Community Interview: Masonzilla

Welcome back, Kaiju United readers! We are on week two of regular content, and this week’s featured community guest is Mason H Zilla! Mason produces figure photography pieces on the regular, so we thought it would be absolutely wonderful to sit down with him and discuss his work as an artist. Figure photography is a popular form of art in which action figures, dolls, or toys are photographed professionally with the usual craft setups— lights, camera, posing, dynamics. It’s a really neat and creative way to express a character, send a message, or just have fun epic crossovers with your toybox, like you used to as a kid.

I have followed various figure photographers over the years, some kaiju-related, others doing different toys such as Marvel Legends, NECA horror movie figures, etc. Each presentation is different, and each photographer has their own style. I knew doing a piece on figure photography had to start with my old friend, and personal favorite photographer, Mason.

Here’s what he had to say. Please enjoy the interview and select gallery below!

Q&A:

Jacob, Interviewer in bold
Mason, Interviewee in italics

Hi Mason, thanks for taking the time to chat with Kaiju United! We’ve known each other for many years, but it’s great having an old friend on this new site to talk about a specific sect of the wider kaiju community!

Thank you! I have been following what you have been doing with Kaiju United and am really, really loving it so far. Thank you for having me on!

To start off, what was the first figure you photographed?   Why did you choose that one?

I started with the OG S.H. MonsterArts Godzilla 1994! Must’ve been something like eleven years ago, that first MonsterArts figure released in late 2011. I would’ve been thirteen or fourteen at the time, sheesh. Back then, I only had whatever Bandai vinyl figures I could find at Japantown, so the MonsterArts Godzilla was both my first online purchase, and my first really high quality figure. I was so excited about it that I set up a whole scene on my bedroom floor of my new Godzilla figure fighting a horde of Visorak (the real ones will know what those are) and snapped a bunch of pictures on my phone!

This was before I got my first smartphone, so the photo quality was awful, but I really wish I still had those first pictures. They’re obviously quite sentimental to me, but if I recall correctly  I think a few of them were actually pretty good! From then on, I would continue taking pictures of my new figures on my bedroom floor, practicing getting them in poses that appeared natural. Then, in 2019, I got my first light box so I could take more professional quality photos, with better lighting and solid white backgrounds. Later that year, I bought my first Eyepop Designs buildings after stumbling across their Instagram page, and that’s what really got me started creating more fully realized environments.

Do you stick to a specific brand?  If so, have you explored other types of figures to take pictures of?

I primarily stick to the S.H. MonsterArts line, as well as any adjacent lines producing similarly detailed and articulated figures in approximately the six inch scale. That includes Revoltech, Riobot/Sentinel, Figuarts, Hiya, etc. I have also taken a couple photos using NECA figures, but I’ve found that, aside from having less detailed sculpts, Neca figures are made of a cheaper plastic that has a much glossier finish. Because I like my compositions to look very photorealistic, the more matte finish of the monsterarts line is highly preferable, so I tend not to shoot with NECA figures specifically. I’ve also gotten a couple photos with larger scale vinyl statues like the X-Plus line, but due to the limited space of my photography setup, it’s pretty difficult to shoot larger figures. 

I know quite a few photographers that also make custom figures. Do you customize at all before taking the picture?

I don’t do a lot of customization, the MonsterArts line is so expensive I can’t afford to mess up a figure. However, there have been a few releases so subpar I figured even a noob like me couldn’t make it any worse. I’m of course referring to the Shin Godzilla releases, all of which had such spectacularly bad paint jobs they inspired me to take up the brush myself. I’ve repainted all my MonsterArts Shin-gojis (Shin Godzilla), and I’m rather proud of them! Repainting them also gave me the courage to touch up other issues, like the infamously bad teeth on the MonsterArts Gamera 1999. I also buy a lot of accessories or replacement heads from talented artists in the community, and those often come unpainted, so I still have to paint from time to time. Not my favorite hobby, but it’s nice not being too awful at it. And both my partners are artists, so I always have a lot of help with finding the right colors!

What cameras do you use?

I have always shot on my smartphone! Most of my compositions were shot on my Samsung Galaxy S9, and my more recent stuff has been shot on my new Samsung Galaxy A42. I would love to use a proper camera one day, but I haven’t been able to justify spending the hundreds it would take to achieve the picture quality that I have access to with the phone that’s already in my pocket. There’s only one major downside, and that’s the inability to zoom in very far – which is admittedly a pretty big drawback. Zooming out helps keep everything more in focus, which is a bit more realistic for large scale creatures, and is also useful for keeping winged Kaiju fully in frame. Unfortunately, smartphone cameras use a digital zoom, which drops image quality pretty fast, so the bigger winged kaiju like Ghidorah or Destoroyah rarely make appearances in my work.

What’s your process? Set up time…post manipulation of photos, etc.    How long does it take to do one entire piece?

