Gabara and Gabora - Villains of Dreams

All rightly, it's almost 3 AM right now…and I finally got my contribution to the monthly art jam for the month of July. The kaiju in name for the contest is Gabara. A beast that is probably the least popular Godzilla monster in the entire series. Well……..second least. Minya is the first. And if any of you know me, you know that I can never do something simple. Especially when it comes to my own personal projects. And when I can, I make sure to expose all my fan’s and watchers to the wonderful world of Ultraman! So it should be no surprise that I put a couple of fellows to be paired up with the cat faced Oni monster. In retrospect I probably could have used more “logical” kaijus that dealt with dreams and what not. Like Gyango from Ultraman and the Crackler from Godzilla the Series. Oh well, I still like the Gabora twins. Monsters with only 1 letter different from the Toho monster. Gabara…..and Gabora………and Powered Gabora. So lets dive in and see what these things are.

Gabara is a monster that is from a child’s dreams in Godzilla’s Revenge. It is unknown if he is real or not. He has the ability to electrocute foes with his touch. He is strong, but will flee when he views that he is overmatched. But if you are weaker than him, than plan on entering a world of pain with this bully monster’s temper.

Gabora is your typical giant underground monster from the original Ultraman series. He devours uranium, which probably gives him his heat beam that he can shoot from his mouth. As I said, he can tunnel under the ground. Now what makes this guy stand out from all the Baragon wannabes (and Yes this monster was created from the Baragon suit), is he has a protective shell that can open and close around his head. Six individual plates that can come together and protect his head from harm. Though breaking these off causes the kaiju almost death like pain.

Power Gabora is the American update of the monster for their series Ultraman: The Ultimate Hero. Now this is one of the best revamps of monsters from the series. First off, they made him biped and gave him a way more gravel, rock like hide. The protect shell around his head is only 4 pieces and looks more like traditional bone . His hands have massive claws and his eyes are almost pure white. Think about it. This is an underground monster. His face is usually covered up by his shell. It’s world is perpetual darkness. It makes only sense that the creature’s eyesight would be horrible and the pupil would be severally underdeveloped. This Gabora still feeds on Uranium, but has no beam.

Should these beasts all come together in a massive battle, who shall win! My vote would probably be for the original Gabora. I mean the Powered Gabora looks great as hell, but he is slow and has no distance attacks. Gabara has no distance, but his electricity makes up for it. Though it’s effects seem not to be as strong to kill larger opponents (like Godzilla), than it is against smaller creatures like Minya. Gabora has massive size and weight to his advantage as well. I don’t see his shell doing anything though. If it was closed he would not be able to see his foes lol. So this really marks the first time in these illustrations of mine, where a Ultraman monster has the distinct advantage and possible win over it’s Toho counterpart.

On final note, as for the art piece itself….I wanted to capture a dream like feel. Make the background abstract with bright and intense colors and lights. But not so over convoluted that it takes away from the monsters. Simple fire effects against some clashing color. I gave Gabara a bit more kick with his electrical powers. I know they are blue in the movie, but his horn glowed purple! Godzilla’s spines glow blue and his breath is blue. Gabara’s power should follow the same logical conclusion. Purple horn is purple lightning. I got him towering over the Ultra beasts mainly cause it is his Art Jam. Only right that I put the bully on top.

Now I go to bed and bid you all a g’night and hope you enjoy the piece!