As those of you who follow me on Tumblr may have noticed by now, I am no longer reblogging or posting anything there. This is because, for a number of personal reasons, I am not using Tumblr anymore for any purpose whatsoever - all my blogs and sideblogs are dead accounts and have been for years now. I apologize to those of you who became familiar with me because of Tumblr, but it’s a decision I’ve subconsciously made for a long time and only now decided to officially announce. This also has nothing to do with anyone on Tumblr if you were wondering - while I’ve seen a fair share of online drama on this site, it has not affected me enough on a personal level to be a reason for leaving. Rest assured, however, that if you still want to see my previous reblogs, I won’t be deleting any of my blogs. I just won’t be posting on them anymore (at least not on a regular basis).
With that, thanks for the memories, Tumblr. There may have been ups and downs while being here, but I don’t regret the time I spent on this site and the friendships I started through it. It’s just that I think it’s time for me to move on with my life and look towards my future. I hope someday I can start anew here, but… sadly, I doubt that will happen anytime soon.
If any of you who followed me here prior to my departure still want to reach out to me, I’m much more active elsewhere, thankfully, and always open to polite conversation via PM on the sites and apps I’m active on. So check out the links below if you want to see me still flopping around the Internet after all these years!
A.T.O.M. CREATE A KAIJU CONTEST 3-D!!! ENTRY: LILACORN
Aliases: Last of the Unicorns, Prancing Pony Princess, [various profanities in a Scottish accent]
Date (Re-)Discovered: June 21, 1962
Place of Origin: Scotland
Notable Stomping Grounds: Scottish Highlands, Echidna Island
Height: 80 feet at the withers
Length: 100 feet (excluding tail and horn)
Biology: First discovered in a lilac-forested, Yamaneon-rich Earth hollow beneath the Scottish highlands, Lilacorn is an elegant but bizarre herbivore whose horse-like appearance is only coincidental - many aspects of her anatomy from her three-toed hooves to her rhino-like dermal armor and from her stout tusks to her far more imposing cranial horns set her apart from most conventional equines. The general consensus is that she is most closely related to the much larger, bulkier mammal kaiju, Mastemuth, though her daintier appearance allows her to move at even greater speeds with enough open ground. More unusual still is that the concentration of Yamaneon within her tissues is higher than has been recorded in most other kaiju. This enables her to emit "pulses" of Yamaneon energy - producing an oddly pink glow in her mane, tail, eyes, and horn instead of green as in the normal substance - which can accelerate healing and growth in most other life forms and even neutralize a variety of posions, infectious bacteria, and other biological weapons.
Lilacorn cares little for this strange ability of hers, however, primarily relying on her trampling hooves and especially her enormous, incredibly strong, and lethally sharp central cranial horn, which is comprised of an unknown substance harder than any on record and capable of piercing through even reinforced Xeno-Titanium. Able to outpace most other kaiju before skewering them on that single terrifying horn, the lavender-colored pachyderm needs little more than the standard kaiju power set:
Super strength
An enhanced healing factor
Immunity to radiation
Healing Aura
Bio and Personality: The first appearance of Lilacorn occurred during the short-lived Beyonder invasion, wherein she charged in seemingly out of nowhere, viciously attacked the invading forces in Inverness, and mysteriously vanished after the few surviving Beyonders fled, not giving anyone a chance to study her. Her "official" discovery wouldn't come until years later, shortly after a group of stranded hikers stumbled upon her hidden home, and then herself shortly after. Their celebration upon discovering a real, live "unicorn" - albeit much bigger than expected - turned into a panicked rout when she took their cheering for a threat display and pursued them out of the hollow, and then discovered what had become of the surface world she had once loved. Several brutal town-flattenings followed, followed by an attempt to seal her hollow off by caving in the entrance, only for her to emerge at the last moment and end up being shut out of her original home. Grief-stricken and enraged, she promptly and violently laid waste to the very same city she'd previously "rescued" before being finally detained after simply passing out from sheer exhaustion. The kaiju was swiftly deported to Echidna Island, where she has been regularly harassing the other residents ever since.
