Feudal Japan Mothra Design

Here’s Mothra, the 5th monster in the Feudal Japan series. I was debating for a while if I was gonna have Mothra in this series, and I know there are fans that see her as overrated, weak and used too much in Godzilla movies. I do agree she is in a lot of movies, but in my opinion it just depends what the movie is about and I think Mothra is a perfect addition to this series especially since it focuses on the war in the Feudal Japan war era. I also think she’s a great balance since most of the monsters are reptilian and dragon like. Plus it’s nice to have a monster that’s full of color.
For her design, I burnt through so many pages of sketches and thumbnails in terms of her silhouette and I wanted her wings to be a bit different especially when it comes to her color palette. For her colors and pattern I was referencing a lot of moths and butterflies that were native to Japan. At the same I also looked at geisha robes, their colors and patterns, so Feudal Japan Mothra’s wing colors were based on the patterns and colors of geisha robes. It was important that her color palette had to look both beautiful and threatening, while also having a color that represents Japan. When it came to designing Mothra’s face, I did as much as I could to make sure that she still resembled of both Mothra and moths in real life. I looked at Eternal Mothra, Aqua Mothra, GMK Mothra, Tokyo SOS Mothra and a bit of 2019 Mothra’s faces, then mix those designs into one. This Mothra had to look both angelic and fierce at the same time. So when it came to references I only looked at moths, butterflies and some other insects that are native to Japan since Mothra is a Japanese monster. While I really love Mothra’s redesign in 2019 and the idea of mixing other insects to her design, I wanted to avoid that and made Mothra more moth and butterfly like without any resemblance of other insects. However I did use some references from Japanese hornets in order to capture her barbaric and fierce side. In this series, Mothra not only fights Godzilla and another certain monster, she will be doing lots of heavy damage to armies and castles.
Another design choice I did was to give her some kind of organic head crest that’s part of her head and exoskeleton. I used references of Japanese Empresses based on their hairstyle and their crown designs in order to get the shape I wanted for Mothra’s head crest. The reason is because throughout the franchise, she’s been viewed as a guardian monster and worshipped as a Goddess. So I designed a crest to show that she is a Goddess, and makes her look fierce and warrior like. I like it and never really seen it on Mothra. She does have two sets of antennas. One for smelling, and sensing vibrations and noise. The other set is for her beam attack, yes she will have her beam in this series.