Kaiju Kid is a animated short inspired by my childhood love for Japanese Monster movies. Often I would think of these monsters as my own imaginary pets. Something that I could imagine protecting me from things I didn’t understand, like bad weather. Or in this case, go stomp on my school so I never had to go again.
Kai, the Kaiju, is clearly based on my favorite radio-active, atomic breath having, mutated dinosaur franchise. I wanted him to homage to the character but be fresh as the same time. I started by taking species of lizards that I thought looked interesting, and monster-ifiying them.
Ultimately, I settled with a design based on the likeness of a crested gecko. I thought their natural dopey features would fit perfectly the cartoony, child-like style I wanted for this project. But something about those never blinding round eyes…make him seem oddly intimidating despite the friendly smile.
I imagined Louie to be a very curious, passionate child with a big imagination. A child that would be much more at home reading books about dinosaurs then enjoying a lot of social interaction. To his fellow classmates he would probably come off as an oddball, especially since he practically never takes his dino-onie off. Because of this he gets picked on a lot and can become rather timid and shy.
Storyboards
Backgrounds