Lilacorn's majestic appearance is deceptive - as gentle as she may seem from a distance, she is in fact one of the most bloodthirsty kaiju on the planet. No one can get close to her without being viciously attacked, and she will charge at anything alive that her acute senses detect, either to chase it off, trample it into the dirt, or simply gore it outright. A comparison can once again be made to Mastemuth in that she is similarly compelled to lord over other creatures, but because she lacks the size advantage of her distant cousin, it is her attitude that has to make up the difference, and she delivers it in plenty. Once riled into a frenzy, it's all but impossible to get her to stop, and so she will continuously rampage for hours on end even long after what originally provoked her no longer presents a threat. Between her natural resilience and most other creatures not wanting to end up on the business end of a horn that can pierce almost anything, the majority of her rampages end when she finally runs out of stamina and simply keels over in a tired faint - and if she's nursing a grudge against someone, she will simply track them down and continue her pursuit of them once she gets back up. Furthermore, the kaiju is far more intelligent than her savagery would suggest, and she is always keen on letting everyone know that fact. She will purposely sabotage capture equipment, turn environmental hazards against the opposition, and toy with opponents until they're provoked into revealing a vulnerability which she can exploit with a single stab of her horn. Her distinctive "roar", a raucous cackling mix of a rather donkey-like bray and a deep bellow, is often uttered when she's successfully humiliated or impaled an adversary, and as it's always accompanied by an almost smug expression, it is thought to be equivalent to laughter - a cruel, malevolent laugh befitting an equally cruel, malevolent bully.
It has been suggested that Lilacorn's provocative behavior has a biological explanation, being derived from her species of origin presumably being territorial. Some other quirks of her behavior are a bit harder to explain, however. In particular, despite often trying to make kebabs of even fully-grown kaiju much weaker than her, she seems to shy away from the prospect of maiming creatures that were absolutely helpless when she found them, whether they're too young to put up a fight or have already been injured by something else. If she sees another monster picking on a vulnerable target or even attacking them while they're already down, she will always go for the attacker, especially if it was a child on the losing end - and if she senses that the creature she saved was injured, she will heal their wounds as well. That is as far as her empathy will go, however - once the deed is done, she will abandon her rescuee without a second thought. Lilacorn has nonetheless unwittingly "saved" baby kaiju enough times that they tend to regard her with gratitude and will try to follow her in a bid to repay her supposed kindness. While she wants nothing more to do with them most of the time, she seemingly can't bring herself to hurt them and will simply leave when they approach, though she will reluctantly make an exception towards younglings who are persistent enough and will let them remain in her vicinity... even if she still absolutely refuses to let anyone get close enough to touch her.
The most likely reason for Lilacorn's refusal to hurt children, ironically, is arguably the very same impetus for her hatred of almost all other creatures. Observers have sometimes reported the beast standing largely motionless on the coastlines of her new home, staring off at nothing in particular and occasionally emitting unearthly calls that sound almost mournful. It's likely that even after all these eons, she still retains a herding instinct of some sort, and in fact may have once been the lead female of a herd of her kind prior to undergoing atomic fossilization, so it wouldn't be surprising if she desired to be reunited with the herd she lost long ago. Unfortunately, since her kind is now completely extinct with the exception of herself, Lilacorn no longer has others like her for company. Her grief and anger over this may have thus transformed over the years into the nasty, spiteful demeanor she has today, believing that if she suffers from her loneliness, then everyone else should suffer, too. Whether she recognizes how flawed her logic is or if she's simply using the stress of her being the last of her kind as an excuse to justify her savagery isn't clear, but that doesn't change the fact that her needlessly brutal conduct towards potential herd-mates who turn out to be too "different" cannot be condoned by most other kaiju, who will often attempt to stop her proactively before she hurts someone she shouldn't have.
For all her ferocity, though, it isn't impossible that Lilacorn secretly wants companionship once again - it's just that her own personal faults are what end up discouraging it more often than not, and if she is aware of this fact, she chooses to purposely ignore it, having long since dismissed the possibility of befriending others as nonexistent for this reason. Nonetheless, the younger kaiju who know her seem to believe that she might be capable of genuine goodness more than she herself thinks, and that there is a non-zero chance of her mellowing out and becoming the leader of a new herd on Echidna Island. All she needs to do is open up her heart a little.
