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filbarlow — Godzilla: Side View
Published: 2011-06-27 11:33:41 +0000 UTC; Views: 22148; Favourites: 434; Downloads: 0
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Description
Here is my design of Godzilla that was used in the production of the 1998 animated show.I included a human and car for scale.
Prior to the movie coming out I worked in secret, designing Godzilla ahead of the rest of the crew.
I didn't use any photographs to create the Godzilla model sheets, relying only on sketches I had done from a maquette kept under security at the Sony lot and from a 3 story high working animatronic head at Patrick Tatopoulos' hangar workshop in Culver City that I saw once. I deliberately refused photographs of Godzilla to protect myself against blame should any images be leaked.
In 1998 when production began on the animated show the movie still had not been released, so the code name we used was Heatseekers. The storyboards had to be kept at the rough stage and were based off a false model sheet that I had prepared. I did this version with no detail, just a similar body proportion and an incorrectly shaped head. Once the movie was released so was the correct model sheet and the storyboards could be put on model and cleaned up.
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Comments: 130
And yet still recognizable as the movie Godzilla. The movie version was also greyer. The teal-blue on the back spine is a really nice touch.
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The Color Department deserve credit for the choice of colors. I've reworked the colors of the shadows on this image to suit my eye, seeing as it no longer has to match pre-set vinyl paints like the animation did.
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I see... well in that case I'll need to check for a picture of the movie model to better remember the differences 
Maybe I could watch it again... it's not like a Godzilla movie at all but it has its own charm and I usually enjoy it right enough.
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I haven't seen many of the animations myself, I had moved onto another show by the time Heatseekers aired.
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The show was well animated. Pretty much the same quality of work that was done on MIB and Big Guy and Rusty.
I wish I could buy a DVD boxset of it.
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Awesome!! I LOVE this guy! hes my favorite character and monster. i've actually seen this picture before. but its so much better to see it come from the person who drew it instead of on a website. i like how you added the size scale. its also really cool how you didnt use any pictures for reference and how you made it in secretsy so that it wouldnt be leaked, very smart and cool move. truly truly awesome job dude!
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The original art always had the size scale for the storyboard artists, the colorists removed it. So you were probably looking at something that came from the color department of from Columbia Tristar marketing.
Yeah we would have lost our jobs if anything leaked. So then a year later the writers came on, saw some footage and geeked out, the very next day "someone" wrote an article on a movie fan site hinting at what we had seen. We all got pulled into a room and threatened with being laid off. The writers chickened out and never admitted to it. It was so insulting after a year of secrecy, I'm visual I would have leaked an image if I'd wanted to be that stupid, but this was a fully written article.
You be the judge lol
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Really? yeah, that must have been why.
Wow really? what dicks. you could have lost your job over that stupid stunt. they didnt even have the balls to confess up to it either. you worked so hard to keep it a secret and someone ruined it. theres always people who will do stuff like that. but i guess its another memory for the books. im just happy you and your co-workers didnt get fired. the series probably wouldnt have been as awesome
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The five of us who were at the screening were threatened with loosing our jobs, in a ridiculous witch-hunt meeting. The writers had just been brought on, so they weren't going to fess up 'cos they wanted this gig big time. They'd been super geeking out at the screening of some clips the night earlier, and made it clear that they were Godzilla fans.
I was so upset I was glaring at them through the whole meeting. It was absolutely insulting to me. Firstly that I was even lined up for accusation by my superiors, and secondly that the writers were acting like naughty school kids making everyone take the hit for them.
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Lol, you dont know what kind of images popped in my head when you said "witch-hunt meeting". anywho, it was truly a douche bag move on their part. they put a lot of peoples jobs and future at stake for their stunt, but i guess they didn't think of that and just wanted the job. i mean, if i were there at that time (and old enough) to see it, i would have been as giddy as schoolgirl watching Twilight lol. but i wouldn't have leaked information like that. maybe to my peers, but not publicly.
So, you were giving them the "I want to kick your fucking asses SO much" look uh lol? i wouldn't blame you, i would have done the same. how come you didn't talk to your superiors? i mean i would think common sense would dictate that you couldn't have been involved since if it were you, you would have leaked a lot earlier and most likely would have provided a picture. that and this conveniently happened when the writers came. but i guess thats history now. you should have treated them like naughty school kids and took them outside and kicked their asses lol
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The problem was that during the meeting we weren't told or shown what the nature of the leak was. So I wasn't 100% sure what was going on, I'd done my due diligence, but had something been leaked from my department by someone getting hold of my stuff? Once we left the meeting and I was able to do my own research I realized that it was to a movie news website, most contributors were from the writer's guild, and referred only to the screening that the two writers had been present at (not the 3 story high animatronic head that I had witnessed, which was more impressive). The article had lots of, "I can't tell you, but..", so they didn't actually give anything away, the Sony Execs just over reacted. The writers had actually tried to do the right thing, just should have kept their mouths shut. Once I knew for certain that it wasn't something from my department I didn't see the point in pursuing it. The Exec who accused us had said his piece and we'd all been let off with a warning. I'd only look more guilty by protesting. I just wish the writers had been more adult about what they had done rather than putting innocent people through suspicion with them.
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Wow. well, like i said before i'm glad things didnt go bad. it just goes to show you that there are douche bags out there who dont give a crap about anyone else. i just cant wait to see more of this stuff. you dont know how much im loving it
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I have so many shows to post, and more to come, but I'll post more Zilla stuff soon
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Yeah, you sure work on A LOT of shows. its cool seeing art for them especially on one that was as awesome as GTS
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Professionalism: some have it, many don't (including myself, natch), and still more will do anything but be called to account for their idiocy. I get the impression stories like this one are all too common in "the industry."
