So I resisted doing Godzilla vs. The Asuka Fortress mostly due to very little info on the concept. “Godzilla fights a robot built by the JSDF”. Pretty easy to convey I suppose, but then I thought about the year it was to be conceived: 1979.

That’s a time period where the Super Robot craze in Japan was evolving from Gaiking to Gundam; a realism was being adhered to the idea of operating a massive fighting machine. But the robots still appeared noble and so I started to develop the idea that the Asuka Fortress would have been the JDF’s mobile defense base that could transform…or at least separate and re-combine…into the Asuka robot.

The robot would still have to be a man-in-suit, so it’s proportions would have to still be heroic, and not overly stocky, so it would be early sentai in appearance. I tried to use some of Hurricane Ryu’s design cues, as I like going off of his concepts. I feel like I need to do a complimentary piece, focusing on it’s battleship fortress mode…but we’ll see.

Godzilla would present a bigger challenge. What aesthetic would I adhere to closer? The 1975 design or the 1984 one? I realized that I needed something very middle of the road, that would convey Toho’s newest Godzilla feature in 4 years, with presumably better suit technology. Just not up to 84’ standards. So I made a baggier suit with longer teeth and that famous upturned stare that the ’84 would have. The suit needed to look like it was meant for the pool, so it’s weight was waterlogged. I’m not sure I achieved what I was hoping to, as he just looks like a generic Godzilla drawing to me.

Hope you all dig this!