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Description

I've been drawing - a lot of kaiju lately.

Just one of several redraws/redesigns that I've been working on. Once I've finished I might go into more explanation on them all.

MINOR NOTE: This is actually an OC creation of mine. Granted, yes, it's based on two pre-existing characters, but I've personally never seen this character done anywhere else before or after I "created it" (credit where it's due, of course, both Matango and Godzilla are owned by Toho). It's part of a pitch/fan-fic that I worked on for a while and have a soft-spot for that I finally got around to drawing again. I would actually like to know which version people prefer, because there are two versions of this one that I'm not sure which to choose between.

EDIT:

Okay. Explanations.

I went through a kind of fan-fiction/spec-script pitch kick for a while. I spitballed ideas for Godzilla movies that I thought would be interesting to do that maybe weren't traditional ideas. One of my absolute favorites was GODZILLA VS. MATANGO, which seems like an insane idea at first blush (because maybe it is) but I thought it could work and work well, if done correctly. I had a couple of versions of the story, one where Godzilla shows up to the Matango island solo, or Godzilla is chasing another monster and that monster ends up on the island, but the result is the same, really: giant kaiju-sized Matango hijinks.

I also pitched this as a kind of "Godzilla zombie movie." The human characters are tasked with taking care of the infestations of Matango that start cropping up in the wake of Godzilla's destruction (called "Mutango," because I'm just brilliant that way, wink wink), and a lot of humans are infected with these new Matango mushrooms that are more resilient and harder to kill. So some George Romero/Resident Evil/The Last of Us kinds of spooks on the street level, all the while there are also kaiju fighting in the background.

As you can guess, Godzilla gets infected with the Matango. I waffled between either Godzilla himself, or a second Godzilla that showed up that Godzilla was in a territorial spat with (or another nameless monster), but either way, we got a giant Matango-infected kaiju. This is one of the designs I played around with.

This one sort of dispensed with my initial idea of modeling the Matangodzilla design after Space Godzilla or Super Godzilla, with Matango growths on the shoulders that showed up prominently, and just desicded to run those spores all along the back. It covers up Godzilla's famous signature dorsal plates, which I was initially kind of leery of doing, but then I thought it would be interesting to kind of play with the topology of the spores, so that they kind of resembled the dip and arc of the spines on his back, as if to suggest they were still there underneath the growth. It might be a little less visually interesting (or audacious) as the other, "original" design, but this one almost feels more uniform, and streamlined. I really like it, but I don't know which idea I like more. Mostly I just like drawing Godzilla covered in fungus. Never thought I'd say that. O_o

Dumb observation: I really love that Godzilla sort of has a "beard" of fungal growth hanging from his chin. The puppeteer in me likes the idea of that sympathetic movement those strands would have as Godzilla lumbers around or turns his head. Makes this mostly solid, rigid design a little more interesting and dynamic with having these wavy, wind-swept elements. Same with the dangling hairy-strands on the chest, but maybe less obviously.

Yeah. This series was fun.

Description

I've been drawing - a lot of kaiju lately.

Just one of several redraws/redesigns that I've been working on. Once I've finished I might go into more explanation on them all.

MINOR NOTE: This is actually an OC creation of mine. Granted, yes, it's based on two pre-existing characters, but I've personally never seen this character done anywhere else before or after I "created it" (credit where it's due, of course, both Matango and Godzilla are owned by Toho). It's part of a pitch/fan-fic that I worked on for a while and have a soft-spot for that I finally got around to drawing again. I would actually like to know which version people prefer, because there are two versions of this one that I'm not sure which to choose between.

EDIT:

Okay. Explanations.

I went through a kind of fan-fiction/spec-script pitch kick for a while. I spitballed ideas for Godzilla movies that I thought would be interesting to do that maybe weren't traditional ideas. One of my absolute favorites was GODZILLA VS. MATANGO, which seems like an insane idea at first blush (because maybe it is) but I thought it could work and work well, if done correctly. I had a couple of versions of the story, one where Godzilla shows up to the Matango island solo, or Godzilla is chasing another monster and that monster ends up on the island, but the result is the same, really: giant kaiju-sized Matango hijinks.

I also pitched this as a kind of "Godzilla zombie movie." The human characters are tasked with taking care of the infestations of Matango that start cropping up in the wake of Godzilla's destruction (called "Mutango," because I'm just brilliant that way, wink wink), and a lot of humans are infected with these new Matango mushrooms that are more resilient and harder to kill. So some George Romero/Resident Evil/The Last of Us kinds of spooks on the street level, all the while there are also kaiju fighting in the background.

As you can guess, Godzilla gets infected with the Matango. I waffled between either Godzilla himself, or a second Godzilla that showed up that Godzilla was in a territorial spat with (or another nameless monster), but either way, we got a giant Matango-infected kaiju. This is one of the designs I played around with.

This one sort of dispensed with my initial idea of modeling the Matangodzilla design after Space Godzilla or Super Godzilla, with Matango growths on the shoulders that showed up prominently, and just desicded to run those spores all along the back. It covers up Godzilla's famous signature dorsal plates, which I was initially kind of leery of doing, but then I thought it would be interesting to kind of play with the topology of the spores, so that they kind of resembled the dip and arc of the spines on his back, as if to suggest they were still there underneath the growth. It might be a little less visually interesting (or audacious) as the other, "original" design, but this one almost feels more uniform, and streamlined. I really like it, but I don't know which idea I like more. Mostly I just like drawing Godzilla covered in fungus. Never thought I'd say that. O_o

Dumb observation: I really love that Godzilla sort of has a "beard" of fungal growth hanging from his chin. The puppeteer in me likes the idea of that sympathetic movement those strands would have as Godzilla lumbers around or turns his head. Makes this mostly solid, rigid design a little more interesting and dynamic with having these wavy, wind-swept elements. Same with the dangling hairy-strands on the chest, but maybe less obviously.

Yeah. This series was fun.