#yuuengaku

[thekaijux]

Although not the first artwork I've had since doing commissions/requests, Yuuengaku is a character I'd like to consider my staple kaiju--in that she's the main kaiju character for a long-running series I hope to get off the ground with her.

Formerly Spacia-X (or Spacia) in past iterations, Yuuengaku is an alien dragon kaiju, part of a species from the planet Tanin (derived from the Arabic word for dragon). During her youth, a massive war  broke out between her kind against the Polemocharan aliens (a society of brainwashing, war-obsessed freaks of a planetary scale that specialize in militarization and bioengineering; think North Korea if they ruled an entire planet) and their bioengineered monsters. Things did not turn favorably for these dragons, leaving them to take flight to other nearby planets or even more distant solar systems.

Among those involved with the War on Tanin, another giant monster by the name of Miehara (a mythical creature with six wings, two serpentine heads, and a metal orb for a body that has a face), a highly intelligent entity that acts as something of a universal peacekeeper, fails to make negotiations with the Polemocharans. Although a powerful, mythic force not to be reckoned with, Miehara opts out of the fight--taking priority to save all the lives of the planet's inhabitants he can before everything spirals out of control. Among those saved, besides a few hundred sentient lifeforms, is a youngling Yuuengaku, who Miehara adopts as one of his own.

Thereafter, Miehara teaches and disciplines Yuuengaku in the ways of being a guardian monster, going from planet to planet to protect sentient life and protect their right to live. He is also responsible for bestowing Yuuengaku with the knowledge of empathy. Although Yuuengaku is still an animal by heart (thusly unable to obtain or fully comprehend the vast knowledge of Miehara), she soars through the galactic landscape to protect the universe--and find what remains of her kind.

Yuuengaku is currently slated to appear in Garayann's DAIKAIJU DAIKESSEN, something which I'm personally super excited for. :D Along with two other monsters that will be appearing in her series (which I have yet to give a proper name to... I'm torn between naming the series after her subtitle, The Space Drifter, or A Winged Hope).

And of course, give credit where credit is due!

Finalized artwork by LucasCGabetArts on DeviantART!

Daikaiju Daikessen image by Garayann on DeviantART!

3D render of Spacia (the proto-Yuuengaku, if you will) by thereal9thdoctor on DeviantART!

 The original Spacia-X... Drawn by yours truly. ;) About 10 years ago, I must add.

And finally, a shoutout to @bluesnowbelle for her kaiju, Miehara! Definitely helped factor in a lot of things for her backstory, haha. :)

[thekaijux]

As a part of A Winged Hope, I want to explore the idea of religion on a broad, intergalactic scale. As the series has aspects of magic and the supernatural, you figure there's some unknown factor at play. Most of the books across different civilizations often refer to Miehara (Yuuengaku's adoptive parent/caretaker and @bluesnowbelle‘s creation) under several different names. With that in mind, I wrote something of a brief excerpt, this one heavily inspired by Biblical scripture.

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From the Book of Oro Mimo 47:12-19 of the sacred text of the Amakhosi.

[Unto you, I say:] (12) Iwometa’s message is one of love and hope. Compassion, sympathy, and empathy are the keys for a united people. (13) But when I look upon all of you, all I can see is desecration, ignorance, orgies, vices, gluttony, thievery, deception, corruption, and selfish desires. (14) For it is these evil thoughts that bring death and despair to our world. Terrible will be our people’s fate if we don’t amend our wrongdoings!

(15) I tell all of you this so that you may heed my word, for I have been blessed with an image from His wisdom. (16) I saw other worlds, much like our own, being eradicated by the Three Giant Stars! (17) And I know they are not of the future, because I have seen the many different ways that I perish at the end! (18) For time is unpredictable, and we can never truly know the outcome; but all worlds are parallel to each other in time!

(19) Even more, I also saw other worlds where the Three Giant Stars had not come to purge the world. There is hope and there is a chance, lest doomsday be brought upon us!

[thekaijux]

Another of Fun-Fun Monster Sharing Time! And this time, it's the last of the three monsters for GARAYANN's game, Daikaiju Daikessen--Fukushu: The Alpha Dragon Beast!

