MAR. 2021 REWARD (Lineart) (Patreon)

I asked, you answered. This month's reward will star a humanization, or gijinka, of Toho Co., Ltd.'s giant monster character, Mothra, whose first appearance was in the 1961 film of the same name, though she is arguably better known from her many, many appearances in the Godzilla franchise! Seeing as Godzilla vs. Kong is rampaging into U.S. theaters TODAY, you guys could not have picked a more appropriate choice for this reward - and it's an artwork I've been eagerly looking forward to working on regardless for way too long even though I didn't think it'd actually be selected! There really was only one scenario possible here, and seeing as King Ghidorah's three heads and serpentine necks have been used to great effect in tickle-fetish fanart several times before from what I've seen, albeit in anthro kink pieces, the most iconic villainous kaiju from the Godzilla series as the tickler was a no-brainer, and in keeping with relevance I went with the depiction of Ghidorah from 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters (which, incidentally, also stars Mothra as herself alongside the Big G and Rodan). Even though I'm actually not into macrophilia, or at least not as much as some other people I know in this community, this is in fact not the first time I've drawn a macro/tickling combo work, and here it only made sense to add elements to clarify the sense of scale. As Ishiro Honda once put it: "Monsters are tragic beings. They are born too tall, too strong, too heavy. They are not evil by choice. That is their tragedy."

Since I had to actually design the Mothra gijinka for this artwork in the first place, I also did a quick study of how she'd look in general, so I've included that here too for reference. While I looked to her Showa-era depiction for inspiration for most of her outfit, this design also draws inspiration from Japanese shinto priestesses as well as Mothra's twin fairy stewards called the Shobijin, and more specifically their appearance in 1964's Mothra vs. Godzilla. That fluffy cap lent well to putting Mothra's face on it! All in all, I'm incredibly happy with how both this design and the monthly reward lineart turned out, and I hope I can get the opportunity to design gijinkas for other Toho kaiju in the future.

The final version of this piece will be available on Thursday, April 1!