Feudal Japan King Caesar Concept

Here’s my Feudal Japan King Caesar, another popular monster from the Showa Era. Lots of requests for this guy. Personally, even though King Caesar isn’t in my top 10 favorite Kaiju, he’s definitely unique on his own and very nice to have a mammal like kaiju in the franchise.
I wouldn’t mind seeing him make a comeback in a future Toho projects. King Caesar has lots of potential and if done right, can have a solo film. I love the design, it would definitely fit in a film setting back to Feudal Japan.
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For my redesign, as always staying true and loyal to the original, I actually wanted to keep King Caesar standing on two legs. A typical redesign would be King Caesar as an actual lion on all fours. I have seen redesigns of King Caesar on all fours like a dog or lion. I don’t think it works and that’s not King Caesar. Having him on two legs actually gives King Caesar more personality and opportunities to interact especially fighting. Also having King Caesar on two legs makes him more warrior like and super badass.
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For the face I mainly used references of Shisa dog statutes and some Chinese lions statues. It was really important that I kept that look from the Showa design to make him look more ancient and super fierce. Since King Caesar is the Japanese monster, definitely need to have those Japanese design elements.
I didn’t want King Caesar to look super grounded in reality. The design would be too boring, safe and generic where it can get to the point of not looking like King Caesar.