**********
In celebration of the release of the second volume of his fantastic e-novel series The Atomic Time of Monsters, @TyrantisTerror is hosting a third create-a-kaiju contest! I linked it at the start of this artist's description, so go check out the rules post if you want to join! As for this entry, well... It's #kaijune, right? And I've also wanted to contribute to #junicorn, right? Weeeeeeeell, what if I drew... a unicorn kaiju? Yessssss, it's genius I say, absolute genius! Mwahaha! >:3
So basically, in the notes for the last create-a-kaiju contest entry I made, I said that my original entry was going to be a giant unicorn with rhino- and knight-like traits, which I rejected due to being too similar to Mastemuth, who is a member of the related "behemoth" clade which are basically very big weird thick-skinned prehistoric mammals... which was what that idea was too, actually. This time around, though, I decided to revisit the concept while leaning into precisely that similarity. I didn't have any other ideas that resonated with me quite as well, and experimenting with a similar overall concept behind one of the "canon" designs, but taken in a completely different direction, was something I think a few other entries for the previous create-a-kaiju contests also did, so trying something similar with a less represented clade and design turned out to be worth exploring after all. So that's exactly what I did here, though I did try to distinguish Lilacorn from Mastemuth to the best of my ability. Whether or not I succeeded of course is up for debate. ^^;
Compared to the previous entries I've made for these create-a-kaiju contests, I actually had a good idea of how Lilacorn would look from the get-go and managed to get the lineart done without too much trouble and almost no post-production revisions at all! It's pretty funny to me because I actually did try to come up with a unicorn kaiju years ago only to scrap it because it looked too similar to someone from a certain popular new-tens cartoon, and instead came up with a design inspired by giraffes and deer rather than horses. For this design, though, I decided to start with Pliny's account of the unicorn as having a deer's head, horse's body, elephant's feet, and boar's tail, and then build from there until I had something more prehistoric-looking to better fit A.T.O.M.'s 50's sci-fi aesthetic - though I did also give her a short trunk to distinguish her face from Mastemuth's, like older depictions of Macrauchenia as well as saiga antelope and tapirs. Other contributing influences include indricotheres, Elasmotherium, wildebeest, a bit of bison, medieval unicorn tapestries, Amalthea from The Last Unicorn, the Galarian Ponyta line, a touch of Shadowfax, and of course a wee smidge of the aforementioned popular new-tens cartoon. I did have to revise the color scheme somewhat because originally she had a rainbow-colored mane a la Starlite from Rainbow Brite but I figured that'd be too ridiculous and implausible, so I ended up giving her a palette more akin to a lightened, desaturated reference to Twilight Sparkle (sans cutie mark of course lol) while also homaging how Amalthea is introduced in her novel of origin living in a "lilac forest", which is incidentally the source of both her name and the, well, lilac forest she was found in. (The date of her discovery, btw, alludes to when the author of The Last Unicorn novel, Peter S. Beagle, was inspired to write it.)
As for her personality... yep, she's basically a "bad girl" archetype =P. I was thinking of Harley Quinn's depiction in the Birds of Prey movie specifically with respect to that but her character can be taken as a nod to any example of the trope. I'm not sure if a brutal badass female thug who starts off as a villain but has a hidden heart of gold has been represented yet as a kaiju personality in A.T.O.M. proper (though one could argue that Tyranta fits that mold, she was never an antagonist to begin with), but the old accounts of unicorns as being such wild, violent creatures coupled with how they were only pacified by virgins (albeit with accounts of that varying from allegorical to downright skeevy) meant that it was only fitting to characterize her as a fierce, harsh-natured bully who eventually softens up and learns goodness but never loses her prideful ferocity. If I had a penny for every time I've submitted an entry for the create-a-kaiju contests for which the personality was that of a villain (at first) but with sympathetic aspects, I'd have two pennies - not a lot, but it's funny that I've done that twice now. XD
Regardless, best of luck to all entrants! And if you want to check out The Atomic Time of Monsters, both volumes are available for purchase on Amazon and Kindle (the latter of which was what I went with to save money). Go check them both out - these are truly stellar pieces of work!
The Atomic Time of Monsters and all related concepts (c) William Cope a.k.a. TyrantisTerror
[Sothis:] "This was NOT what I pictured in my head when Marth 8.0 and I first read that 'Everyone is Here' slogan."
This is perhaps the longest Stupid Smash Bros. strip I've done to date, and the one with the largest file size to boot, but in the wake of the entire Western Smash fanbase throwing an epic shitstorm over Byleth's reveal, I couldn't stop myself. This comic may sound like an author tract on my part, and to some extent it is (I try to ignore fandom activity and just enjoy the media itself for a reason), but you'd think that if the Smash fighters were aware of the series' fandom and the ugly business it gets caught up in every so often, even they would want to give everybody a collective chill pill as much as Sakurai apparently does (at least given what he's said about those on Twitter demanding specific characters, anyhow).
Welcome to the madhouse, Byleth! =P
(c) Nintendo, Altus
Be sure to also check out my DeviantArt account for more art-related stuff!
Maybe someone does appreciate Piranha Plant after all...
The original text source for this one was from a Tumblr blog that was deleted since I last saw it, but @kira-vera captured it in more or less its entirety here. Go check out her work, it’s adorable as heck!
(c) Nintendo, Altus
Be sure to also check out my DeviantArt account for more art-related stuff!
"Peach, I can't believe I'm saying this, let alone to you of all people, but when it comes to who has the right to join the roster, even I have to draw the line somewhere."
"So, does that right also go t-"
"No, Waluigi does not count."
That last panel might seem like it's not lazy, but in a way it kind of is, at least to me. I'd actually finished the pic itself previously, but with different dialogue (I can share where the original is via PM); I was gonna just leave this strip off at Panels 5 and 6, but I figured the completed picture would make a better art-shift punchline to one of these strips, so I threw it in.
