printing, so I think there are all kinds of ways to make use of it. As for how I ended up teaching, a professor from my student days suddenly got in touch with me. It seems they had seen my work somewhere.

Discovering Marvelous Designer

What first led you to start using Marvelous Designer? Can you tell us about the moment you felt, "This is something I can use for my own work"?

What got me started was seeing the WIP (work-in-progress) posts of an artist I admire and noticing that Marvelous Designer was part of their workflow.

In a pipeline that combines Cinema 4D and ZBrush, at what point do you reach for Marvelous Designer? Where do you feel it does something the other tools simply can't replace?

I mostly use it to create clothing for characters. Realistic garment expression really is something only simulation can deliver. With sculpt modeling in ZBrush and similar tools, it might be possible to build something realistic if you put in enough time—but the sheer ease of simulation is a genuine draw.

Yamaji's Marvelous Designer workspace—patterning in the 2D window with the garment draped on the avatar in 3D.

Draping done in Marvelous Designer

A garment simulated on the avatar (first) and carried through to a dynamic pose (second), with texturing also handled in Marvelous Designer.

Working on Cinema 4D

Final Visual

Ideas and Inspiration

Where do your ideas usually come from? Music, fashion, everyday scenery—what tends to be the starting point for your work?

I'm influenced by so many different things that it's hard to narrow it down to any single one. I get the sense that my final inspiration comes from an abstracted, almost unspeakable space where all of those things mix together.

When you make digital clothing, are you conscious of the physical constraints of real garments—gravity, material, stitching? Or do you enjoy deliberately freeing yourself from those constraints?

When making something digital, I think it often becomes more interesting if you ignore those constraints. But at the same time, simulation is exactly what makes realistic expression possible through physical constraints—so I feel it's something of a trade-off.

The Future of Digital Fashion

When it comes to the possibilities of digital fashion, what kind of future do you picture for yourself?

I don't have all that much specialized knowledge myself, but I think it would be exciting if digital fashion came to be used more often in the creation of real garments.

I'm curious about what kind of technical progress might emerge on the efficiency side—things like the extensibility of materials, or cutting out the labor of physically cutting fabric. And if individual designers could easily output the clothing they make digitally into the real world, I think that would be even more interesting.

Footwear created using Marvelous Designer

Final Visual

A warm thank you to Kota Yamaji for sharing his process with the community!
Follow Kota's socials to experience more of the vivid world of 3DCG and digital fashion that he creates.

• Kota Yamaji — Digital Fashion Project

• Instagram: @kotayamaji

• X: @k0tayamaji

• Behance: Kota Yamaji