Fukushu for my series is the Alpha Male to Yuuengaku's kind from planet Tanin. He's incredibly aggressive, ferocious, and abusive; as the pack leader of the rest of the dragons, Fukushu is a tyrant. Anyone who stands up to him will either suffer immense torture or even be sentenced to death by his own hand. He's also one to ensure the survival of their kind by inseminating all the females to produce strong young, regardless if the females have mates or not. Generally, a signature attribute of an Alpha Male is the hair; if they hold this trait from youth, then the likelyhood of them to become an Alpha Male increases significantly.

Fukushu's name comes from the Japanese word 復讐 (fukushū), translating to 'revenge'. As that blatantly indicates, Fukushu's story arc is taking his revenge against the Polemocharan aliens and their powerhouse bioweapon, Akuroghan. More importantly, though, is his relationship with Yuuengaku... And I promise you, things will get dark and messy. Skip over it if the subject matter makes you uncomfortable.

/START

Because Yuuengaku is a female, Fukushu only sees her as another vessel to continue his lineage like the rest. And the two clash on several different occasions as I currently have it planned. This subject matter hits me on a much more personal level, as I've known lady friends and ex-girl friends (not girlfriends, mind you) who have been subject of being stalked, abused, and/or sexually assaulted. Fukushu is a physical representation of violent men who strive for sexual dominance; something I've seen/heard a lot of on the internet.

Because of the nature of the character, I have no plans on making Fukushu this "misunderstood" character; he's as violent as he is cruel, and that is through the nature of his choice (though his upbringing and the fact that he is an Alpha Male could factor into that, too, bringing a debate of Nature vs. Nurture). The only point where Yuuengaku and Fukushu will set aside their differences is during their bout(s) against Akuroghan; but once that's over with, Fukushu still sees her as a chance to continually procreate and pass on his genetic lineage.

I wouldn't fret, though. Fukushu may be a violent, aggressive beast, but Yuuengaku is most certainly NOT going to submit to him, no matter how bad it gets. Overcoming oppression is a part of Yuuengaku's theme as a character, too. As long as she can move, she fights; as long as she breathes, she stands strong. And that's what I have to say for any women being subjugated to these atrocious horrors.

/END

Fukushu's prototype, Darkar, was an older creation of mine. Originally, the character of Darkar was meant to be the Devil Figure of the story I had him slated for, in that he was the physical manifestations of Man's sins. And actually, the hair from Fukushu was derived from older drawings of Darkar, which had hair present. But the image you see here is the only image I've uploaded of Darkar online, and doesn't have the hair (go figure).

Another fun fact is, when redesigning Darkar into Fukushu, I actually never gave the artist any references to Darkar. I pretty much said to him, "Make an Alpha Male of Yuuengaku's kind" and went from there, only interjecting the red color and the hair from Darkar without the artist knowing. I very much wanted to focus on a creature that felt closer to Yuuengaku and one that would work organically in terms of design. Plus, Darkar had a draconic look to him anyway, so I wasn't going to be stingy with how the new look turned out. Ultimately, definitely worked for the best! :D

Fukushu, as iterated already, is slated to appear in GARAYANN's DAIKAIJU DAIKESSEN, marking him as the third and last of my creations to appear in the game (the other two being Yuuengaku and Akuroghan). Still just as stoked to be able to play as this boy, even if he's unlikable and completely ruthless. :P

Kudos to my friend @erubo-rocketo for the PHENOMENAL art of Fukushu's design! And major thanks to GARAYANN for including him in Daikaiju Daikessen! :D Now onward, to more monsters to come!

[thekaijux]

All right, so who’s up for more monsters? ;) Been a while since I’ve last updated here, so I’ll need to add Fukushu here soon enough... But let’s worry about him later! ;)

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Now that I have all of these freshly posted to DeviantART (with extra DLC in the form of what Miehara, Yuuengaku';s caretaker, looks like!), how about one more? ;)

For Fun-Fun Monster Sharing Time, today's feature monster is an oldie as well. The key difference here? He's probably one of the only monsters recreated thusfar to keep his original name, if only because I liked the way it sounds. :P

Sure, he's got powers like flight, adept swimming, and electrical shock, but he sort of falls under the "Monster of the Week" category (though his sense of personality could easily evolve into something memorable when I get around to writing him). I don't see him being a heartless killer; I see him being a little closer to the traditional Japanese kaiju. Something that follows more in the veins of Varan or Baragon (from Varan (1958) and Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965) respectively), something old-school.

