I love Japanese monster movies; particularly when the monster is GIANT (Kaiju)! I also love old Japanese wood block prints; known as Ukiyo-e. In this series I’ve mashed up some of my favorite Kaiju into old landscape prints from centuries past.
Godzilla In The Rain
First up is a night scene featuring the millennial Godzilla visiting the Kagurazaka neighborhood in Edo / Tokyo. This print by Tsuchiya Koitsu is part of the series Sketches of Famous Places In Japan.
The title is Ushigome Kagurazaka and was produced in 1939.
Kong of the Forest
Next up is King Kong. This image depicts Kong in the forest of Nikko, Japan. The original print title is ‘Road to Nikko, by Kawase Hasui from 1930.
Godzilla Mountain
The Godzilla behind the mountain print features the Millennial incarnation of Godzilla wandering through the mountains. The landscape is Samburam Rock, Kumgang Mountain, 1939, by Kawase Hasui.
Gamera’s Great Wave
In possibly the most famous of all the old Japanese woodblock prints, we have the 1990’s version of Gamera frolicking in the Great Wave Off Kanagawa, 1829, by Hokusai. The original was from his series, 36 views of Mount Fuji.
Silhouette of Doom
The Silhouetted Godzilla print features the classic Godzilla walking away from Edo’s pleasure district at night. The scene is Cherry Blossoms at Night on Naka-no-chō in the New Yoshiwara, 1840, by Ando Hiroshige. Edo later renamed as Tokyo. The original was from a series “Famous Places in the Eastern Capital”.
King Ghidorah
This image features the classic King Ghidorah flying above Mount Eboshi. This scene is called Sunrise on Mount Eboshi. It is from the series: Twelve Scenes in the Japan Alps, by Yoshida Hiroshi in 1926.
Godzilla Village
The most menacing image of this series also has the prettiest colors. A sleepy village in the path of the classic Godzilla with mount Fuji in the background. The landscape is Mount Fuji from Mizukubo, 1935, by Takahashi Hiroaki.
All the versions I’ve seen of the original print have very dark muddy colors. I took the liberty of trying to coax out the underlying colors digitally. I suspect the results are not very accurate to the original, but it makes for a more vibrant image.
Daimajin
The image of the pagoda features the giant statue known as Daimajin, “great demon god”. He would come to life to help those in need. Diamajin may not be well known, but he had a trilogy of movies back in 1966. They left an impression on me from the old Creature Double Features that dominated the Saturdays of my youth. The scene here is the Kinryuzan Temple at Asakusa, 1938. by Tsuchiya Koitsu.
Godzilla Bay
The water scene portrays the original incarnation of Godzilla taking a stroll around the island of Zaimoku.
I suspect the guy in the boat didn’t catch much fish that day.
The scene is Zaimoku Island at Matsushima from the series Collected Views of Japan, 1933, by Kawase Hasui.
Ghidora Mountain
This scene features the modern Ghidora before Mount Fuji. This print by Ogata Gekkō is part of his series Views of Mount Fuji. The title is "Dragon Rising up to Heaven" and was produced in 1897.
Godzilla Blues
The image here depicts the classic Showa era Godzilla lumbering in the night. The original is an Aizuri-e print – woodblock prints made entirely or predominantly in blue ink. This was done by
Uehara Konen in 1910, titled “Moonrise”.
Godzilla Ink
Here is a scene featuring the Heisei era Godzilla of the early 1990’s. The original print is a Sumi-e style ink painting by Tetsu Fusen in the mid 19th century.
Godzilla Temple
The scene here features the current incarnation of big G, also known as the Monsterverse Godzilla. The original print is by the great Kawase Hasui. This is the Nigatsudo Temple, Nara and was originally produced in 1934.
Godzilla Boat Fire
Here is a scene featuring the Millennium era Godzilla with those jagged spines . Big G has inserted himself into The Naval Battle of Pungdo, Korea. This type of print is referred to as Senso-e; which is a dramatic form of Japanese woodblock prints that depicts patriotic or battle imagery. Original print was produced by Kobayashi Kiyochika in 1894.
It’s really another Fan Boy page… but these are all original watercolor paintings.
Sometimes I see a toy or a model and feel an urge to make it more to my liking. The Conversion Monkey Customs are mash ups and re-paints of various toys and models. Some are unique and some have multiple incarnations. All are inspired by the great properties they represent.
What’s a Conversion Monkey? He started as a kind of mascot and then a mystery contributor for various silly things we built. Eventually he turned into an imprint for the toy customizations as they just didn’t feel quite right under the BTS logo. This was partially because of the type of work that was being done, but also because sometimes they are a collaborative effort. Big Teddy’s son, Spike, chips in on some of the customization and the photography of the pieces.
