The perspective drawing in the beginning is amazing. The frog is my favorite one so far. If you want to have some character ideas a lot of the time I find out that giving animals Mythological / historical / religious clothes/accessories sometimes makes them look more divine. I made one drawing using ink and a dip pen and drew a rabbit wearing a Chinese robe with religious signs. I was then told that the drawing won the “ most immersive “ award with 7800 votes. Just a thought no worries 🙏 Edit * I also firmly believe that you can make sets of these Kaiju whilst using different mediums and experimenting With brush sizes traditional drawings scanned and tweaked with in digital softwares like CSP and photoshop, And finding that unique style for each kaiju will definitely make them more recognizable as a set or individual cards
You are correct about the angle. A view from low really gives a sense of size, like you look at it from below giving a great weight to the creatures. Also i think its ok to take inspiration from animals as long as you give them features that sets them apart. For example that crab. If its a sleeping giant and stays on a position for years it might start to have overgrowth, the top shell can have trees or corals and look like a mountain depending on the type it is.
something small that I think might help with some of the designs would be removing or obscuring the pupils. it could give them more of a distant, unreadable feeling, make them a bit more unsettling by making it hard to tell where they're looking. I think it could also help capture that trailcam type feeling, like the image was taken from an old news broadcast or they were photographed by accident by someone looking for something else. another thing I think could help would be obscuring more details of the kaiju's form and letting the viewer's imagination fill those things in, but that comes with the risk of making the cards hard to read. the other thing is, I recommend looking into japanese tokusatsu films from the 60s, a lot of the monster designs there are very colorful or goofy but they often still manage to cut an imposing figure.
So I love the Boar Kaiju illustration because of the scale the single hut with the snowy hill gives it. I think having this single object that you can easily understand the scale of in the foreground helps me to immediately understand how massive this boar guy really is. Plus him casting his shadow over it looks so imposing. A skyscraper is big but exactly how big is impossible to understand in the other illustrations. A single floor building I know the size of instantly
I love all the art shown in this! I definitely think that if you are making 100+ cards, you want to pick an art style that you can make rather quickly. Those 1 hour mock ups might be the way in that case, because that would be around 100 hours of just illustrations. A subtle thing to increase the gravity of your Kaiju could be adjusting the perspective to always be below any Kaiju depicted. If you (the viewer perspective) are looking at them from below it will give them a sense of immense scale. Also if they don't fit in the entire frame of the card, like they are so large you can't take a picture of all of them at once. Evangelion usually cuts between wide shots that show them devastating a city, and close shots where you can't make out the whole figure, often from within a cockpit.
Variety in origin means freedom but uniformity. Kaiju spawned from radiation having a similar motif vs space monsters vs magical kaiju. Having more mundane kaiju can help make other monsters more strange because it helps ground them but still keep them mysterious
I like the squid idea, I’d Iove to see it floating over a city like a large dirigible using its tentacles to hold on to the ground while picking up people and eating them with its bizarre human mouth. Such a great project can’t wait to see it develop.
Hey, just wanted to say I loved the video. Seeing your process is really inspiring. Out of your top three kaiju, I find your gentle giant turtle monster to be the best. The style of it gives me a studio ghibli vibe. It's sad solemn demeanor gives it alot of character. Maybe even lore ideas. Anyway, I can't what for the next video. Keep up the good work.❤
I think if you did something with those little thumbnails for the guys on a part of the card just to show what they look like in full and then having the main art of the card be like a scene of that monster with things around it for scale would be a good idea
I think a good reference for what you're going for would be Gamera's villain kaiju. They were designed with being able to appeal to children in mind but still had a sense of edge to them. Most of them took cues from animals but still were very bizarre and out there. Guiron looked vaguely reptilian but had a massive knife for a head. It was a little cartoony, but it still managed to seem threatening. Also, I like the boar yeti. Even if you don't I do.
I got so confused 😂 21:13 I zoned out for a sec and saw Boar thing. Was totaly into it (crisp shadows, easy to read). Then started to hear you ranting about it. 😅 RIP Boargoth 🐗
I really liked the combination of your line-art and pixel hieroglyphs (like on the first video's thumbnail). It looks unic and adds some feeling of uncertainty, like scientists do not know enough about those creatures and those somewhat corrupt images are reflection of this.
a lot of kaiju are inspired by disasters so perhaps it could help by picking an interesting disasters/phenomena/events and designing a creature around that. like the slug kaiju could represent floods/tsunamis, an unstoppable force that will sweep away everything you've ever known, or that abominable snowman could be an avalanche, heard for miles around and will destroy you without even thinking about it as it just walks by. the umbrella crab made me think of some sort of recurring disaster like generational trauma. the robo rhino could be a captured kaiju that humans are trying to use as its personal defender with various implants trying to control it or make it even deadlier. kaijus also seem more terrifying or intimidating when their size is emphasized and seen from a human lens, from the street view or a news reporter's camera or military night vision from miles away with only the vague impression of *it* barely visible in the dark.
Maybe try to get more human perspectives of the kaijus? The 3 that work are more viewed from the bottom, but having some seen from higher up could work if we get maybe a view from a helicopter or stuff like that in front. Also the 3 have some nice contrast and motion in common! I really like the fungus and weird turtle, they have an almost "japanese"/silly yokai vibe!
For what it's worth (and I'm no artist) I think a lot of the designs shown in this video look great. 8:44 I like the mix of avian and mammalian features on the bird-bear, and it looks kinda creepy and soulless 11:07 I agree w/ you abt the Shrumo 14:36 No notes for Turtle man 👍 16:59 The inspiration is so cool, the design is really evokative and stands out compared to the others (kinda amorphous) and I can imagine it having a unique feature in the game. 18:26 Fire toad is sick. Love the burns(?) on one side of its body and thanks for getting rid of the frog nipples haha 21:42 I have a softspot in my heart for monsters shaped like this, but this would genuinely be one of my fav cards of I was collecting them. I think I like how powerful it looks! I just wanted you to know that there's at least one fan of even these designs!
Thank you for the notes! Great info. Sorry about the frog nipples! I don’t know why, but I seem to gravitate toward adding excessive nipples to my Kaiju…. I’m sure there must be some Freudian, psychological issue deep down there! Ha ha!
In terms of trying to apply lore to the Kaiju, one of the things that struck me about your lore introduction video was it was based in the real world. I think something as simple as knowing where geographically these creatures are from, which ones interact, how any human survivors in the area would understand the kaiju, Godzilla to me is so intricately linked to Japan and Tokyo, maybe applying that same feeling to your kaiju will make them feel more grounded and lore connected
maybe use more reference images, chosen as much off of vibes as anything? I've always had the most success when I've had multiple reference images per design. Even with wierd eldrich monstrosities. Love your stuff man
I understand where you come from when you say that you don't like the cartoon style, especially for the vibe you are going for. There's a lot of interesting reflections and depth about the world, and simplifying the style affects that. What I think is something you can reflect is how these kaiju are perceived. Most of the kaiju would be really scary to deal with (in the human perspective), but maybe some can be important for a certain region, almost like a mutualism/symbiotic of sorts. Thinking about these archetypes can be inspiring, not only for the worldbuilding but to the design of these monsters. While the cartoon style functions well to show expression maybe they can be mysterious and eerie. Emotion and facial expressions are something more perceivable as human, so doing the opposite could generate some interesting results! From what we know until now, they are just mysterious creatures that appeared. Of course these are simply suggestions, and I feel like this is maybe too extreme haha. I hope this serves as a bit of inspiration! I'm loving to see the work you've been creating! (sorry for my english, not my first language)
@@crumpetsounds usually. I loosely write some stuff down. Less so in this episode because I just commented on the images as I looked at them. But yeah, usually I’ll write a rough script. Otherwise my rambling would be much worse!!
