Hi Everyone!
I was brought on to the Godzilla: King of the Monsters pre-vis phase through Studio ADI to help design Rodan, King Ghidorah and Mothra. We ended up focusing on Rodan, after sculptor Tim Martin created an awesome maquette for Rodan based on some of the thumbnail silhouettes I had sketched up early in the design process. Seeing Tim’s sculpture come to life was one of the memorable aspects of this project. After 3D scanning his sculpture, I was tasked with redesigning and developing all the further iterations of Rodan’s body (Wing variations, hand / claw variations, head variations, tail variations, color designs, scale designs and variations, fire / lava and debris designs, poses, etc.) all of which was a group effort in the design department consisting of Bryan Wynia, Ken Barthelmey, Miguel Gerrero, Justice Joseph, for a brief moment, Carlos Huante(!), and myself. The Sculpting (Design) Department included Tim Martin and Adam Dougherty. All under the supervision of Tom Woodruff Jr and Director Michael Dougherty.
Being a huge fan of the traditional special effects, I made efforts to retain much of the original sculpture Tim Martin created, as we explored moving away from that initial direction. My hope was to develop the character’s look in a way that paid respect to the original films, and to my appreciation, director Michael Dougherty felt the same way. These franchise films can diverge from the essence that made them great sources of inspiration and nostalgia for many artists and enthusiasts worldwide, and it’s a humbling experience to carry that torch unto the new generations to come, so it truly is a group effort to make these massive creature films come to life and reinvigorate the child in all of us.
Here is the first of the Rodan concepts I created. More to come!
Thanks for viewing!
