30 STORIES HIGH....

We're back with a King of the Monsters update! Maybe a little tweaking of the teeth and hands and some general cleanup, but for the most part he's ready to go. And actually he's only about 9 stories high (100' 6" or so.) Sounds kind of under achieving by monster standards, but sizing him up even to 200' just seemed overkill next to the scale of the figures and vehicles. Plus, in the films, Eiji Tsuburaya often preferred to scale down his monsters because it enabled him and his crew to build larger, more detailed miniatures. Here, big G is threatening the old Orlando Utilities Commission office which I nabbed from the Google warehouse (click on images for pic viewer.)

I mean, look at his foot next to the default scale figure. This was important because I'm planning on staging a scene with some half demolished and damaged buildings and it will add to the realism if there can be some clearly defined fleeing civilians among the debris.

Here's the rear view. Still working on a better texture for the back plates. Also, I might make another set of the large ones (just copy and paste) and figure out a "glow" for when he's using his radioactive breath. Well, let me know what you think and check back soon as Godzilla gives a prehistoric pounding to some unlucky skyline!

UP FROM THE DEPTHS....

Dang it! Got sidetracked again. But I think you'll appreciate it once you see what the result is. But first, an explanation. For no real reason, I was fooling around with the preset textures included in Sketchup. Just seeing how some of the patterns repeat on an object and how I could manipulate them. So I made this simple barrel shape and applied one of the stone textures and found that, if you rotate it vertically, it lays out over a curved surface in an interesting way (click on images to go to pic viewer.)

But wait! That looks like...something. Hold on, let me just drag the color wheel over to the grey and darken it just a bit. Holy crap! That's Godzilla skin! Well, there was only one thing for it, really.

And below is where we're at so far. Off to the right are my reference pics. If he looks more than a little muppety, well... think back to "Monster Zero" or "Destroy All Monsters." When the tone of the films had already shifted to kid oriented and they started making him look less reptilian and menacing. That's the Godzilla I grew up with. 

  

Anyway, the teeth will help give him some "grrrr" back. And, even though this started out as a simple color test, that segmented tail may be the single most challenging thing I've modeled to date! But I can't wait to get started on the back plates and other details. Let me know what you think and see ya soon!