This video is relatable levels of brainstorming and self-doubt as someone who likes designing characters. Sometimes it's about giving a design time though. While you're making it it's the worst thing ever, but sometimes avoiding it for a couple of days and looking back at it it's fine. I think if you're having trouble figuring out the overall commonality you want the kaiju to have, it may be helpful to make a list of concepts, imagery, and stories you want to tell, as well as making a PureRef image board full of reference and inspiration images. The downside to this is that it may restrict your creativity though...
21:49 I don't know if you've already made up your mind but please don't give up on the boar guy! I love him! There's something about the huge mass of hair that's kinda inscrutable. Like the type of creature you'd see in a snow storm and you don't even know what you saw. 7:33 regarding the yokai/skull collector, to me he looks a bit like a tick, so maybe making it more insect-like could make it read more as kaiju? Plus I think tick + blood-sucker + skulls + drains the life forces out of victims could be a solid theme. Either way, big fan of your rendering style and I hope you keep up the amazing work!
It’s really surprised me how popular the boar guy has been!! I guess I’ll have to keep him! 😅 I’ll probably rework him a bit though and maybe flesh out his Lore.
Honestly, great work Jim! You might be inspiring me to get back into sketching. From an outside perspective, it looks like you are leaning to more of a yokai design for these kaiju. The turtle, shroom, masked bird and suminagashin creatures all feel like something out of an old yokai sketchbook. Maybe thats the direction you should consider for your lore. It would also keep the design open for more abstract kaiju allowing you to be more playful. Thank you for showing the process!
You should! I was in the same boat a year or so ago. I hadn’t drawn for fun in years. Now I wish I’d done it sooner. No time like the present! And on the whole Yokai thing, I think you could be right! I love Yokai-type imagery… could be an angle! Thanks for the comment.
Man I feel the style comments to my core. I’ll see something and think “damn,that’s so cool. I wonder if I can do something like that” and flip around so much.
Shrumo, Toad, and Turtle all have a vaguely Japanese air about them, even the void one has the same effect, that could be why they all look so good together.
I really love the mushroom guy but I think if you want it to be less cartoony I would change the mouth. To be honest I’m not sure how you should change it, but it looks like the kind of mouth that would be in adventure time at the moment But man the black and white art looks so cool!! I love so many of the designs you made and the way some of them crush the buildings below them is sick
I feel like your struggles are so relatable haha. Just an idea if you're struggling to turn away from the cartoony style or you like it but don't find it gritty enough. Maybe in your world, there's a card game produced for kids, based on the real kaiju in the world. If you make the cards artefacts of the world themselves, you can kind of imply a lot of that grittier, horror context without having to draw the scariest pictures.
I think the first Kaiju your son drew does a good job conveying the idea. Rather than focusing on a specific style and tone, some digital card games have a range of style that all follow main guidelines(E.g Legends of Runeterra, Hearthstone). Those games have all sorts of characters, goofy, serious, enticing, bleak, energetic, reserved... And i think that could happen in your project, if that fits your vision of it. To have a Kaiju that looks wompy like a wet cat, and another that looks menacing with more over-designed details such as scale textures, fur, etc. One thing i noticed is that your kaiju are very expressive, and that sometimes can come off as cartoonish, or humane. If you want to change that, i suggest you look at images of animal eye physiology, horror manga and some old american horror comics. Having said all of that, i really like the project. Keep it up and look at undesireable results in an objective manner!
For a bunch of the designs i felt like the eyes looked too human (same goes for how they were positioned on the) it made them look rather goofy. To make them look more monster-like, playing around with the eye type (hollow black, no eyes, pins, giant stalks, just light beams, a visor, etc...) and how many they have and how they're positioned (vertical above each other, on the chest, in a cross pattern, floating, just not there, etc...) would probably do wonders for the vibe they give off. Good luck with playing around with the designs. Have a great day.
I think the humanoid part might be partially intentional to allude to a sort of kaiju aesthetic, since what birthed Kaijus were people inside big suits, therefore the genre has a sort of humanoid design built in to an extent
You hit the nail right on the head. If you cant figure out the style or the kaiju dont feel unified enough, then yea. Go back and do some quick back story stuff on the kaijus themselves. And the cool thing is once you start and have a foundation, then it'll all build on itself. For example, lets say the first few kaiju came from space, ok now those kaiju will look alien. Ok, why did they come to earth, well lets say they came to harvest materials and geoform the earth. Great, now you can design giant aliens that can capture materials and break things up. Great, next, let's say the spirit kaiju come from the emotions/legends that humans have. Ok, how did that come to happen? Why now? Well, now if we're stuck, we can go back to the first group. When the aliens came they brought k-cells with them. These cells help geoform the atmosphere for the kaiju but the side effect is that it has a small effect on humans giving them a certain amount of psychic abilities. And by themselves it does nothing but as a mass of people it can bring form to ideas thus the creation of kaiju that look like yokai and other folk lore mixed with kaiju. And you can just go from there. Mind you these are off the top of the head, but still, form that first part, that beginning idea, and you'll be fine. You already have the lore of the gane with the scientist so maybe you can work backwards from there. Also, what can help is talking to friends about it. If they are creative or interested in the topic then you guys can get lost in the lore and worldbuilding and youll have plenty of material to work with. If you dont have friends or just dont have friends that care or cant help, find groups of people on redidit or something talking about kaiju. Or read some fan stories of kaiju related material or topics like it and use that to build off of. And if you dont want to do that and still need help then call me on discord and bounce ideas off my head and we'll build it together😂. You got it bro cant wait for the next vid!
I think that post-rationalization is perfectly ok! Thats how a masterpiece like Berserk was made, not to mention that these are still early renditions! I also believe that artists should take MORE cues from nature-humans evolved from nature and easily associate feelings, infer lore, and glimpse the kaijus lifestyle from their biology. This doesnt mean they have to look like a specific animal. for example, the turtle kaiju has pretty thin legs and well defined calves which would indicate agility, but you could make it more bottom heavy like zorah magdoros to convey its slow temperament and indifference-more like a mountain or natural disaster! maybe even give it extra legs to convey weight and to alienate it from the natural order on another note, i love the style! easy to comprehend and really juxtaposes the horrific and unknowable natures of these kaiju. i personally think that the detailed form and sharp designs are enough to convey adult appeal. i simply cannot see disney or pokemon designing something like your crab this is all just my opinion! someone else may disagree but ill gladly discuss it
I think that looking at the magic the gathering art is a good kind of comparison to have. Mtg design is probably the best, most realistic and gutteral looking art ive seen in tcgs; and while i dont think its very plausible to match its wonderful art, looking into what makes it so great could effect the style in a positive way. It may be something with the sort of painting style coloring they have, or maybe just a great deal of detail, but i feel like that style would work really well with this tcg as well.
To your point about design influence and pulling from nature, maybe that's just your starting point especially when you're just getting started. Maybe some research on the world's weird and rare critters simply serve as a starting point and you can adapt them to the lore/design language of Kaiju Origins. I really love what someone else commented, "the natural answer to offsetting the innate humor in kaiju is cosmic horror". Maybe some of the grittiness and abstraction of cosmic horror is what you're looking for? Doing a deep brainstorming session of words/phrases/ideas you associate with your lore and world may also help you develop the design influence for each type of kaiju. Like brainstorm ideas until you just can't think of anything, then... start again with all the first thoughts that come to mind even when they seem silly or stupid. Love following along as always! I get excited every time you post.