Also, there's a very subtle reference to one of the Smash Bros. games in the first two panels (and no, it ain't the fact that Master Hand is literally a clipart I got from Microsoft Word lol). See if you can spot it!
(c) Nintendo
Be sure to also check out my DeviantArt account for more art-related stuff!
[Dark Pit:] "THIS IS NOT FINE! OH MY GOD EVERYTHING'S GETTING BEAMED!!"
The first in a series of silly sucky Nintendo fancomics in the vein of both Brawl in the Family and @eunnieverse‘s Dumb_RWBY. This one’s based on this famous webcomic by KC Green.
(c) Nintendo
Be sure to also check out my DeviantArt account for more art-related stuff!
A fellow monster artist of mine, @tyrantisterror, drew this lovely girl for me for just $5, a third of the usual $15 thanks to an ongoing sale - she's part of an upcoming new project of mine that I'm largely keeping under wraps for now. But I can at least provide the gist of it here: Humankind's subconscious is the source of a set of alternate dimensions a la Persona (with a smidge of @carnivorecreations' defunct ID project; I got his approval to use the general concept as a basis for the worldbuilding of this one, don't worry!). Everybody has a corresponding kaiju or monster in the mindscapes created from their deepest subconscious natures, of a variety of different types, but while people often become aware of their giant counterparts at some point in their lives, they can never really connect with them beyond dream-world interaction... or so everyone thinks. ;P
This is Guandon, the main character's kaiju equivalent, a Prehistoric-type retrosaur - an herbivorous one, since I figured that plant-eating dinosaurs/retrosaurs need more love from a monster designer standpoint, ornithopods especially. The choice behind selecting a kind of animal everyone else sees as cannon fodder in dinosaur media as a design basis rather than, say, the bigger-name stars like T. rex or Stegosaurus is because the mindscape kaiju are based not on what their creators wish to be, but what they are truly like, and in the MC's case this means being easily dismissed despite being capable in his own right. Guandon herself is a conglomerate of virtually every depiction if Iguanodon from the earliest to the most recent, with additional elements of actual iguanas (since the first depiction of Iguanodon was literally a giant iguana with a nose horn), obsolete aquatic hadrosaurs, and those iguana-Dimetrodon slurpasaurs from Journey to the Center of the Earth (1960). She's rather high-strung and easily upset, but also very caring to those she gets to know personally. Also I'm getting a slight rocker girl vibe from her now and I love it, so I might play that up when I draw her official artwork - and I gotta say, TT did a wonderful job with her as it is!
I'll start cranking out the details regarding this new project and several others after I take care of urgent IRL business, but in the meantime, feel free to stop by TT's $5 sketch sale (assuming it's still ongoing). And while I'm at it, allow me to shill his kaiju novel as well, ATOM Volume 1. His artwork, worldbuilding, and writing are absolutely amazing!
Because '05 Kong is descended from Gigantopithecus, an orangutan relative, I made his overall appearance orangutan-like, albeit with the posture of the Legendary version. The bumps on his hands are bony knuckle studs covered in hardened skin, to protect his fingers while knuckle-walking and give him a nastier punch.
I always thought Baragon was a therapsid, what with the ears and all, so I based her overall look on Moschops and cynodonts with the ears being based on this concept art. She too is female, because the GMK version was the first Toho suitimation monster to be portrayed by a woman.
More to come, I've got at least one sketched but I'm saving up for the next batch. Stay tuned!
Also here’s the next two Toho kaiju designs of mine. Is good. Have day.
Design notes:
Rodan is a Yi qi descendant rather than a pterodactyl, because although the membranous wings are clearly pterosaur-like, pterosaurs don’t have the grasping birdy-feet Rodan has in every canon incarnation up to and including KOTM. I still made her (yes, she’s a female, since there were a mated pair of Rodans in the original movie) quadrupedal though because a very large flier would need hugely muscled wings and that’d make it too front- or top-heavy to be fully bipedal. The feathers meanwhile are based off Bracey100′s Feathered Rodan, albeit arranged differently; I initially considered volcanic veins like Legendary but this worked better with her classification.
Mothra takes from the Showa and Heisei versions as well as a touch of Legendary and embellishments from swallowtails and fireflies. She's a caddisfly relative here, since Wikipedia says her mouthparts are like caddisflies and these insects have been around since the Triassic, maybe even earlier. Plus the young are aquatic, meshing well with the larval Mothra being a strong swimmer.
