Artwork
From Early Concept to Finished Draft
(by Matt Frank)

Background
I knew, first and foremost, that I wanted an epic-looking poster. Something with a lot of kaiju on it, but also unique, not just the same "Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, etc." that everyone's seen before. Knowing it was a videogame retrospective, I decided on a concept: Godzilla, flanked by enemies that were heavily associated with the various games in the series (and iconic characters at that).

I chose Bagan (from Super Godzilla), Balkzardan (from Godzilla Trading Battle) and Krystalak (from Godzilla: Unleashed). Initially, Ghidorah was planned, but in the end I went with SMG-II from Godzilla Generations: Maximum Impact to make it more cohesive with the "game kaiju only" theme, and to add some variety with a mecha. Finally, I settled on the Godzilla 2000 design, since it is the flagship Goji from the Atari/Pipeworks games and would help tie the whole videogame theme together. I took the Pipeworks connection a step further by using a background similar to the one from the G: Unleashed box art, but created it from scratch using multiple layers to create a cleaner look.

I'm very pleased with the final product, and very glad that so many people are enjoying it! Perhaps all of these kaiju will meet in the next Godzilla game!

-Matt

Sketch 1

Sketch 2

Sketch 3

Final (Click for Larger Image)