For sure. You’re right. I basically need to think about each Kaiju more and do some proper character creation. Al of theses were simply drawing and seeing what happens. You can’t make something out of nothing. I need a good, researched base to start with.
Just found your channel and I love it. I think the mycelium was a great idea. I think visually showing it growing through some circuits would look cool. Like the slime mold in a maze. Or if it took over sections of subway and became its own kaiju
Seeing your portfolio of work, i am confident that this will turn out great in the end, it just needs to go through the development paces! A suggestion with the art style; try to think of it in context of the world, perhaps these illustrations are the renditions done by the humans that have survived, with the simpler techniques and technology that they have managed to retain (hence the black and white colouring, and screen printing texture!) perhaps they aren’t literal depictions of the kaiju, but representations, affected by things such as folklore, half-remembered encounters and here say. Maybe the artists who drew these have never even seen them in person. I think that give a nice sort of logic to the art
I really like the boar guy but i think i understand your sentiment, hes more like king kong then a Kaiju Also if you want more otherworldly looking designs i suggest looking at marine life and microscopic things, thats helped me before!
I totally understand the lore context and I think it is very important for your process, and my personal favorite thing to observe. When you mentioned you wanted to make a slug kaiju, I immediately remembered your "frog, slug, snake" game you put into the determining who goes first. In my mind, I assumed you would have the lore explain it as they were the first three kaiju to emerge at the exact same time which kickstarts the era of monsters, hence why they were the ones that inspire the game for the subsequent generations of humans. Their emergence became a cultural influence. I'd definitely agree with you on leaning in the lore context for each kaiju to further flesh out not just the art, but also their individual abilities. I really like the designs that have that balance between cartoony and gritty. The slug, shroom, and the spiral spirit kaiju are perfect examples in my opinion, especially the spiral spirit. A point of advice I would like to give regarding further kaiju designs is to establish something that really shows off their size, which in my opinion is what really makes them "kaiju", giant monsters.
Thank you. Great comment. Love that thought about the slog, frog, snake. I might steal that! 😉 In terms of scale you are totally right! I want to give a real sense of scale and I’m not sure I’ve totally achieved it yet.
I think what you also need to do for your designs is give the Kaiju some personality, I know that giant monsters are meant to be mainly evil, but King Kong and Godzilla both have a distinct personality.
As a career designer and at-home still life artist, I find that i need a hard-set outline or rules to work within. That way i can focus artistically, and know what im reinforcing and when to break the rules. Love the series and excited for the development
Literally I agree with everything you said this video. Don't take this the wrong way, but yea, don't settle with designs that don't fit. LOVED THIS VIDEO, FAVORITE ONE SO FAR/ wait, I don't like the nipples 😅
Extending off the "this feels like it's just this animal, but giant," sentiment, one thing that came to mind for me is that if you're struggling to find a way to make it feel unique, you could use DCC's "Monsters & Mystery" page of features and roll on 'em! Bob the Worldbuilder had made a video on it a few months ago ("Make Any Monster EXCITING in D&D, DCC, & More!" should be the video title). Effectively it's expanding on that idea of taking existing monsters and giving them a spin to make them unique and scary, but I feel like a large table (or set of tables) that you could roll on to generate ideas and inspiration to spice up a Kaiju that feels like it's lacking could be worth checking out! Also, I personally loved the design of the eagle turned baboon turned masked creature kaiju! It might be worth checking out the Roc, since that itself is kinda a kaiju eagle. Same for the boar yeti, might not be perfect for being a kaiju, but it definitely feels like it'd fit well in a DnD game! Someone had mentioned Evangelion, and I second that. I feel like more abstract/unknowable Angels like Ramiel (the drilling, laser-shooting, mountain melting, screaming diamond) or Leliel (the 4-dimensional pocket dimension Angel that casts the spherical shadow above it) could serve as really good inspiration for more cosmic horror/alien Kaiju! Keep it up!
Really good comment, thanks! I’ll check out DDC’s “Monsters and Mystery” page! Good shout on the Evangelion Angels too. Ramiel is exactly the kind of weird I need.
💎I think you’re in the right direction with the kaiju. The art style has just enough cartoony-ness to give the designs the character they need while not being babyfied or grimdark. I suggest you double check Godzillas Heisei era in regards to its kaiju design having some level of cartoony-ness and silliness. I especially love the black hole spirit kaiju and the bone demon💎
Ooh yeah! I could also see something like Pacific Rim's Jaegers! Like, maybe something along the lines of Cherno Alpha: large bulky nuclear/Kaiju-powered machines. Maybe some (or many) aren't even under humanity's control, like some tech entity or the Kaiju components used to make such constructions possible has become conscious and grew wills of their own. Expanding off that, maybe there could be tech kaiju similar to the robots from the animatrix, who are self-modifying to make themselves less like humans and more bestial/insectoid. Final idea: something like the Toothy mech from the forever winter could also serve as inspiration (albeit this one is FAR more gruesome); a self-aware artificial intelligence that persists by consuming the bodies of those who cross it by using mechanical bugs on it to consume the life-energy of whoever it can capture; putting them in bags over its shoulders to slowly drain them of energy while the mechanical bugs keep them alive as long as possible
TH-cam recommended this to me and I was very intrigued by the thumbnail. I like the way youveused hatching/screentone for the value! I think my main criticism/feedback for you would be that the reason everything looks cartoony is the shape design - if you break down a lot of these designs into their fundamental shapes, you're using a *lot* of big inorganic rounded shapes. This tends to signify things being soft, cute, and friendly. This can absolutely work for the less antagonisgic kaiju, but if you're aiming for a darker and grittier tone I think using sharper angles and dynamic shapes with less symmetry to them will help a ton. You're definitely doing the right thing by iterating the way you are though - you can learn a lot by examining your own work and seeing where you can improve.
I actually kinda love the big mouth guy. It reminds me of the classic power rangers or super infra man monsters which were so obviously costumes. I kinda love the idea of a game stylized in this way.
@Jimmmm-u7w The artstyle design works already, i don't see a problem, what i think you wanna say is " what that the rules that i should follow to make the kaiju designs ", i mean why would you make a question about artsytle in a video about drawing the kaiju designs ? I like sketches 1 and the 2 , 8 ,9 that look like stages of evolution -Ancient Turtle, more balls ??? -Fake Bird , more fake features ? -Spirit Black Hole -Fire toad, without the nipples, and probably needs to look less like a animal, you know something more complex, more evolved I don't know how i feel about that human mushroom..... because when you start to talk about with part human design, we feel that you are talking about us, if this is about kaijus or the relationship with kaijus, that can change the way the public looks at kaijus, like just a random yu-gi-oh monster card...... Questions : Why did you select every 1 of the 7 kaiju origins - fire , water , nature , tech , mutant , spirit , alien. They don't seem to have a synergy in concept that solid, you want to indentify kaijus with origins to give them the status and other things but, what would nature, spirit, alien mean in battle or abilitys ? The origins have somethings in similar , like being antonyms - fire to water , nature to tech , and probably spirit and alien. Does magic exist on this planet ? Because that might change a loot of things...... There is just 1 origin that feels a bit more on the magical side, spirit. What are Kaijus they made of ? What are the minimal and maximal limit of size ? Is there some that you can't measure ? World war attracts the atention of kaijus from our planet and alien planets, why ? Do they fear us ? Do we have the biomes where they can live ? How : - kaijus born in your world ? - big is the planet ? What is feature about the kaiju concept that you are going to focus more ? - Monsters attract even stronger, bigger Monsters ? - That humans was just one of the levels of nature and Kaijus is the next ? - Creature designs that imitate the danger of weapons with the power to extinct humans? 1 step from extinction About the card battle rules, the rule that is about accusing the other player that it has too much cards would not make the game toxic ? I mean one of the players could just hide the card ......, or say show me all your cards !!! hmmmm..... which for a card game that is hmmm.................... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ideas : In your video - Considering Gameplay Mechanics for Kaiju Origins at 13:10 , i want to give an idea, 1 snake 2 slug 3 frog , they kinda look like 3 stages evolution . Now i will say, they like many other games they don't need to have a why for all things. !!!!!!!! Just the enough to pass the message.