@tyrantisterror Revenge of the ATOM Create-A-Kaiju Contest Entry: GNOMORAN
Date Discovered: December 1, 1956
Aliases: The Beast of Emain Ablach, The Mutant Mole Monster, The Elder Gnome, Sciúirse Talún (”Scourge of Earth” in Irish)
Place of Origin: The Emain Ablach Earth Hollow
Notable Stomping Grounds: The Emain Ablach Earth Hollow; most of the coastal regions of Ireland and northwestern Europe; possible sightings in and around Scandinavia and the European Arctic circle
Height: 50 feet
Length: 75 feet
Description and Biology:
"Unsightly" is a word that describes Gnomoran quite well. Descended from a deviant prehistoric species of talpid mole that found its way to Ireland prior to the last ice age surrounding the island country with seawater, the fossorial creature has changed quite significantly compared to its ancestors, though its overall build - a cylindrical body, powerful burrowing clawed forepaws, velvety fur that doesn't flow in any major direction, sharp insect-catching teeth, and an acute sense of smell - has been retained due to being perfectly suited for its ecological role. However, its limb proportions are quite different from a typical mole, in that they are somewhat longer proportionally, though the back limbs are still shorter than the forelimbs. Likewise, its scaly, rat-like tail has become thicker and longer, more like that of a lizard, and though largely quadrupedal, it can rear up and even walk in a tripodal stance if it needs to either better sense its environment when above-ground or bring its weaponry to bear in combat, though it still looks somewhat hunched when on two legs. The forelimbs are burly and bear-like with hairless, scaly paws and five enormous, sturdy, relatively straight claws almost like those of a ground sloth on each hand, and the enlarged digit-like bone on each wrist has also developed into a curved, bladed spike for use as a weapon. Its plantigrade back feet are also scaly but with much shorter, more curved claws for traction. Most significantly, however, its head barely resembles that of its ancestors from the outside. Its medium-length snout and sharp-toothed jaws seem to have been remain largely unchanged in skeletal structure, and its light red eyes are small and insignificant, but the similarities end there. The front of the forehead bulges upwards and is heavily reinforced, because it serves as the base for a massive, straight, conical horn, spiraled like a narwhal's tusk, that points straight ahead and helps Gnomoran bore through the earth along with its clawed paws; the snout and mouth poke out underneath it like the mouth of a goblin shark. The snout and chin themselves are covered in long hair like a mustache and beard, and on the very end of the snout, the nose itself has about a dozen flexible fleshy feelers like catfish barbels which it uses to sense its environment. It is the top of the head that is most notable: it is entirely hairless, and the base of the horn, the scalp, and the sides of the face are all covered in wart-like tumors and skin eruptions of varying sizes. Its teeth are typical of a mole's, which resemble those of a carnivoran (including canine fangs and carnassials) rather than those of the only distantly related rodents; however, the front-most incisors are elongated to the point where they resemble rodent teeth, and some of its teeth are also missing or even broken from countless fights.
The monster's scraggly, unkempt fur is a uniform shade of pale bluish gray with silvery streaks here and there, along with cream-colored facial hair uncannily resembling the mustache and beard of a garden gnome. Its paws, tail, and the skin and tumors on its face are a pale red, and its claws, wrist spikes, and horn are reinforced by iron and are thus a vivid red-orange in color.
Aside from enhanced brute strength and burrowing capabilities, Gnomoran seems to be an accomplished swimmer, and has been seen paddling through the coastal seas off of northwestern Europe in a breaststroke-like fashion, moving with surprising speed to surprise watercraft and tunneling straight into the ground from the water, though its agility in the water obviously pales in comparison to more dedicated swimmers. Like some other species of mole, it also has venomous saliva which causes temporary paralysis, once used to store prey in "larders" for lean times, but also just as effective in combat. Most critically, however, the tumors on the mole-beast's head, which seem to emerge as often as they are ruptured, contain a grisly byproduct of its radiation-metabolizing biology, a corrosive grease of sorts formed from the juices of its runaway regenerative processes. If an opponent foolishly attacks its face, the fluid released by the punctured pustules will more often than not begin to flow down its horn, making its goring attacks even deadlier. It may even pop its own pustules using its front claws and wrist blades to coat them in these caustic juices, and doesn't care if its skin and fur are also eaten away in the process - it can simply regenerate afterward. In fact, its regenerative ability is especially developed among kaiju of its scale, recovering from injuries in a much shorter span of time than normal and bouncing back from wounds that would kill a more typical kaiju, making it that much more difficult to kill and all the more frustrating for it.
