Upcoming Cosplay: Godzilla’s Houtua
Mayhem’s Muse has been invited to attend G-Fest as a guest in tandem with artist and friend Matt Frank. What’s better for such an auspicious occasion than constructing an epic new cosplay?!
2018 Was a year full of Kaiju. One of my dearest friends, Matt Frank, AKA “Kaiju Samurai”, is OBSESSED with them. Rightfully so, he’s a world-class artist who makes his living creating gorgeous depictions of a myriad of characters from Japanese folklore and fandom. Though our work schedules are insane, we meet up every couple months for shitty waffles and my continuing “Kaijucation”: we watch classic Monster flicks and Matt illuminates me as to their history and cultural backgrounds. It’s fantastic, and I am quite thoroughly hooked.
The Kaiju-cation of Mayhem
As anybody in the Kaiju fandom could tell you, last year Netflix came out with a gorgeous new animated Godzilla series. Three feature length projects, all gorgeously executed, that place a new and unique light on the traditional Godzilla themes. Matt invited me over to watch each of them, and asked me to guest star on his Podcast, “Giganticast.” I LOVED this series. GO WATCH IT IMMEDIATELY. My favorite aspect of the series manifested in the second part, where the native culture of the Houtua was introduced. Being the traditional archery nutcase that I am, I lost my mind watching the gorgeous and meticulously researched archery scenes.
The Giganticast Crew: Matt and Morgan, Mayhem’s Muse, and Quinn
Archery and Godzilla
The creative team behind this project spent a LOT of time researching traditional archery. While most film projects are laughably inaccurate when it comes to archery, (everything from modern bows wrapped in fabric to hide their features, to cultures that would have used traditional thumb draw for THOUSANDS of years instead using a Mediterranean draw, which originated in a completely different part of the world)… Planet of the Monsters is an EXCELLENT depiction of the type of archery that would have originated in that region. It was a pure joy to watch, and is incredibly inspiring to both my archery, and cosplay brains.
The Houtua, Maina and Miana, with their bows
The Art of Godzilla’s Houtua
This season, Matt has been invited again as a Guest Artist for G-Fest, an amazing Godzilla-centric Convention. He has asked me to attend the Con with him, and NATURALLY this is a perfect excuse to create an epic depiction of my favorite future Earth warriors. Unbeknownst to me, Matt commissioned a gorgeous piece of art from Toho artist Nishikawa-San when he was in Japan last. There’s video of me losing my mind, here:
Me, moments after receiving this gorgeous artistic rendering from Matt
The Cosplay
G-Fest is coming up in July, so I have my work cut out for me to get a decent cosplay ready in time. I’m incredibly excited about the project, and have plans to not only put the costume together, but also to try and convince the Con to let me do an archery demo as well! Stay tuned next week for more background on the character, concept, and my ideas for the build!
~Join us next week for more Cosplay! Coverage~
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