If you're having trouble with trying to find the style you want here's a tip, look for a representation of what you think is too childish or cartoony, and a representation of what you think is too graphic or adult, then try and combine the two to find a middle ground.
13:17, maybe the tech kaijus are made by humanity to fight back against the kaijus like in evangelion or Pacific rim, or they could be a rouge ai that made mechanical bodies to control to get revenge on the human race, this is just an idea
Awesome art! I feel you are a bit harsh on yourself some of the ones you didnt like i thought were really cool like the boar dude and bridge guy. I would drop the chameleon Or at least get rid of the shirt. I would also remove the ear and mouth of the octopus. I feel like for a few you didnt like dor being too cartoony you could give them more animalistic eyes, like all black with only a couple small white dots too make them less human, something like that. Hopefully you can feel more positive about your designs once you put them on card layouts i want to use most of these guys in a deck haha also the slug is cool big fan of slug dude
Thanks. Yeah when I watched it back I thought I might’ve been a bit harsh on myself too. I think I just need to work out how that style fits with the pixel stuff. Good point on the eyes.
hey Jimmmm, I wondered if you had ever watch the show "The tatami galaxy", it's like an anime with a very particular story telling an animation style. It's also very japanese folklore inspired, in a way that, I think, could interest you. (It's also a very good show)
TL;DR: you're gonna want to tone down the humanoid/cartoon faces, add more detail & shading, and setting a baseline for traits/motifs per category of kaiju could also help in concepting. Ideally, if I had to describe the floor for "cute" in kaiju, it's a lot less Cartoon and a lot more Bulldog (like, just look at Baragon). You have to take a lot more care than someone designing a kaiju suit unfortunately, as normal prop & puppetmaking already gets them in this ballpark; the dynamics of light IRL let them cheat a bit. You bring it up at the end somewhat, but immediate first thing I'm noticing with the "cartoony" vibe is that you seemed to gravitate to drawing simple eyes or focusing on face/face-like details in this batch of sketches. Inevitably, humanizing traits in a simplistic style is going to read as "cartoon." Some things might need to be brought into higher detail to hit a level of uncaring or uncanny feeling (the shelled frog/toad creature hits the nail on the head & the fire toad is an inhuman eye, that's good), other things might not need eyes at all, or eyes in a solid shade. Adding detail elsewhere could also pull attention away from the face. You can also heavily emphasize lore & character design in this process by changing your starting point. Instead of making mockup kaiju wholesale, try to find a palette of various traits you'd want per kaiju type ahead of time. This could be heavily lore-driven without getting into the weeds, because it applies to the whole type & their identity. These won't be rules, but a baseline to either follow or deviate from. This could reign in the concepts tremendously & also fit better within your preexisting skill set. Unifying style for the whole Thing can come later, in my opinion; you won't find it unless you explore all avenues. Great example: the bird faced one looks too much like a muppet almost, sure, but the bird face as a mask could look horrifying or simply unsettling in another context. It was worth exploring & can be adapted to fit elsewhere.
In my opinion if you want to maintain a cartoon style like it seems, you would have to choose between the lineart and composition being cartoonish with the anatomy and detail being more 'serious', or viceversa, an cartoonish design with detailed lineart. If both character design and the piece composition are cartoonish it will feel PG7
I really like your Kaiju as they are but you're not happy and the rest of this comment addresses the things I think would help you achieve what I interpret to be your vision from what I'm hearing you say in your video. I don't think you can draw your way out of not having lore or proper world building. Sit down and concretise the lore. If you're a graphic designer not an illustrator that's fine. Approach this as a graphic design project. It seems as if you need to stop and write yourself a brief. In this video you sound like a client who knows what they want, can't articulate it but will know it when they see it. Every designer's worst nightmare. As for your Kaiju, a lot of the later ones seem like they wouldn't be out of place in One Punch Man. They're comical and endearing. I love One Punch Man but that doesn't seem like the vibe you're going for. I think it's all in their eyes and human features. What would those characters look like with no eyes, more eyes, mouths for eyes or insect eyes. They're also very pristine like they've never been involved in a fight and didn't evolve for fighting, they need scars, blood/goo, claws etc. The boar head is great the body not so much as you identified. You need to use more references when you're drawing. For example your octopus has no feature on his tentacles or texture on his skin. His eyes have round pupils. A real octopus is much creepier, its eyes look like glowing slits. One last thing I would say is stop erasing. Don't draw in pencil in your sketchbooks. Do ink drawings and instead of deleting your first few digital designs iterate and draw a whole page of the same character.
Really great points and very useful. Thanks you. You're so right about the ‘client’ thing. That is exactly how I feel! And you're right about how to address that too. I need to sit down and think. Thanks for the comment. Really useful!
The perspective drawing in the beginning is amazing. The frog is my favorite one so far.
If you want to have some character ideas a lot of the time I find out that giving animals
Mythological / historical / religious clothes/accessories sometimes makes them look more divine.
I made one drawing using ink and a dip pen and drew a rabbit wearing a Chinese robe with religious signs.
I was then told that the drawing won the “ most immersive “ award with 7800 votes.
Just a thought no worries 🙏
Edit * I also firmly believe that you can make sets of these Kaiju whilst using different mediums and experimenting
With brush sizes traditional drawings scanned and tweaked with in digital softwares like CSP and photoshop,
And finding that unique style for each kaiju will definitely make them more recognizable as a set or individual cards
Your video style is truly captivating. I am not even interested in Kaiju in general, but your videos are truly cool and interesting
Wow, thank you! Happy to hear that.
You are correct about the angle. A view from low really gives a sense of size, like you look at it from below giving a great weight to the creatures.
Also i think its ok to take inspiration from animals as long as you give them features that sets them apart.
For example that crab. If its a sleeping giant and stays on a position for years it might start to have overgrowth, the top shell can have trees or corals and look like a mountain depending on the type it is.
something small that I think might help with some of the designs would be removing or obscuring the pupils. it could give them more of a distant, unreadable feeling, make them a bit more unsettling by making it hard to tell where they're looking. I think it could also help capture that trailcam type feeling, like the image was taken from an old news broadcast or they were photographed by accident by someone looking for something else. another thing I think could help would be obscuring more details of the kaiju's form and letting the viewer's imagination fill those things in, but that comes with the risk of making the cards hard to read. the other thing is, I recommend looking into japanese tokusatsu films from the 60s, a lot of the monster designs there are very colorful or goofy but they often still manage to cut an imposing figure.
So I love the Boar Kaiju illustration because of the scale the single hut with the snowy hill gives it.
I think having this single object that you can easily understand the scale of in the foreground helps me to immediately understand how massive this boar guy really is.