Gnomoran thus adds a few insidious abilities to the standard kaiju set:
Super strength
An extremely enhanced healing factor
Immunity to radiation
Paralytic venomous bite
Caustic Pus
History:
The ancestors of Gnomoran seem to have gone extinct towards the end of the last ice age, when a gradually warming climate and increased humidity deprived them of the drier, cooler soils that they favored, as well as the cold-tolerant invertebrates that made up much of their diet. The last known population seems to have held out on the Isle of Man before fading out some 10,000 years ago, but not before some of them presumably tunneled into a Yamaneon-rich earth hollow beneath the island which wouldn't be discovered until much more recently. The hollow was found by a team of Irish geologists in late 1956 and, accordingly, named after an otherworldly location in Irish myth associated with the Isle of Man among other isles in proximity to the region. The hollow itself was not the only discovery they made that day, however - Gnomoran's instinctive prey drive, largely unchanged despite no longer requiring sustenance, regarded the scientists as prey and incited it to pursue them out of the hollow, killing several of them in the process. Escaping to the outside world, it made its way to the nearest body of land it could find and laid waste to the town of Newcastle, Irleand before military resistance sent it back into the sea. The creature then ventured northwards, attacking any coastal settlements and ships unlucky enough to be in its path, before finally tunneling into the Isle of Arran and disappearing from the public eye.
Several months later, the city of Glasgow, already in economic decline and rapid de-industrialization at the time, was in for a nasty surprise when an enormous red horn burst out of the streets and Gnomoran plunged into the heart of the city, ransacking everything in its way and devouring dozens of homeless, destitute people as it went. It was only thanks to British military aid that the creature was driven away from the better-off parts of the city, but not before a significant portion of the infamous Glasgow slums had been reduced to rubble. Its rampage finally ended when it attempted to escape into the River Clyde only to take a torpedo to the mouth, critically wounding it, whereupon it was promptly captured for transportation to the newly established Siberian Monster Zone. Sometime during its transportation, however, the ship containing it mysteriously sank, with all on board reported dead or missing - Gnomoran itself being among the latter. Eyewitness reports of the creature doing battle with other kaiju across northwestern Europe came up several times throughout the following year, complete with documented evidence of its presence, but no accounts of the creature invading major cities have been recorded since its sacking of Glasgow. Plans upon detainment are to deposit it in the Siberian Monster Zone as originally intended, but actually finding it is another story - the randomness of the mole-beast's meanderings means its current whereabouts are as yet unknown.
Personality:
As a result of Yamaneon exposure and atomic fossilization, Gnomoran's regenerative factor seems to be quite enhanced even by kaiju standards. Combined with its toxic secretions, this makes it an unexpected threat and a daunting foe to face despite its size and seeming fraility, and as has been gleaned from personal accounts by many survivors of its attacks, the mutant talpid seems to be aware of this. It is chaotic and unpredictable, retreating one moment and barreling at opponents horn-first the next, and its ability to strike from unexpected angles and disappear without much fanfare has made for infuriating and often traumatizing experiences for both the various European militaries and enemy kaiju it's encountered. The Pleistocene relic also has a sadistic, vindictive streak, exacting disproportionate retaliation and brutally mauling other life forms on its scale even if they only harmed it by accident, to say nothing of toying with smaller things like humans and vehicles like a child prone to breaking playthings on a whim. It also cares little for self-preservation due to its healing factor and is highly aggressive to beings that upset it as a result, having the audacity to fend off kaiju several times its size. The mole-beast is infamous for picking fights with others without rhyme or reason, attacking even when its remaining instincts aren't informing it that it is hungry.
Reportedly, kaiju who weren't as violent as Gnomoran itself have learned to simply leave rather than engage the creature whenever it drew near since its emergence, presumably having witnessed the bloody aftermath of its fights during their own travels. Many in fact preferred not to draw its attention if possible, lest it decide to chase them down and exercise its self-perceived entitlement to chronic and sustained cruelty. Strangely enough, however, more than half of the sightings of the creature since the Glasgow incident involved the provocation of an even bigger, more powerful beast, with Gnomoran sustaining severe or even mortal injury upon disengaging. Some have speculated that it may even have enjoyed being mangled each time, explaining why it incited such fights so often. The kaiju has even been known to quite happily hurl itself right into dangerous territory such as hazardous environments and obstacles, fights where it is severely outmatched, or even disasters it has bought upon itself, further validating these claims.
Humanity fares even worse against the monster, for obvious reasons, and military efforts have thus far only raised its ire ever more greatly. Vehicles and groups of people attract its predatory instincts, as its brain is hard-wired to view smaller creatures as prey, especially in groups. Whenever it has made landfall, it seems to have made a beeline for coastal villages and suburbs. Its experience in Glasgow seems to have taught it not to venture into major cities, however, which is just as well, since the collateral caused by both it and military actions against it would be too great if it decided to attempt another municipal raid. Although it doesn't even need organic sustenance anymore, it is still compelled to consume large amounts of small prey due to its mentality remaining the same as that of a much smaller creature. This compels it to seek populated regions, forcing military retaliation and fueling its contempt for humanity in a vicious cycle. This is why many north-European coastal nations have since made evacuating rural areas their first priority in the event of its appearance, only employing martial resistance if left with no other choice.