I mean, most of the setup is inevitably going to be just moving Godzilla a hair to the left, checking your camera, moving it a hair to the right, checking the camera, back to the left, checking the camera, ad nauseum. However, I think my process is a good example of how to work around limitations in order to emphasize your strengths and find your style. The light box limits space, the backdrop limits the angles I can shoot at, and shooting with a phone limits my ability to zoom in. As a result, I’ve pretty much figured out what position I should always start the camera in, and what level of flexibility I’ll have as I adjust. So I usually start off with my phone set up in its usual spot, then place figures and props while using the phone screen as reference.

Again, this part gets pretty repetitive, and can last a while. I think it’s fun, but it’s definitely a process! Phone cameras like to automatically close if inactive for too long as well, I really wish there was a setting to turn that off. While photoshoots can take anywhere from thirty minutes to two hours, that doesn’t compare to the editing. I’ve done some of my best work in anywhere from two hours to a full month, that unfortunately just depends on the scope of the edit! And, uh, how much I’m able to stay focused. The staples are joint healing, adding a sky (I usually use my own pictures of the sky in San Francisco), and adding in some smoke and dust around their feet.

What advice would you give to somebody who wants to start doing figure/toy photography?

If there’s anything I want people to take away from my work, it’s that you can go really far with just the basics! Many of the most prominent figure photographers in the community have much larger setups; some even have an entire room dedicated to photography, with nice cameras, a large TV for backgrounds, a smoke machine, and a dozen lights. I shoot with a smartphone, and used to edit with free apps like Picsart and Snapseed. The only things I use aside from my figures and my phone are prop buildings by Eyepop Designs, an RGB LED light, and a large light box I got on Facebook Marketplace. So I want anyone who’s thinking about getting into the hobby to know that, as long as you’ve got Godzilla figures and a smartphone, you don’t need much else to create some killer artwork!

What’s the most enjoyable part of it for you?

Honestly, it really depends on the shot! Surprisingly, despite having done this more seriously for almost four years, my workflow is still kind of all over the place. Some of my compositions were envisioned before I even shot them, some weren’t found until I was hours into editing. As a result, which part of the process I have the most fun with varies a lot between compositions. I think the most enjoyable part is when it feels like whatever I was envisioning has finally started to take shape in front of me. Sometimes, I take a shot and it’s perfect and that feels great, until I get to the editing room and I can’t quite figure out how to achieve what I was envisioning.

Aimlessly experimenting with edits for hours without any satisfactory results can be really exhausting. Conversely, sometimes I have to really work around a crappy figure or difficult setup to get a shot that I’m happy with, but once I’ve done some editing I take a step back and go “wow, that looks surprisingly good now that it’s in front of me.” That also feels great. I also enjoy sharing parts of myself in my artwork, from taking shots of an exhausted Godzilla after I’ve had a rough week to editing together political comics about Godzilla advocating for trans rights. It’s always nice to receive positive feedback on my work, but with shots like those it’s a little extra special.

What do you look for in inspiration with pieces? Is it the Godzilla films, current events, or other media?

I usually draw the most inspiration from concept art, and similar artwork from the community. The most inspirational artist to me can be found on DeviantArt if you search for “Cheung Chung Tat.” Long time G-Fans will likely recognize his artwork from a lot of clickbait articles around 2012 claiming they were concept artwork for Legendary’s then-upcoming 2014 Godzilla movie. My favorite of his pieces is one called “Godzilla Partner” depicting a pair of Godzillas stalking a burning city at night. Hopefully the inspiration is evident in my work; the sharp detail of Godzilla’s textured skin, most objects not going above knee or waist height for the kaiju, and the depiction of Godzilla as a species of animal rather than an anthropomorphized reptilian superhero.

I also try to use light pollution to convey scale and depth more than focus blur, which I think sets me apart from most photographers. My other main source of inspiration is often just whatever it is I’m feeling, I guess. One of the most interesting things to me is communicating more subtle emotions than “Rawr I’m gonna crush you and fight things” with the Kaiju I shoot. I like to make them look ponderous, confused, tired, gentle, curious, sad. I still do plenty of action shots, but a lot of my favorites were taken after I had a rough day and decided to channel it into a shot, hence the shots of Godzilla worn down or of Shingoji draining its own colors. It’s therapeutic to put those emotions into a shot, and a fun challenge to pull those more complex emotions out of big angry lizards.

How about some of your peers?  The community of figure photographers is pretty tight knit, from my understanding.  Who do you admire?

The figure photography niche of the Godzilla fandom has some really talented people!

My personal favorite is probably APhotographyBoy, whose style is as distinctive as it is beautiful. His colors remind me of video games like the Pipeworks trilogy of Godzilla games or the PlayStation 2 classic, War of the Monsters, and the ambient colorful glows give his work a unique softness, like sunlight shining through mist. His shots aren’t quite photorealistic, but not quite toy-like either. He’s got a style all his own, and it’s one of my favorite things ever.