Plus him casting his shadow over it looks so imposing.
A skyscraper is big but exactly how big is impossible to understand in the other illustrations. A single floor building I know the size of instantly
Interesting point. Makes sense. Scale is something I really want to draw attention to so that’s good to know.
Your videos are so underrated! Keep it up.
Thanks, will do!
I love all the art shown in this! I definitely think that if you are making 100+ cards, you want to pick an art style that you can make rather quickly. Those 1 hour mock ups might be the way in that case, because that would be around 100 hours of just illustrations.
A subtle thing to increase the gravity of your Kaiju could be adjusting the perspective to always be below any Kaiju depicted. If you (the viewer perspective) are looking at them from below it will give them a sense of immense scale. Also if they don't fit in the entire frame of the card, like they are so large you can't take a picture of all of them at once. Evangelion usually cuts between wide shots that show them devastating a city, and close shots where you can't make out the whole figure, often from within a cockpit.
Variety in origin means freedom but uniformity.
Kaiju spawned from radiation having a similar motif vs space monsters vs magical kaiju.
Having more mundane kaiju can help make other monsters more strange because it helps ground them but still keep them mysterious
I like the squid idea, I’d Iove to see it floating over a city like a large dirigible using its tentacles to hold on to the ground while picking up people and eating them with its bizarre human mouth. Such a great project can’t wait to see it develop.
I like it! Thanks!
Hey, just wanted to say I loved the video. Seeing your process is really inspiring. Out of your top three kaiju, I find your gentle giant turtle monster to be the best. The style of it gives me a studio ghibli vibe. It's sad solemn demeanor gives it alot of character. Maybe even lore ideas. Anyway, I can't what for the next video. Keep up the good work.❤
I think if you did something with those little thumbnails for the guys on a part of the card just to show what they look like in full and then having the main art of the card be like a scene of that monster with things around it for scale would be a good idea
I think a good reference for what you're going for would be Gamera's villain kaiju. They were designed with being able to appeal to children in mind but still had a sense of edge to them. Most of them took cues from animals but still were very bizarre and out there. Guiron looked vaguely reptilian but had a massive knife for a head. It was a little cartoony, but it still managed to seem threatening.
Also, I like the boar yeti. Even if you don't I do.
I got so confused 😂 21:13
I zoned out for a sec and saw Boar thing. Was totaly into it (crisp shadows, easy to read). Then started to hear you ranting about it. 😅
RIP Boargoth 🐗
Ik I love him
I really liked the combination of your line-art and pixel hieroglyphs (like on the first video's thumbnail). It looks unic and adds some feeling of uncertainty, like scientists do not know enough about those creatures and those somewhat corrupt images are reflection of this.
YESSSS
a lot of kaiju are inspired by disasters so perhaps it could help by picking an interesting disasters/phenomena/events and designing a creature around that. like the slug kaiju could represent floods/tsunamis, an unstoppable force that will sweep away everything you've ever known, or that abominable snowman could be an avalanche, heard for miles around and will destroy you without even thinking about it as it just walks by. the umbrella crab made me think of some sort of recurring disaster like generational trauma. the robo rhino could be a captured kaiju that humans are trying to use as its personal defender with various implants trying to control it or make it even deadlier.
kaijus also seem more terrifying or intimidating when their size is emphasized and seen from a human lens, from the street view or a news reporter's camera or military night vision from miles away with only the vague impression of *it* barely visible in the dark.
Thank you! Really cool insights! Thanks for commenting!
Maybe try to get more human perspectives of the kaijus? The 3 that work are more viewed from the bottom, but having some seen from higher up could work if we get maybe a view from a helicopter or stuff like that in front.
Also the 3 have some nice contrast and motion in common! I really like the fungus and weird turtle, they have an almost "japanese"/silly yokai vibe!
For what it's worth (and I'm no artist) I think a lot of the designs shown in this video look great.
8:44 I like the mix of avian and mammalian features on the bird-bear, and it looks kinda creepy and soulless
11:07 I agree w/ you abt the Shrumo
14:36 No notes for Turtle man 👍
16:59 The inspiration is so cool, the design is really evokative and stands out compared to the others (kinda amorphous) and I can imagine it having a unique feature in the game.
18:26 Fire toad is sick. Love the burns(?) on one side of its body and thanks for getting rid of the frog nipples haha
21:42 I have a softspot in my heart for monsters shaped like this, but this would genuinely be one of my fav cards of I was collecting them. I think I like how powerful it looks!
I just wanted you to know that there's at least one fan of even these designs!
Thank you for the notes! Great info. Sorry about the frog nipples! I don’t know why, but I seem to gravitate toward adding excessive nipples to my Kaiju…. I’m sure there must be some Freudian, psychological issue deep down there! Ha ha!
@@Jimmmm-u7w Yeah keep up the great work :D
This is one my fav projects I'm following and I'm always excited to see new Kaiju designs
In terms of trying to apply lore to the Kaiju, one of the things that struck me about your lore introduction video was it was based in the real world. I think something as simple as knowing where geographically these creatures are from, which ones interact, how any human survivors in the area would understand the kaiju, Godzilla to me is so intricately linked to Japan and Tokyo, maybe applying that same feeling to your kaiju will make them feel more grounded and lore connected
Very good point!
maybe use more reference images, chosen as much off of vibes as anything? I've always had the most success when I've had multiple reference images per design. Even with wierd eldrich monstrosities. Love your stuff man
also, maybe include more of the established vibe, the rebuilding post-apocalypse world, the retro vibes, the fungi, the awakened ancient beings?
I understand where you come from when you say that you don't like the cartoon style, especially for the vibe you are going for. There's a lot of interesting reflections and depth about the world, and simplifying the style affects that. What I think is something you can reflect is how these kaiju are perceived. Most of the kaiju would be really scary to deal with (in the human perspective), but maybe some can be important for a certain region, almost like a mutualism/symbiotic of sorts. Thinking about these archetypes can be inspiring, not only for the worldbuilding but to the design of these monsters. While the cartoon style functions well to show expression maybe they can be mysterious and eerie. Emotion and facial expressions are something more perceivable as human, so doing the opposite could generate some interesting results! From what we know until now, they are just mysterious creatures that appeared.
Of course these are simply suggestions, and I feel like this is maybe too extreme haha. I hope this serves as a bit of inspiration! I'm loving to see the work you've been creating! (sorry for my english, not my first language)
No, you’re totally right. Perhaps a lot of these are too ‘human’ - I’m def going to try some more ‘out there’ approaches.
1:56
Are we just not mentioning that Bigass Frog’s (possibly mauve) third toe?
Tell me this was unintentional! 😂
Foreshadowing! I drew that like a year ago!!
@ well the episode was great. I have to ask, do you work from a script?
@@crumpetsounds usually. I loosely write some stuff down. Less so in this episode because I just commented on the images as I looked at them. But yeah, usually I’ll write a rough script. Otherwise my rambling would be much worse!!
@ explains why it sounds so casual but stays on topic. I suck without a solid script, it’s an enviable skill you’ve got there!
This video is relatable levels of brainstorming and self-doubt as someone who likes designing characters. Sometimes it's about giving a design time though. While you're making it it's the worst thing ever, but sometimes avoiding it for a couple of days and looking back at it it's fine.
I think if you're having trouble figuring out the overall commonality you want the kaiju to have, it may be helpful to make a list of concepts, imagery, and stories you want to tell, as well as making a PureRef image board full of reference and inspiration images.
The downside to this is that it may restrict your creativity though...
