GODZILLA: VERSUS NEO

[kiryugoji04]

As you may or may not know, I have been good friends with the illustrious Matt Frank for a fair few years now. Though I ultimately find myself more of a filmmaker than an artist, I am still intensely passionate about art and Matt is among the most supportive of my artistic endeavors, as well as one of my closest confidants in these and many other matters. Awhile back I hatched upon a rather crazy idea for a Toho kaiju redesign and ever since Matt has been pushing me to do a series of redesigns akin to his own GODZILLA NEO. I've pondered this for a long time now and I've concluded that a redesign series as comprehensive as that is virtually impossible for me to wrap my head around - I'm simply too married to the classic Toho kaiju aesthetic to deliver anything as radical as what Matt has produced. I believe I have, however, discovered a suitable alternative.

Anyone who has known me for even a small amount of time will probably know of my profound loathing and intense criticism of the nineties Godzilla films. For me, the Toho of old that I love so dearly died with the box office failure of Godzilla Vs. Biollante and I find that every Godzilla film produced since has been rife with mediocrity and missed opportunities. This extends even to the Millennium series, which, apart from the abhorrent Final Wars, I like - particularly GMK and the 2002 Mechagodzilla film. So when Matt started encouraging me to take on a redesign series I figured my first radical and (in my most humble opinion) incredibly cool concept that I came up with was a monster unique to the nineties films and that concept made for some very, very interesting revisions to the plot of the film in question. From there the decision was fairly obvious to me: rework the VERSUS series (Return of Godzilla through Godzilla VS Destoroyah) into a new, more cohesive and daring canon - into something I actually like as a whole.

So I'm pleased to announce the start of my very own Godzilla-inspired redesign series: GODZILLA: VERSUS NEO. The name was agreed upon by Matt and myself as a playful ribbing of all the other G-NEO knockoffs out there. Plus, it means that VERSUS NEO is the first G-NEO knockoff officially endorsed by Matt Frank himself! But don't get the wrong idea! Apart from the name, this will be a fairly different project. Rather than a simple series of concept art pieces with accompanying bios for each monster, this will be more fluid - some concept art here, some scene illustrations there and, well, some other stuff I'm not really ready to talk about yet. Overall the focus of this project is more upon altering the story of the VERSUS series as opposed to the monster designs. You may not like everything change I have in mind but hopefully you will enjoy the ride regardless.

In the meantime, please look forward to the first piece, going up later today. I'm not going in chronological order, so anyone is fair game here. Who could it be?

Cheers!

- Jared P. Foust



I'll be posting the images in this thread as well as on deviantArt and several other places. I started this thread to keep it separate from my other art threads here. Hope no one minds.

[kiryugoji04]

Yeah, you read that name right.

This is what started VERSUS NEO in the first place. I was doodling Spacegodzilla one day and in the process he evolved from what the original movie put forth into, well, an infection. Basically, Spacegodzilla as we knew him before - spacefaring G-cells of questionable origin combined with a crystalline lifeform - has been taken out of the equation entirely. Now this more parasitic crystalline lifeform comes to Earth on its own accord, impacting and merging with Godzilla himself and corrupting him into a new creature not unlike Spacegodzilla. Think of it as Spacegodzilla doing his best Matango impression. If we think of it as, say, a five-stage disease, this would be Stage I and I imagine Stage IV would be closer to the classic Spacegodzilla design.

So what does this all mean for the actual plot? Well, that's for another time. For now, I hope you enjoy this piece!

[Inferior Rodan]

[kiryugoji04]

Working on the GODZILLA: VERSUS NEO project again, finally. Inking the secret Showa kaiju (the only monster I'm adding to the Heisei universe) as I type this and hatching a some crazy plans... >8D

[kiryugoji04]

And GODZILLA VERSUS NEO's secret Showa Kaiju is KAMACURAS! What a tease for nothing', amirite? I wanted to add in Kamacuras because. Well. Because I wanted to add in Kamacuras and I happened to sketch a really neat design for him around the same time I was conceptualizing Crystal Godzilla. Where other redesigns (Final Wars, Godzilla Neo, etc.) have a tendency to want to take Kamacuras and emphasize the "giant praying mantis" aspect of the creature, I find this approach a little boring. Instead, I chose to take his more draconic aspects and push them even further, resulting in what is basically a more stylized version of the Son of Godzilla design. And that's really all I think is necessary in my mind.

You're going to find with several of the VERSUS NEO designs that I haven't changed a whole lot. I mean, some are pretty radical (wait until you see what I'm cooking up for flying form Destroyer!) but a lot of the others are just tweaks and subtle twists because the real focus of VERSUS NEO's redesigning is the storyline and the characters. More on that stuff later! ;D

In the VERSUS NEO setting, Kamacuras inhabits Birth Island, which Godzilla and Junior still reside on later in the story, along with another monster (or maybe even two!), making it sort of a Monster Island Lite. Kamacuras, for example, is prey for one of the other larger beasts in particular - I think you might be able to guess who.

http://daikamonohashi.deviantart.com/#/d48dump

[jellydonut25]

[MekaGojira3k]

[planetxleader]

[kiryugoji04]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Inferior Rodan]

[kiryugoji04]

[Inferior Rodan]

[kiryugoji04]

[Inferior Rodan]

[kiryugoji04]

[king_ghidorah]

[kiryugoji04]

[king_ghidorah]