What I do have in mind, though, is that Gargoldon's notably trait for A Winged Hope is that he'll be the first monster to fight Yuuengaku. And honestly, with what I hope to achieve purely by visual storytelling, I really want to subvert expectations and throw readers for a bit of a loop. Sure, if you're reading this now, you're going to know what the surprise subversion is. But let me put this into the perspective of someone who doesn't know anything about A Winged Hope, its monsters, or of me in general.

From the stratosphere, a colossal body zooms by a space station for an alien planet. Said body crashes into the ocean, with a series of tidal waves flooding coastal cities of this world (though thankfully, as the impact zone hit the equivalent of the Pacific Ocean, the flooding isn't as bad as it could have been). The respective governments and states do their best to keep the public calm (although this is happening in multiple places, the story will focus on one of these coastal cities). The news catches on to all of this, and the information about the meteor picked up by the space station is revealed. Later that week, an unidentified submerged object is detected off the coast of the city--and it doesn't take long for Gargoldon to reveal himself.

He climbs onto land, and everyone is in a mass panic. The local governments and the state do everything to take a military course of action to deal with the creature, while the police handle evacuation (even if all of this is sudden; in no way could they get everyone out of the city en masse, even if all goes smoothly). But as Gargoldon continues his rampage, the signature of another giant monster appears--this one is revealed to be Yuuengaku (with her elytra closed, keeping her wings hidden). When she beaches along the coast, she calls out for Gargoldon and they fight.

Now, with all of that in mind, what is it that I'm trying to subvert? I think it's obvious that what I'm trying to throw off is who is the actual threat here--and who's the earthbound monster vs. the space monster?

A lot of kaiju stories, more often than not, resort to the idea that the earthbound monster is the main protagonist, while the space monsters are often seen as the bad guys. Had this trope been followed down to a T, most people probably would've guessed that Gargoldon was the space monster that crash landed while Yuuengaku was the planet's natural guardian... Which isn't true here. In this scenario, it's the space monster who's the noble hero and wards off the dangerous, earthbound monster. So in a way, if earth monsters are seen as natural antibodies for a planet, then consider Yuuengaku something of a vaccine.

As I said, all of this sort of information I want to be conveyed through visuals. Yuuengaku keeps her wings hidden until partway into her fight (or even later in the story), while Gargoldon actually has wing-like appendages. See where I'm getting at? ;) If I'm able to fool the reader into thinking that Gargoldon is going to be the main protagonist, only to reveal that it was actually Yuuengaku, then Gargoldon did his job.

Of course, this may sound like a major twist, but this is probably going to be near the beginning of the story. I have a lot more plans and themes for the first major story for A Winged Hope. A great magician doesn't reveal all of his plans now, does he? ;)

Major kudos to Frank Parr of Dragonfyre Studios for the fabulous redesign of Gargoldon! The new look is totally badass! :D Definitely hope to leave a long-lasting, good first impression of Yuuengaku's rogues gallery! ;)

[thekaijux]

All right, more Fun-Fun Monster Sharing Time! Or whatever the heck I call these. :P

Unlike the past ones I've shared--those being Yuuengaku and Akuroghan--this one is fairly simple and rather straight forward.

Simply put, Kaereon (from the Japanese words カエル (kaeru) and カメレオン (kamereon), meaning 'frog' and 'chameleon' respectively) is an inhabitant of a world that Yuuengaku eventually lands on (restoring her water supply for space travel) and is a bit of a nuisance. Honestly, from that premise, I might have her grown fond of Kaereon and inadvertently becomes an ally... Though the specifics of their chemistry and how that ties into the over-arching story, that's currently still in development.

Even in terms of his background, Kaereon is pretty tame. Kaereon was formerly Ghondor, a creation I made roughly 10 years ago, who went through a drastic design overhaul (thank you, @bigjohnnycool!). Even the original Ghondor's backstory I don't recall it being anything that special; just a monster found in ice. Kaereon won't have the ice thing going, but he's just a natural monster of nature... Though again, a lot of things can change.

Not a long one, but they don't need to be. Just here to showcase some cool art by some cool people; and to that extent, showing off an ever expanding universe. :)

Once again, thank you @bigjohnnycool for the fantastic work! Hope to collab with ya again in the future! :D