21:49 I don't know if you've already made up your mind but please don't give up on the boar guy! I love him! There's something about the huge mass of hair that's kinda inscrutable. Like the type of creature you'd see in a snow storm and you don't even know what you saw.
7:33 regarding the yokai/skull collector, to me he looks a bit like a tick, so maybe making it more insect-like could make it read more as kaiju? Plus I think tick + blood-sucker + skulls + drains the life forces out of victims could be a solid theme.
Either way, big fan of your rendering style and I hope you keep up the amazing work!
It’s really surprised me how popular the boar guy has been!! I guess I’ll have to keep him! 😅 I’ll probably rework him a bit though and maybe flesh out his Lore.
Honestly, great work Jim! You might be inspiring me to get back into sketching. From an outside perspective, it looks like you are leaning to more of a yokai design for these kaiju. The turtle, shroom, masked bird and suminagashin creatures all feel like something out of an old yokai sketchbook. Maybe thats the direction you should consider for your lore. It would also keep the design open for more abstract kaiju allowing you to be more playful. Thank you for showing the process!
You should! I was in the same boat a year or so ago. I hadn’t drawn for fun in years. Now I wish I’d done it sooner. No time like the present! And on the whole Yokai thing, I think you could be right! I love Yokai-type imagery… could be an angle! Thanks for the comment.
I tbink thr natural answer to offsetting the innate humor in Kaiju is cosmic horror. I would welcome more NGE influence (or stuff of that nature)
Ooh. Nice. Yes. Love NGE and you’re totally right about cosmic horror. Great comment. Thank you!
Man I feel the style comments to my core. I’ll see something and think “damn,that’s so cool. I wonder if I can do something like that” and flip around so much.
Shrumo, Toad, and Turtle all have a vaguely Japanese air about them, even the void one has the same effect, that could be why they all look so good together.
I really love the mushroom guy but I think if you want it to be less cartoony I would change the mouth. To be honest I’m not sure how you should change it, but it looks like the kind of mouth that would be in adventure time at the moment
But man the black and white art looks so cool!! I love so many of the designs you made and the way some of them crush the buildings below them is sick
Yes I pinpointed the eyes but could be the whole face! I’ll try some stuff out. Thanks for commenting.
The one at 16:50 is by far my favorite!
I love the boar guy dude I really think you should try another attempt with him, he looks very good
I feel like your struggles are so relatable haha. Just an idea if you're struggling to turn away from the cartoony style or you like it but don't find it gritty enough. Maybe in your world, there's a card game produced for kids, based on the real kaiju in the world. If you make the cards artefacts of the world themselves, you can kind of imply a lot of that grittier, horror context without having to draw the scariest pictures.
Oooh. Very cool idea. That’s def worth keeping in my back pocket. I could totally see that working.
@@Jimmmm-u7w although, gritty drawings are cool :P
You say you hate most of your designs, but I love how they are rendered.
I think the first Kaiju your son drew does a good job conveying the idea. Rather than focusing on a specific style and tone, some digital card games have a range of style that all follow main guidelines(E.g Legends of Runeterra, Hearthstone). Those games have all sorts of characters, goofy, serious, enticing, bleak, energetic, reserved... And i think that could happen in your project, if that fits your vision of it. To have a Kaiju that looks wompy like a wet cat, and another that looks menacing with more over-designed details such as scale textures, fur, etc. One thing i noticed is that your kaiju are very expressive, and that sometimes can come off as cartoonish, or humane. If you want to change that, i suggest you look at images of animal eye physiology, horror manga and some old american horror comics. Having said all of that, i really like the project. Keep it up and look at undesireable results in an objective manner!
For a bunch of the designs i felt like the eyes looked too human (same goes for how they were positioned on the) it made them look rather goofy. To make them look more monster-like, playing around with the eye type (hollow black, no eyes, pins, giant stalks, just light beams, a visor, etc...) and how many they have and how they're positioned (vertical above each other, on the chest, in a cross pattern, floating, just not there, etc...) would probably do wonders for the vibe they give off.
Good luck with playing around with the designs. Have a great day.
I think the humanoid part might be partially intentional to allude to a sort of kaiju aesthetic, since what birthed Kaijus were people inside big suits, therefore the genre has a sort of humanoid design built in to an extent
You hit the nail right on the head. If you cant figure out the style or the kaiju dont feel unified enough, then yea. Go back and do some quick back story stuff on the kaijus themselves. And the cool thing is once you start and have a foundation, then it'll all build on itself. For example, lets say the first few kaiju came from space, ok now those kaiju will look alien. Ok, why did they come to earth, well lets say they came to harvest materials and geoform the earth. Great, now you can design giant aliens that can capture materials and break things up. Great, next, let's say the spirit kaiju come from the emotions/legends that humans have. Ok, how did that come to happen? Why now? Well, now if we're stuck, we can go back to the first group. When the aliens came they brought k-cells with them. These cells help geoform the atmosphere for the kaiju but the side effect is that it has a small effect on humans giving them a certain amount of psychic abilities. And by themselves it does nothing but as a mass of people it can bring form to ideas thus the creation of kaiju that look like yokai and other folk lore mixed with kaiju. And you can just go from there. Mind you these are off the top of the head, but still, form that first part, that beginning idea, and you'll be fine. You already have the lore of the gane with the scientist so maybe you can work backwards from there. Also, what can help is talking to friends about it. If they are creative or interested in the topic then you guys can get lost in the lore and worldbuilding and youll have plenty of material to work with. If you dont have friends or just dont have friends that care or cant help, find groups of people on redidit or something talking about kaiju. Or read some fan stories of kaiju related material or topics like it and use that to build off of. And if you dont want to do that and still need help then call me on discord and bounce ideas off my head and we'll build it together😂. You got it bro cant wait for the next vid!
Shrumo feels like a possible mascot for your game, they combine the two aspects of your world, giant kaijus, and fungi
I think that post-rationalization is perfectly ok! Thats how a masterpiece like Berserk was made, not to mention that these are still early renditions! I also believe that artists should take MORE cues from nature-humans evolved from nature and easily associate feelings, infer lore, and glimpse the kaijus lifestyle from their biology. This doesnt mean they have to look like a specific animal. for example, the turtle kaiju has pretty thin legs and well defined calves which would indicate agility, but you could make it more bottom heavy like zorah magdoros to convey its slow temperament and indifference-more like a mountain or natural disaster! maybe even give it extra legs to convey weight and to alienate it from the natural order
on another note, i love the style! easy to comprehend and really juxtaposes the horrific and unknowable natures of these kaiju. i personally think that the detailed form and sharp designs are enough to convey adult appeal. i simply cannot see disney or pokemon designing something like your crab
this is all just my opinion! someone else may disagree but ill gladly discuss it
I like the style that you’re using right now, but if you want it to look more grown up I think all it needs is more details
I love the mushroom mans eyes
I think that looking at the magic the gathering art is a good kind of comparison to have. Mtg design is probably the best, most realistic and gutteral looking art ive seen in tcgs; and while i dont think its very plausible to match its wonderful art, looking into what makes it so great could effect the style in a positive way. It may be something with the sort of painting style coloring they have, or maybe just a great deal of detail, but i feel like that style would work really well with this tcg as well.
To your point about design influence and pulling from nature, maybe that's just your starting point especially when you're just getting started. Maybe some research on the world's weird and rare critters simply serve as a starting point and you can adapt them to the lore/design language of Kaiju Origins. I really love what someone else commented, "the natural answer to offsetting the innate humor in kaiju is cosmic horror". Maybe some of the grittiness and abstraction of cosmic horror is what you're looking for?
