Teeth, claws and eyes: when it comes to kaiju sculpting, these are the most troublesome standard features. In that sense, Mothra Larva was a nice reprieve. The juvenile form of Toho’s second most famous beastie is a humble creature, one that tends to wreak havoc only when her miniature twin priestesses are imperiled by enterprising capitalists. The biggest obstacle here was getting the right curve on the body; too much and the rounded segments would start to look warped. I was also planning to have her head lifted slightly for a more dynamic pose, but I didn’t quite weight the armature correctly and it ended up even with the rest of the body. Oh well.


Another aborted feature: in Mothra (1961), the grub emerges dramatically out of a ginormous multicolored egg. Turns out that cracked, hollow ovals are very difficult to sculpt! I guess I could have just done the full egg sans cracks as a solid object but ultimately I opted to conserve the clay. Someday, I shall sculpt the egg. As a consolation I added the Mothra symbol etched into a rock, which in some of the movies is used to summon the great moth in times of distress.


Fun fact: while in later appearances the larval Mothra would be animated via puppet, the original Mothra saw the creation of a massive latex suit for the kaiju. Reportedly eight actors - among them Haruo “Godzilla” Nakajima - were required to operate the thing by, I have to imagine, filing in conga-line style and scooching around in sync. The suit was designed and sculpted by the usual suspects: Keizo Maruse, Teizo Toshimitsu and the brothers Yasuei & Kanju Yagi.