What exactly is the Conversion Monkey? He’s half robot and half monkey and for no particularly good reason now represents customized toys. Don’t try to find any meaning in it. It was my idea and I think it’s weird too!
Sometimes i just want to draw my favorite stuff!
These are snippets of projects that are in progress or coming down the pike.
A lot of my artwork is character driven. Coming up with interesting or funny characters is more fun to me than just creating something pretty to look at.
Over time, some characters keep coming back around and it’s starting to feel like having a cast walking around in the background of my art life. Usually they appear in test works when I mess around with a new tool or technique but occasionally they get featured in something all on their own merit.
I’ve collected a few of the regulars here just because I like seeing them all together. I feel like there could be a comic strip or something germinating here under the right circumstances. For now, I’m content with just letting them evolve slowly within the confines of my work flow.
Another Fan Boy page - this time just pencils.
You may note that some of these scenes are repeated as water colors or sketch covers. Sometimes i just like the pencils too much to color over. When this happens i typically make a quick copy, re-draw/ink and then apply the paints.
Sketch covers are comic books that are put out by the major comic companies that have a blank cover. The blank cover is made of a thick drawing paper that artists can work on. This allows for original art to adorn the comic.
The Yeti project was simple and fun. And that’s all that it is meant to be. Just hanging around outside… with Yeti’s. If playing outside is fun, wouldn’t it be even more fun with a Yeti?
This project means a lot to me. The winter scene was the first thing I drew after a few months without creating anything. One day, while sitting through a long boring meeting, I sketched the basis of the winter scene. The idea formed through a series of scribbles with no real forethought... but the notion of kids not being afraid of big hairy beasts stuck with me and I ran with it.
For a while I thought this series got me out of my funk because it seemed simple and easy. Looking back, I wonder if I was sub consciously thinking about how big scary things are not something we always have to run away from and that maybe kids are better at figuring this out than adults.
Even with these reflections, the theme of this series is about having fun and sometimes a big hairy monster can make things even more fun!
I am a huge Black Sabbath fan. I am also a Star Wars fan. Looking at Sabbath’s first album cover without my glasses one day, the dark figure reminded me of Darth Vader. In that moment I thought if there was ever a house band for the Sith order, it could only be Black Sabbath.
This was the inspiration behind the mashup of iconic Sabbath album covers with our favorite Sith lords. I give you DARTH SABBATH!
The Sabbath album covers shown here are: Born Again, Black Sabbath, Volume 4 and Paranoid.
When Time allows, Heaven & Hell, Never Say Die and Mob Rules are next!
He is Chicken Thug. He loves cupcakes and doesn't care what you think.
The MMS is a collective of individuals that come up with ideas, sketch or color together and generally enjoy making art in a group setting.
These are a few items that came from such gatherings.
The Astronaut Kitty / Flash Flyer projects developed during early MMS sessions.
Who's to say animals can't be sports fans? They’re Fanimals!
In Boston, they are as passionate about their sports as the people.
When my oldest son was young, we once stuck a scuba helmet on a toy cat and started calling him Astronaut Kitty. We had many adventures with Kitty and liked to draw pictures of him and his exploits.
My son eventually made up a new character called Flash Flyer. He was a super hero that could shoot lightning and lived in outer space.
My son often played as Flash Flyer. So when he needed a partner, the obvious choice was to recruit his younger brother. And so, Kid Flyer joined the team.
Official uniforms were designed and Nana broke out the sewing machine. A few short videos were filmed but most of the Flash Flyer adventures were taking place in drawings and comics that the boys were creating.
I pitched the idea of making my own Flyer comic and together we came up with the story. Since we had great costumes, we took a bunch of reference photos. We liked the photos so much that we decided to use them in the comic instead of drawing everything.
Christmas Night of the Robot Menace was the final result. Our heroes team up to rescue Santa Claus after he was kidnapped by a planet of foolish robots. This was a labor of love that was worth every minute. But it's fun to have a book too!
I've posted some of our early sketches and art work here. The photo based artwork that follows are select scenes from the Christmas Night of the Robot Menace book.
There are no definitive plans for a sequel but all agreed that we liked revolving the tale around a holiday. So the next one will definitely take place on Halloween!
This is a series of sculptures made with various types of lighting integrated into them. The first six images here have little to no photoshopping.
I experimented with the lighting and took the photos with a film camera. The long exposure in the low light really saturated the colors.
The last two images were attempts to get different effects with photoshop. They are interesting in their own way. However I think I prefer the pure photographs.