Doing a deep brainstorming session of words/phrases/ideas you associate with your lore and world may also help you develop the design influence for each type of kaiju. Like brainstorm ideas until you just can't think of anything, then... start again with all the first thoughts that come to mind even when they seem silly or stupid.
Love following along as always! I get excited every time you post.
For sure. You’re right. I basically need to think about each Kaiju more and do some proper character creation. Al of theses were simply drawing and seeing what happens. You can’t make something out of nothing. I need a good, researched base to start with.
Just found your channel and I love it. I think the mycelium was a great idea. I think visually showing it growing through some circuits would look cool. Like the slime mold in a maze. Or if it took over sections of subway and became its own kaiju
Seeing your portfolio of work, i am confident that this will turn out great in the end, it just needs to go through the development paces! A suggestion with the art style; try to think of it in context of the world, perhaps these illustrations are the renditions done by the humans that have survived, with the simpler techniques and technology that they have managed to retain (hence the black and white colouring, and screen printing texture!) perhaps they aren’t literal depictions of the kaiju, but representations, affected by things such as folklore, half-remembered encounters and here say. Maybe the artists who drew these have never even seen them in person. I think that give a nice sort of logic to the art
I really like the boar guy but i think i understand your sentiment, hes more like king kong then a Kaiju
Also if you want more otherworldly looking designs i suggest looking at marine life and microscopic things, thats helped me before!
@depresso.b. lots of people have said they like the boar too! Maybe I’ll give it another try or tweak it somehow. Thanks!
I totally understand the lore context and I think it is very important for your process, and my personal favorite thing to observe. When you mentioned you wanted to make a slug kaiju, I immediately remembered your "frog, slug, snake" game you put into the determining who goes first. In my mind, I assumed you would have the lore explain it as they were the first three kaiju to emerge at the exact same time which kickstarts the era of monsters, hence why they were the ones that inspire the game for the subsequent generations of humans. Their emergence became a cultural influence. I'd definitely agree with you on leaning in the lore context for each kaiju to further flesh out not just the art, but also their individual abilities. I really like the designs that have that balance between cartoony and gritty. The slug, shroom, and the spiral spirit kaiju are perfect examples in my opinion, especially the spiral spirit. A point of advice I would like to give regarding further kaiju designs is to establish something that really shows off their size, which in my opinion is what really makes them "kaiju", giant monsters.
Thank you. Great comment. Love that thought about the slog, frog, snake. I might steal that! 😉
In terms of scale you are totally right! I want to give a real sense of scale and I’m not sure I’ve totally achieved it yet.
I think what you also need to do for your designs is give the Kaiju some personality, I know that giant monsters are meant to be mainly evil, but King Kong and Godzilla both have a distinct personality.
guys jimmmm just dropped. The vibes are immaculate
As a career designer and at-home still life artist, I find that i need a hard-set outline or rules to work within. That way i can focus artistically, and know what im reinforcing and when to break the rules.
Love the series and excited for the development
Loving these videos!
Glad you like them! More to come!
Have you seen Inscryption's card styles? I feel you could get inspired from it.
Yes! Love it. 🫶
Literally I agree with everything you said this video. Don't take this the wrong way, but yea, don't settle with designs that don't fit. LOVED THIS VIDEO, FAVORITE ONE SO FAR/ wait, I don't like the nipples 😅
Ha ha! I know! The nipple thing. I don’t know why I draw nipples on everything. I have a problem. 🫣
Yay more videos!
☺️
Extending off the "this feels like it's just this animal, but giant," sentiment, one thing that came to mind for me is that if you're struggling to find a way to make it feel unique, you could use DCC's "Monsters & Mystery" page of features and roll on 'em! Bob the Worldbuilder had made a video on it a few months ago ("Make Any Monster EXCITING in D&D, DCC, & More!" should be the video title). Effectively it's expanding on that idea of taking existing monsters and giving them a spin to make them unique and scary, but I feel like a large table (or set of tables) that you could roll on to generate ideas and inspiration to spice up a Kaiju that feels like it's lacking could be worth checking out!
Also, I personally loved the design of the eagle turned baboon turned masked creature kaiju! It might be worth checking out the Roc, since that itself is kinda a kaiju eagle. Same for the boar yeti, might not be perfect for being a kaiju, but it definitely feels like it'd fit well in a DnD game! Someone had mentioned Evangelion, and I second that. I feel like more abstract/unknowable Angels like Ramiel (the drilling, laser-shooting, mountain melting, screaming diamond) or Leliel (the 4-dimensional pocket dimension Angel that casts the spherical shadow above it) could serve as really good inspiration for more cosmic horror/alien Kaiju! Keep it up!
Really good comment, thanks! I’ll check out DDC’s “Monsters and Mystery” page! Good shout on the Evangelion Angels too. Ramiel is exactly the kind of weird I need.
💎I think you’re in the right direction with the kaiju. The art style has just enough cartoony-ness to give the designs the character they need while not being babyfied or grimdark. I suggest you double check Godzillas Heisei era in regards to its kaiju design having some level of cartoony-ness and silliness. I especially love the black hole spirit kaiju and the bone demon💎
Thank you, very useful, I’ll check out the Heisei era G stuff. 👍🏻
What if the tech Kaiju were the man made kaiju like mecha Godzilla? Idk just an idea
Ooh yeah! I could also see something like Pacific Rim's Jaegers! Like, maybe something along the lines of Cherno Alpha: large bulky nuclear/Kaiju-powered machines. Maybe some (or many) aren't even under humanity's control, like some tech entity or the Kaiju components used to make such constructions possible has become conscious and grew wills of their own.
Expanding off that, maybe there could be tech kaiju similar to the robots from the animatrix, who are self-modifying to make themselves less like humans and more bestial/insectoid.
Final idea: something like the Toothy mech from the forever winter could also serve as inspiration (albeit this one is FAR more gruesome); a self-aware artificial intelligence that persists by consuming the bodies of those who cross it by using mechanical bugs on it to consume the life-energy of whoever it can capture; putting them in bags over its shoulders to slowly drain them of energy while the mechanical bugs keep them alive as long as possible
TH-cam recommended this to me and I was very intrigued by the thumbnail. I like the way youveused hatching/screentone for the value!
I think my main criticism/feedback for you would be that the reason everything looks cartoony is the shape design - if you break down a lot of these designs into their fundamental shapes, you're using a *lot* of big inorganic rounded shapes. This tends to signify things being soft, cute,
and friendly. This can absolutely work for the less antagonisgic kaiju, but if you're aiming for a darker and grittier tone I think using sharper angles and dynamic shapes with less symmetry to them will help a ton.
You're definitely doing the right thing by iterating the way you are though - you can learn a lot by examining your own work and seeing where you can improve.
I actually kinda love the big mouth guy. It reminds me of the classic power rangers or super infra man monsters which were so obviously costumes. I kinda love the idea of a game stylized in this way.
@@matejmartinek9064 good point. ‘Proper’ Kaiju never worries too much about being too ‘wacky’.
your bashed out sketches are a good style.
@Jimmmm-u7w The artstyle design works already, i don't see a problem, what i think you wanna say is " what that the rules that i should follow to make the kaiju designs ", i mean why would you make a question about artsytle in a video about drawing the kaiju designs ?
I like sketches 1 and the 2 , 8 ,9 that look like stages of evolution
-Ancient Turtle, more balls ???
-Fake Bird , more fake features ?