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I remember the American version of Godzilla (dubbed "Zilla" or "Godzilla Neo") from the single USA Godzilla film that was released back then. And I vaguely recall the cartoon that was spun off from it. Unfortunately it wasn't much of a hit - and die hard Godzilla fans took great offense to the American-ized version of their beloved Godzilla. Even if the traditional Japanese Godzilla was a person in a elaborate latex costume, there is something so endearing about the Japanese Godzilla that fans love so much. It isn't that the American Godzilla wasn't "cool" or anything. And it was clear that this Godzilla does make much more natural sense that a person in a puffy latex costume. But the lack of atomic laser breath, and humanoid charm may have been the USA version's downfall. And maybe it was seen by the fans as another one Hollywood's gross attempts at capitalizing on a money-making scheme and trying to pulling from an established, diehard fan base that evolved from the 1950's. There as a lot of resentment about that from the die hard Japan Godzilla loving fans. To Godzilla loving fans, USA Godzilla doesn't much resemble the character know and love. It doesn't look anything like him and they where wondering if Hollywood even watched a single Godzilla movie in their life? Godzilla has only been around since ... 1954. He just couldn't be turned into an over-sized, CGI Jurassic Park T-Rex, with some back spikes, and sold to super fans. I think that's why American Godzilla (Zilla) doesn't go over very well.
I was watching a string of old Japanese Godzilla movies on my On Demand cable a little while ago. "Godzilla vs Super Godzilla", Godzilla vs Mecha-Godzilla", "Godzilla vs Mothra", "Godzilla 2000" They may seem like cheesy movies to causal American viewer. But once you get into it, they really start to stick and you really start to love that big atomic breathed lizard-guy-thing. And the movies always has some sort of moral message with them. And Godzilla wasn't a mind-less, plodding lizard. It seems like he destroyed a section of city, then he saves it. "Zilla" is an example of, you just can't barge in and change stuff around. Even if Japan Godzilla is kinda kooky, is not fancy, super state-o'-the-art CGI computer graphics, and doesn't make a whole lot of natural sense. Godzilla is just something you never should mess around with.
Over the years Godzilla fans have learned to accept Zilla a little more into their base. It even was featured briefly in a Japanese film, in which it was a monster attacking Australia. Japanese Godzilla came in and kinda gave it a "Tail-kicking" so to speak. But it was shown in a Japanese film.
It is a good drawing. It's Zilla and it is interesting to see real production work from an animation studio.
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Wow, I really appreciate your commitment to the original design of the Japanese Godzilla! Please keep in mind that I was doing a job, I didn't design Zilla, my job was to convert the US movie version to an animated style as faithfully as I could while adding my own flare to it. Had I been asked to design the original Godzilla I would have done it with the same respect and diligence. I'm glad you have so much love for the original
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Funny you should mention Film-Zilla's lack of charm & death-breath, as the animated series reintroduced the latter and made a decent effort toward the former. In fact, having caught a brief Cartoon Network rerun of the Hanna-Barbera "Godzilla" series, I gotta note that Toon-Zilla's relationship with his human cohorts parallels the earlier series' team dynamic to a surprising degree.
Regarding the design itself: given the limited references, this just about hits it on the head...although that chin does look just a touch pronounced. I take it that was one of the final variant's reshaped bits?
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The jutting chin is artistic license on my part, I caricature and exaggerate for a living, so I push stuff. Plus Patrick was so proud of that chin that I featured it more lol. I was interested in making him meaner and sleeker than the film.
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Mission accomplished on that front, I'd say...as noted by others, this guy was certainly more expressive (no mean feat for a lipless saurian), and where the film version struck me as three parts iguana, theropod & crocodilian, Toon-Zilla comes off as an energetic behavioral mix of monitor lizard & hunting dog.
Fair enough regarding the chin...come to think of it, Toon-Zilla without it would kinda be like Mothra sans the singing twins or King Ghidorah without the extra heads.
As an evident fan of the old-school Godzilla myself, I see no point in castigating the U.S. version's designers. Mr. Tatopoulous & Co. produced a visually fascinating & recognizable beast in its own right...the film's primary failures from my limited perspective were characterization (particularly the monster's...) and script, neither of which were a matter the VFX crew would have any say in. So far as I'm concerned, you folks breathed some additional life into an unfairly maligned critter concept.
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Thank you for your fair and balanced assessment.
Monitor lizard/hunting dog is a very accurate description of the way Sony's toon-Zilla was portrayed. But keep in mind that I did this design long before the writers started work, I had no idea how it was to be used or anything about the film story, I just did my best based off what Patrick showed me. That's all I had. It was up to the Directors to make a good movie, I was just a small part of the machine.
If the movie had been based off the Japanese Godzilla we would be looking at a completely different model sheet here. I always strive for diligence when it comes to design.
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A small but vital part, frankly...without an initial design team of your group's calibre, I'm uncertain how well this series would've held up.
On the off chance you have some spare time, this link might prove interesting: it's a currently incomplete graphic-novel interpretation of the American Godzilla film's discarded original (i.e. pre-Devlin & Emmerich) script, apparently minted back in 1994. The artist on this adaptation actually had a gallery on this site, but apparently closed it due to image theft on the part of fly-by-night T-shirt manufacturers.
Anyhow, the link: [link]
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Thanks for the link it's interesting to consider "what could have beens". This is the only place you'll see this image with this color background (I did it myself), so if you see it anywhere else, it was stolen.
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For what it's worth, I've seen this image elsewhere, but neither the shading nor background applied here.
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How incorrectly shaped? Would you say, interestingly incorrectly shaped?
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I made the shape more like a lizard's no jutting chin, a rounder shape, rather than square overall, no wattle on the neck.
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