I also want to shout out PowerHourPhotography, who may be the single most talented photographer when it comes to replicating the look of the actual films. His work is so good it’s stupid.

I could ramble about other people’s photography all day, but one more notable artist for me is the biggest Godzilla photography page by far: Figuremaniashow, whose gigantic practical setups are absolutely mind-boggling and whose page is now reaching enough people to get him actual sponsorship deals. Nuts.

Figuremaniashow is a good example of the kind of photographer whose work I like to fixate on because it’s very different from mine; not only does he use no edits, but he doesn’t necessarily strive for photorealism in his shots. His work is more inspired by comic books, and you can see it in his use of color and his characterization of Godzilla and the other Kaiju as . I both really admire his work, and want to create the polar opposite. In my opinion, that’s a useful thing to have: artists in whom you can find things both to aspire to and to set yourself apart from. Our polar opposite skill sets and styles have also made our couple collaborations especially fun to work on!

What do you think of the modern kaiju community? 

I participate much less in the broader kaiju community than I did back in early high school, I mostly only dabble in the Godzilla photography niche now. I’m much more media literate now than I was as a teenager, and unfortunately I no longer feel like I can get much compelling conversation out of the broader fandom outside of the small circles and friendships I’ve found along the way. The general Godzilla 1998 discourse alone would be enough to ward me off, with the same hot take that “it’s a good movie, just not a good Godzilla movie” posted ad nauseum on a nearly daily basis. Basically, I feel like the fandom hasn’t really grown up. However, I don’t want to be too mean with my diagnosis there – after all, with the new Legendary MonsterVerse movies, there’s a whole new wave of young G-Fans entering the fandom that haven’t had the last ten years to talk about Godzilla movies.

So with the recent resurgence of the character, should it be any surprise that discourse feels like it did ten years ago? Well, here’s the issue: most fandoms have a version of this problem, and that’s because – not to be too harsh – a lot of fans aren’t very media literate, and often aren’t very mature either. Any Star Wars fan reading definitely knows what I’m talking about here. For many nerds, the way they relate to the films and the characters they enjoy has not changed; be it because they’re younger, because they simply have a different philosophy about art consumption, or because it’s an extension of their refusal to grow and change themselves. At the end of the day, the result is the same – I don’t think the fandom has changed much since I was fourteen, and I don’t think that’s a very good thing.

However, I do want to fight the temptation to be purely cynical in my view of the fandom; I’ve met so many cool people through this community, and in recent years a lot more of them have been trans, queer, and/or polyamorous. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. The Godzilla fandom is becoming more inclusive and reaching a wider range of people, and that’s a wonderful thing. And not-so-shockingly, it tends to be those more open minded folk that are always trying to grow and change as people, and that creates many interesting new ways of relating to the art that we all love. I’m happy there are sites like Kaiju United to keep pushing that progress forward and build spaces within the fandom that I can truly still enjoy being a part of!

What do you think the future holds not only for the films, but for the fandom itself?

I have high hopes for the future of Godzilla, largely thanks to the attitude Toho has seemed to take with the character since the success of Hideaki Anno’s Shin Godzilla in 2016. While Legendary has us mostly covered when it comes to easily digestible blockbuster fun, Toho has been trying not to play it too safe and let the character continue to grow and change and evolve – which, in my opinion, is the best possible philosophy. The reason I’ve been a lifelong Godzilla fan is not purely out of nostalgia; for me, Godzilla has been one of those rare, special things I loved as a kid that has continued to grow up with me, with new depths and dimensions to find in the series as I find more of the same in myself.

When people ask how I became a Godzilla fan, I like to tell them it started when I was five, but that I’ve really become a Godzilla fan over and over again my entire life. And while that longevity can be attributed in part to the core appeal of the character, I think what makes Godzilla special is also this willingness not to let that character stagnate like so many other big blockbuster franchises. That malleability makes Godzilla truly special, and I’m confident that, as I will continue to work on myself and grow as a person, Godzilla will be there growing with me the whole way.

Whether that will be reflected in the fandom will depend on how much us G-Fans are also willing to grow as people, and allow our relationship to the art we love to follow suit.

I completely agree with that insight. I think Godzilla has always had a role in my life. He just happens to change every new “era” of it. When I was a kid, he was the larger-than-life superhero, force of destruction. He was right there next to The Incredible Hulk as the loose canons you’d throw in the battle when all hope seemed lost. As an adult, he’s an old friend, that has grown and aged like wine, whom I revisit and reanalyze time and time again, out of pure love. Relationships must do the same, our friends, our partners, and the relationships with the art we consume, if they are to thrive.

Exactly! We as people must be more malleable to change, and perhaps it’s the big angry lizard that will help us do so in life.

Wow, that got really deep. What a way to close out this interview. Thank you again, so much, for being our next featured community guest, Mason.

Thanks for having me!

Check out Masonzilla’s figure photography art!

Instagram – @Masonzilla