Fan Art Gives Godzilla 2000 a Nightmarish Shin Upgrade

JB Augustine |

Jul 31, 2020

Concept art by an unquestionable kaiju fan gives Godzilla a surreal makeover, combining two of the King of the Monsters’ most celebrated and recent variations.

3D creature designer and digital artist Dopepope rendered a remarkable and scary hybrid of the best parts of Shin Godzilla and the early 2000s Millennium series Gojira.

His finished work is up in a gallery on his Instagram but you can see it here below:

Dopepope wrote in his Instagram post “Final Zbrush model & renders of Mutant Shin commission,”…This version of ShinG depicts further mutations that include the blending of some G2K features.”

In a passive way, it does look like a further evolution of the mutant Shin Gojira where the arms and hands fully develop; while the head takes a new form.

The color scheme is definitely for the Shin version; but the head, arms, and dorsal plates resemble Godzilla suits of the Millennium series that lasted from 1999 to 2004.

Dopepope’s direct inspiration was the “MireGoji” suit used in both Godzilla 2000 and Godzilla vs. Megaguirus.

In the Millennium era, or New Century series, Toho had the laboring task of recovering the ball dropped by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich’s failed 1998 reimagining. Every movie from the period curiously was a reboot except for Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003) which was a sequel to Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla (2002).

In 2004, 12 years after Final Wars, Toho would go on to tap Attack on Titan director Shinji Higuchi and Neon Genesis Evangelion writer Hideaki Anno to make Godzilla relevant again. And so came their radical spin on an old favorite, Shin Godzilla.

Released in the summer of 2016, Shin soon became the highest-grossing Japanese Godzilla film. It also won Best Picture at Japan’s Academy Awards.

Looking at his work, Dopepope is very prolific with his digital kaiju sculpts. As of late, he’s done designs of Gamera, Anguirus, Barugon, and Final Wars’ Monster X.

Be sure to tell us what you think of his Shin 2000 below.