As elusive as the elderly creature is physically, remnants of Gnomoran's presence, typically fur, pus, blood, and even bits of flesh, have been recovered from almost every site where conflict between it and other kaiju has been noted. Recent biological analysis of these remains has revealed that its abnormality and instability seem to extend beyond the tumors on its head - its small size and sadomasochistic aggression have resulted in it sustaining many, many injuries, including numerous internal ones due to how often it has been crushed or its vitals damaged. Its extremely high healing factor fast-tracking the repair of these injuries seems to have resulted in tumors and pustules overcrowding any wound it has received, and the extent of the cycle of damage may go beyond even that.
Many scientific reports related to Gnomoran have turned up one distressing commonality: living cell matter associated with the mole-beast has been known to spontaneously develop into tumors even in containment or otherwise in isolation of the source, and some have speculated that the monster's own inner anatomy constantly experiences the same issue, with every muscle, organ, and neuron growing, eroding, and re-growing at an explosive rate. Combining this with accounts of its cries constantly sounding as though it were severely hurt, along with its habit of intentionally blundering into hazardous situations, a few analysts have even speculated that this aspect of its biology causes the kaiju immense pain on a constant basis, which may explain why the creature is so pugnacious and prone to violence and self-harm: its own runaway growth may be railroading it into waging war with others so that its own constantly growing flesh can be broken, battered, and ripped away from itself before it overtakes its critical anatomy, condemning it to an agonizing fate far worse than death.
In summation, it seems that Gnomoran is a beast that has vastly overstayed its welcome, both on Earth and compared to the expected lifespan of its kind, and the inadvertent prolonging of its mortal coil has thrown some catastrophic side-effects into the mix. While its behavior may be an indicator that it is vaguely aware of this notion, its instincts have sadly locked it into the violent, self-destructive path it has followed for far too long. The mole-beast is indeed a monster - but not an entirely unsympathetic one.
Notes:
Whew! This guy, right here, was a true exercise in flexing my creative muscles, and took a number of attempts design-wise to get right, but I believe I pulled through in the end. :)
One of the gaps I noticed in both ATOM and the real life giant monster filmography worldwide was that Europe seems to have been rather neglected in the atomic age, in spite of having a rich source of mythical creatures that could've been adapted to the era in some fashion (hell, IIRC only Reptilicus borrowed from that, being a medieval dragon and such). There also weren't as many Trogcestor kaiju as there were retrosaurs, so in the wake of how successful one of my last ATOM contest entries was, I needed something both mythical and prehistoric-looking. My original plan was in fact a gigantic monstrous unicorn with a rhinoceros-esque flair and a theme like a jousting knight, but then I remembered that a Behemoth already exists as a kaiju in the ATOM canon, and what with unicorns being closely related to behemoths in the fantasy 'verse ATOM shares its world with, I sadly had to scrap it. Luckily, another concept I had planned fit much better, and that was refined into Gnomoran here.
This bad boy is, in fact, related to the ancestors of TT's dwarves (including gnomes), which are basically weird sapient moles, so I decided to pitch to myself the idea of a freaking lawn gnome as a kaiju - which would be a gloriously ridiculous idea without the context - and see if I could make it work. I ended up with this gigantic monstrous prehistoric "unicorn mole" with a lance-like horn on its head referencing the famous hat, with a touch of The Mole People B-movie mixed in (note: the date of discovery is the same as the real-world release date of The Mole People). The overall design combines said Mole People not only with more accurate anatomy from talpid and star-nosed moles, but also flourishes from Guiron, Gabara, Baragon, and even a touch of Knifehead for the snout, though the facial tumors were entirely my invention. The history meanwhile is more akin to The Giant Behemoth (which was released just over two years after The Mole People, incidentally), the titular beast of which was said to be suffering radiation sickness but didn't have a design indicating as such. I decided to swap out radiation for cancer for thematic reasons, and had Gnomoran live through his ordeal and escape to live and fight another day. His name, by the way, is a portmonteau of "Gnome" and "Formorian", a race of vicious subterranean dwarves from Celtic lore, which also explains his presence in an Irish territory - the Isle of Man is one of the real locations associated with the mythical realm of Emain Ablach, for which Gnomoran's place of birth is named.
