Monsterverse Mecha Mothra 2024

This was a passion project I entirely worked on by myself over the summer of 2024 before going into my sophomore year, and is my interpretation of what a "Monsterverse Mecha Mothra" would look like. I modeled, textured, and rigged everything on the model using Blender. The textures are procedural materials on the model itself due to my limited knowledge on texturing at the time of making this, but once I learn more about texturing, baking, UVs, etc, I plan on updating the textures to be a bit more conventional with perhaps tweaking them in Substance Painter if I can figure it out. This model was not initially intended to be used for a game, more on the side of cinematics/animation, so the geometry & topology is... not ideal. However, I plan on better optimizing the model in the future, perhaps making a 2nd version that's more low-poly and maybe getting it working in Unreal Engine 5.

- - - - -
What motivated me to make this "Mecha Mothra" model?

I have yet to find any major content, films/animations, or ideas regarding a version of "Mecha Mothra" anywhere in the Monsterverse Godzilla franchise, I was only ever able to find a couple concept art images. So I decided that as a big fan of the franchise, that I would most likely be one of the first to alter Legendary's design of Mothra 2019, into a "Mecha" Mothra version, to fit the current "Monsterverse" theme because I thought it would look cool, be a fun project, and also a nice opportunity to improve my hard surface modelling skills.

- - - - -
During the makings of the model, I kept a detailed log of what I made each day (legs, wing joints, etc.) and how long I've been working on this model, of which the process took about a month of solid focus and dedication to get done. Rigging the model was by far the most confusing part due to how nightmarishly complex each joint of the model had to be rigged, combined with my limited knowledge skillset in rigging area currently, but I luckily got some assistance from people in the official Blender Discord, of which I learned some rigging techniques during that general process.

I took a lot of inspiration from a bunch of different versions of Mothra (Mothra 2019, Mothra Leo, etc.) so a few design aspects and overall shape comes from those resources. I have more of the references I used in a google doc, but I attached the main big 3 that I basically used as reference/inspiration.

- - - - -
I've made a couple of short animations of the model as mainly a way for me to get some practice animating the model (and animating in general), and testing out how it moves. However I might make some more test animations of it's Mothra Leo themed abilities, sort of like a fight animation of some variety. I also have a huge animation short-film project in the works with this model that also involves my Mecha King Ghidorah model, I am basically making them fight.
Below is a link to the Google Doc that I have been using to keep track of EVERYTHING in my workflow/process with it (Reference Image, Storyboard Animation planning, Mecha Mothra model progress, etc.):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oUabd9zu7VlGGvaxlh03yPkKdLfCbfl9WQmvbXPwazw/edit?usp=sharing