Michael Dougherty's Godzilla King of the Monsters (2019) introduced Godzilla fans new and old to a variety of monsters we haven't seen before. From the towering ape-mammoth Behemoth to the mountain-back quadruped Methuselah, Legendary Pictures brings something new to the iconic Toho series. While some serve as a minor homage to several classic Godzilla kaiju, there are other monsters that were made exclusively for this movie but showed up briefly, if not rarely. One of those unique monsters is Mokele Mbembe.
Based on the cryptid from the Congo, the Monsterverse canon describes it as a grey quadruped with a pebbled back, five claws on each foot, a long whip-like tail, a head resembling an elephant with no ears, crocodile-like jaws, and a pulsating green horn. Not exactly a sauropod like the legend suggests, but they did reference creatures many explorers and accounts confused the cryptid with. While only mentioned more in detail in the novel, many fans drew their own interpretation of Mokele Mbembe. Since fans made various figures of Behemoth, Scylla, Methuselah, and the MUTOs, I thought it would be cool to make my own figure of Mokele Mbembe based on its appearance in the Godzilla: King of the Monsters official novelization.
I started off obtaining reference photos and toys of elephants and dinosaurs, purchased aluminum wire, sculpting tools, and super sculpey. I sketched the creature and tried my best to sway away from fan interpretations out of respect for their artwork and my curiosity to make my own figure. Despite my experience with foam props, clay sculptures are quite different. I made a wire, foil, and tape armature, shaped the body with clay, etched out the details and scales with a carving tool, hardened it in an oven, and painted the figure.
After a week of work, the figure turned out well! The more I look at it, the more I'm impressed with how much detail I put into the sculpture. Many friends and monster movie fans on Instagram commented how my figure resembled a classic 50's monster and enjoyed my progress pictures. As far as I know, I am the first person to make a Monsterverse Mokele Mbembe figure and am honored to share it with my audience.
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Wire Armature with foil internal and tape "skin"
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Layer of smooth super sculpey
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Added scales and wrinkle details and improved left arm
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Shortened teeth and more defined scales
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Painted figure
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Better look at the whole sculpture
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