So why does he have "everywhere-cancer", you may ask? Well, that ties into the theme I had in mind. I noticed that there were plenty of "good guy" monsters in the world of ATOM, and even a lot of the antagonists redeem themselves to some extent. But has there been anybody designed as a "hate sink" of sorts, someone despicable enough that nobody wants them around? I wanted to come up with one of those since I'd done only one antagonistic kaiju in the previous ATOM contest compared to three relatively decent ones, but I obviously didn't want to violate the ruling that the villain has to have at least one virtuous characteristic, though, so I ended up making him a tragic villain instead, and themed him around the health complications of old age and the perennial issue in fantasy fiction of prolonging one's lifespan through unnatural means. The inspiration for this was the loss of my family's two dogs earlier this year, and in the case of the latter I actually had the misfortune to witness her waste away due to health complications at her age. "Old-ness" is an unavoidable thing that is only comprehensible to those who are already old, and hated by everyone else in some way or another. Who would want to see the loss of their youth and vitality while becoming elderly and senile, after all? There are a lot of things to enjoy about the autumn years of your life, sure, but the sad truth is that when you're old, you're more vulnerable to disease, and cancer in particular. The elder of our dogs lost his life to spleen cancer, in fact, which has weighed heavily on me since then. Thus, I gave Gnomoran a face encrusted by tumors, while also hinting at his entire body from snout to tail also being full to bursting with more of them. Then I realized that a certain merc with a mouth from the X-Men comics has the same issue, and then everything fell into place regarding his personality. Deadpool would, after all, be a completely unlikeable asshole without all that snark! So Gnomoran thus became this crazed, elderly maniac with all of Deadpool's psychotic problems and none of the fourth-wall-breaking comedic charm, thus bringing the issues Gnomoran has to the spotlight: he's old and outdated, constantly and gravely ill, and hurting all over, which has made him totally miserable, but unfortunately, his coping mechanism is not snide meta humor but rather attacking anything that crosses him in the hopes of alleviating the constant overgrowth of his own body. This may have even come about because his first interaction with humanity was violent by necessity, what with him trying to eat people and all. Hence, he's a crotchety old geezer who WILL cut a bitch when given the chance - an opposite to the way more mellow albeit territorial Julkath, if anything - but he at least isn't violent without reason. The fact that many insectivorous small mammals really are almost as aggressive IRL and have stupidly short lifespans because reasons was the icing on the cake. Poor guy outlasted his entire species, no wonder he's mad about it. :P
All in all, I'm happy with this crusty old fart and his overall concept, and hopefully it'll be worthy of its place alongside the other entrants into this second ATOM Create-A-Kaiju Contest. Best of luck to everyone else who's submitted, and of course, may the best monster win! :D
Atomic Time of Monsters universe (c) @tyrantisterror
Since a bunch of people around these parts were posting redesigns of Godzilla and company I decided to get started on my own takes on the bunch, since I’ve been meaning to do that for some time now and I absolutely loved KOTM. I know a lot of these were for a contest on @grimchild and I’d have subbed this to said contest if I had the time, but sadly I missed the deadline. :( Anyway, I’m working on more of these things as well and hopefully I should be able to post a Godzilla-verse of my own on dA like a fair few other artists are doing these days; gotta take the time to sketch and color everyone first though, so it’ll be a while... ;u;
My Godzilla design has a mix of Showa and Legendary traits going on overall with the plates of the Millennium version (but gray like Showa rather than purple as in Millennium). His having reptilian traits but also gills made taxonomic placement a bit difficult, since he definitely looks most like a terrestrial crocodilian if you take the gills away. Ultimately though I decided to make him a temnospondyl a la Prionosuchus, but so heavily derived that he hardly resembles an amphibian and looks more convergently reptilian. Temnospondyls did have osteoderms after all, they lived before the dinosaurs, and many grew enormous - and at least one species even had a dorsal sail that could be mutated to something like his back spikes. To this end the head combines traits of not only the Legendary and Showa versions but also Shin Godzilla too, which is somewhat salamander-like, and the overall look is akin to Japanese giant salamanders and a bit of large predatory frogs. Just for the funsies, I like to call him Kerojira (Frogzilla). :P
Anguirus is a sebecid, since I needed something with the right mix of a long tail, scaly armored skin, four plantigrade legs, and that long toothy snout. A terrestrial crocodile fit the bill quite nicely, and with those fangs and the armored shell I decided to specifically reference Kaprosuchus and Armadillosuchus as inspiration. He has a new power here, the ability to shed the spikes on his tail (modified scales) and fling them like HTTYD’s Deadly Nadder, but otherwise he’s the same tough and gruff but protective beastie he’s always been. And yes, he does the rolling attack from Final Wars, too. ;)
More on the way! I have plans for Rodan and Mothra, and then I’ll take it from there. :D
The crossover nobody asked for, doodled over 20 minutes after watching a certain animated superhero movie sequel yesterday.
This movie was, pardon the pun, incredible, even if the fact that the release dates for it and a certain upcoming prehistoric blockbuster are just a WEEK apart from each other (with the latter just a day before my birthday to top it off) is, knowing that shitty old fanfic of mine that two of my PPC agents come from, a hilariously tragic dose of irony from my perspective. I cannot recommend it enough regardless, and I for one look forward to seeing more of my favorite animated family’s adventures in the future.
Also, how the hell did the Indoraptor end up in the Parr household? Rule of Funny, that’s how. XP