-Spirit Black Hole
-Fire toad, without the nipples, and probably needs to look less like a animal, you know something more complex, more evolved
I don't know how i feel about that human mushroom..... because when you start to talk about with part human design, we feel that you are talking about us, if this is about kaijus or the relationship with kaijus, that can change the way the public looks at kaijus, like just a random yu-gi-oh monster card......
Questions :
Why did you select every 1 of the 7 kaiju origins - fire , water , nature , tech , mutant , spirit , alien.
They don't seem to have a synergy in concept that solid, you want to indentify kaijus with origins to give them the status and other things but, what would nature, spirit, alien mean in battle or abilitys ?
The origins have somethings in similar , like being antonyms - fire to water , nature to tech , and probably spirit and alien.
Does magic exist on this planet ? Because that might change a loot of things......
There is just 1 origin that feels a bit more on the magical side, spirit.
What are Kaijus they made of ?
What are the minimal and maximal limit of size ? Is there some that you can't measure ?
World war attracts the atention of kaijus from our planet and alien planets, why ? Do they fear us ?
Do we have the biomes where they can live ?
How :
- kaijus born in your world ?
- big is the planet ?
What is feature about the kaiju concept that you are going to focus more ?
- Monsters attract even stronger, bigger Monsters ?
- That humans was just one of the levels of nature and Kaijus is the next ?
- Creature designs that imitate the danger of weapons with the power to extinct humans? 1 step from extinction
About the card battle rules, the rule that is about accusing the other player that it has too much cards would not make the game toxic ?
I mean one of the players could just hide the card ......, or say show me all your cards !!! hmmmm..... which for a card game that is hmmm....................
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Ideas :
In your video - Considering Gameplay Mechanics for Kaiju Origins at 13:10 , i want to give an idea, 1 snake 2 slug 3 frog , they kinda look like 3 stages evolution .
Now i will say, they like many other games they don't need to have a why for all things. !!!!!!!! Just the enough to pass the message.
Really love this man! Big TCG and Kaiju fan. I also really enjoy drawing. How are you getting those manga halftone effects? They look great!
The umbrella crab really reminds me of the mantis shrimp alien from Dandadan
If you're having trouble with trying to find the style you want here's a tip, look for a representation of what you think is too childish or cartoony, and a representation of what you think is too graphic or adult, then try and combine the two to find a middle ground.
Don't use line when draw if you don't want it to look cartoonish
I'm sorry if my English is bad or Strange, English is not my first language.
Thank you. I understand. Thanks for commenting.
13:17, maybe the tech kaijus are made by humanity to fight back against the kaijus like in evangelion or Pacific rim, or they could be a rouge ai that made mechanical bodies to control to get revenge on the human race, this is just an idea
Awesome art! I feel you are a bit harsh on yourself some of the ones you didnt like i thought were really cool like the boar dude and bridge guy. I would drop the chameleon Or at least get rid of the shirt. I would also remove the ear and mouth of the octopus. I feel like for a few you didnt like dor being too cartoony you could give them more animalistic eyes, like all black with only a couple small white dots too make them less human, something like that. Hopefully you can feel more positive about your designs once you put them on card layouts i want to use most of these guys in a deck haha also the slug is cool big fan of slug dude
Thanks. Yeah when I watched it back I thought I might’ve been a bit harsh on myself too. I think I just need to work out how that style fits with the pixel stuff. Good point on the eyes.
@ thanks! And you got this man, everyone watching can see that whatever the final version looks like will be awesome 👏🏽
The base line work of your early designs is kinda mid (I still love them), but once you add the shading it makes them amazing, I adore it.
Albatross
hey Jimmmm, I wondered if you had ever watch the show "The tatami galaxy", it's like an anime with a very particular story telling an animation style. It's also very japanese folklore inspired, in a way that, I think, could interest you. (It's also a very good show)
I haven’t heard of it, no… just did a quick google - I’m gonna check it out asap! Looks great! Thank you!
TL;DR: you're gonna want to tone down the humanoid/cartoon faces, add more detail & shading, and setting a baseline for traits/motifs per category of kaiju could also help in concepting.
Ideally, if I had to describe the floor for "cute" in kaiju, it's a lot less Cartoon and a lot more Bulldog (like, just look at Baragon). You have to take a lot more care than someone designing a kaiju suit unfortunately, as normal prop & puppetmaking already gets them in this ballpark; the dynamics of light IRL let them cheat a bit.
You bring it up at the end somewhat, but immediate first thing I'm noticing with the "cartoony" vibe is that you seemed to gravitate to drawing simple eyes or focusing on face/face-like details in this batch of sketches. Inevitably, humanizing traits in a simplistic style is going to read as "cartoon." Some things might need to be brought into higher detail to hit a level of uncaring or uncanny feeling (the shelled frog/toad creature hits the nail on the head & the fire toad is an inhuman eye, that's good), other things might not need eyes at all, or eyes in a solid shade. Adding detail elsewhere could also pull attention away from the face.
You can also heavily emphasize lore & character design in this process by changing your starting point. Instead of making mockup kaiju wholesale, try to find a palette of various traits you'd want per kaiju type ahead of time. This could be heavily lore-driven without getting into the weeds, because it applies to the whole type & their identity. These won't be rules, but a baseline to either follow or deviate from. This could reign in the concepts tremendously & also fit better within your preexisting skill set. Unifying style for the whole Thing can come later, in my opinion; you won't find it unless you explore all avenues. Great example: the bird faced one looks too much like a muppet almost, sure, but the bird face as a mask could look horrifying or simply unsettling in another context. It was worth exploring & can be adapted to fit elsewhere.
Thank you! Good points. Eyes are def a thing to concentrate on and I like the idea of the mask on the bird type one too.
22:02 i do like yes
Thunder bird
In my opinion if you want to maintain a cartoon style like it seems, you would have to choose between the lineart and composition being cartoonish with the anatomy and detail being more 'serious', or viceversa, an cartoonish design with detailed lineart. If both character design and the piece composition are cartoonish it will feel PG7
Good point, som done else mentioned that ‘detail’ would be the way to make it less cartoony and that might be the case. Thanks for the feedback!
I really like your Kaiju as they are but you're not happy and the rest of this comment addresses the things I think would help you achieve what I interpret to be your vision from what I'm hearing you say in your video.
I don't think you can draw your way out of not having lore or proper world building. Sit down and concretise the lore. If you're a graphic designer not an illustrator that's fine. Approach this as a graphic design project. It seems as if you need to stop and write yourself a brief. In this video you sound like a client who knows what they want, can't articulate it but will know it when they see it. Every designer's worst nightmare.
As for your Kaiju, a lot of the later ones seem like they wouldn't be out of place in One Punch Man. They're comical and endearing. I love One Punch Man but that doesn't seem like the vibe you're going for. I think it's all in their eyes and human features. What would those characters look like with no eyes, more eyes, mouths for eyes or insect eyes. They're also very pristine like they've never been involved in a fight and didn't evolve for fighting, they need scars, blood/goo, claws etc.
The boar head is great the body not so much as you identified. You need to use more references when you're drawing. For example your octopus has no feature on his tentacles or texture on his skin. His eyes have round pupils. A real octopus is much creepier, its eyes look like glowing slits.
One last thing I would say is stop erasing. Don't draw in pencil in your sketchbooks. Do ink drawings and instead of deleting your first few digital designs iterate and draw a whole page of the same character.
Really great points and very useful. Thanks you. You're so right about the ‘client’ thing. That is exactly how I feel! And you're right about how to address that too. I need to sit down and think. Thanks for the comment. Really useful!