Most fans will agree, the new Godzilla looks great. But before the design team settled on what we see in the new film, Godzilla went through a few concept phases, including a lizard version, a dragon version and even a... fish version! Thanks to the folks at io9, we have a look at some of the early concept designs for the King of the Monster's epic rebirth. The scans are from Insight Editions' art book, Godzilla: The Art of Destruction which is currently on sale now! Check them out:
One of the things we ended up saying was, 'Okay, we've got Godzilla.' So what would the fish Godzilla look like? Okay, now we're going to have the reptile Godzilla. Now we're going to have the dragon Godzilla. Just to push Godzilla into places that you wouldn't naturally go. You might get nothing from it, but [from this process] the gills might come. You might say, oh, he's got gills. He's underwater and he's got no lungs — how else does he breathe? It might make fans turn in their graves to know that we did this, but if just one thing comes from it, it's well worth it.
Concept artist Eddie Del Rio also shared some his own Godzilla art exclusively with io9:
Beyond this point, some of the scans below may contain spoilers.
The following images are interesting as they suggest at some point in the drafting phase, Godzilla was discovered frozen in ice:
There's a couple scans we didn't post still, so be sure to check them all out over at io9!
What do you think of Godzilla's concept versions? Let us know in the comments section!
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