Over the course of the past few months, the kaiju community has raved and brought accolades to a newcomer in the content creator scene. Starting just three years ago, Quazies has built a lasting and loving base of followers through their amazing animated shorts. From Little Godzilla Makes a Burger to the newly released Rodan’s Egg, Kaiju United has been in love with their work and has been following along this incredibly journey. With each short being even better than the last, it’s been an adventure seeing an artist improve their craft with each release. Jacob had the opportunity to catch up with Quazies, and ask about animation, art, and of course, their shared love for all things Godzilla and kaiju. Read on and get some insight into one of our most talented community creators!
Photos courtesy of Quazies.
Interview
JL: Jacob Lyngle (KU)
QZ: Quazies
JL: Hello, Kaiju United readers listeners, however you’re tuning in… I’m here with Quazies, who has taken the community by storm by posting amazing, artistic, wonderful, wholesome, cute little animated short films based on the beloved kaiju in the Godzilla films! They write, storyboard, and animate everything. How incredible!
Quazies, did you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?
QZ: Sure. I’m Quazies, (kwah-zees), and I am a self-taught digital artist and animator. I started learning animation in the past three years or so. All of my cartoons are my ways of showing appreciation to my favorite characters, one of those being Godzilla, and of course, all of his buddies and enemies. And I’ve just really been accepted and embraced by the Godzilla community. I’m just really happy how much people have been enjoying them.
JL: Let’s start out with some basics. Where and when did you get into Godzilla? What was your first exposure to kaiju media?
QZ: So, unlike most people, I am not a lifelong Godzilla fan. Actually, the obsession (YES, it really is an obsession) started to stronger in the past four years or so. But my actual first exposure to Godzilla was the TriStar Godzilla movie, which we had on DVD. And even as a kid I remember being like, Okay, well, I guess that’s Godzilla. That’s the Godzilla everyone’s been talking so much about because as a kid, I couldn’t comprehend like there was more than one Godzilla. I just thought, well, that’s him. That’s the one on the DVD. So that’s all I knew of Godzilla until the past four years when my best friend Naomi, who has been a Godzilla fan for life, started to show me the movies out of order. So hectic. We watched SpaceGodzilla first.
We started watching them all, and I was just like, oh my gosh, this is like the puzzle piece missing from my heart. This is the thing that I’ve been waiting for my life… like, my special thing. I mean, I’ve had things I’ve liked my entire life, but there’s just something about this. I mean, I already love monsters and creatures so much, so just watching all the movies with Naomi, I was like, yep, this is it. I love Godzilla. I love it so much.
JL: What about the film made you come back to watch more? Such an interesting place to start – many people in the community would rank this film lower on their tier lists.
QZ: I mean, I’m not gonna say that Godzilla Vs. Spacegodzilla is some great amazing movie. I appreciate all the craftsmanship putting into it, but it is definitely one of the less appealing Heisei Godzilla movies in my opinion. We chose that one first because I was looking through just like random gifs, I saw Little Godzilla, and I said oh my god, what is he from? I need to see him right now. That was the cutest little thing I’ve ever seen. So, I was there for him mostly. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, like when the Cosmos showed up, but I was toughing it out for that cute Little G.
JL: What made you decide to learn animation?
QZ: So, with animation, I kind of like, had no hopes to ever learn the craft. I thought it was something that I would never be able to teach myself. Because stuff like art school is just kind of out of the question for me and my life and everything like that. I just thought one day, well, even if it doesn’t look very great, I should at least try it. And that’s been the past three years or so. I’ve always wanted to be an artist. I’ve been drawing since I was a little tiny kid. And ever since then, I never ever thought I’d get to have it as my job. I figured that was completely out of the question. I thought I’d be working in restaurants and whatnot for the rest of my life. But somehow, with time and patience and just scrounging the internet for every tutorial video I can, I’m slowly getting better and better at animating. There’s still a lot I’d like to learn, but somehow, I’ve taught myself some of it.
JL: With the YouTube tutorials, was the goal always to content create on YouTube? Do you have higher aspirations?
QZ: Definitely. I mean, I was just messing around mostly in the beginning. There was no intention of a large audience or making money. It was just simply messing around and trying to teach myself. Then suddenly with the Team Fortress 2 shorts that I was making, one of them blew up and a million people showed up out of nowhere. And I kind of was scared. Honestly, I was kind of panicking, low key like, Oh, God, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m teaching myself and making this stuff for shits and giggles. And now there’s a million people here. So, I kind of just decided from the first like, blow up video, like, okay, if people are going to be watching these, then I’m going to do everything to try and make every video better than the last one, at least in terms of animation quality. I can’t guarantee that one will be funnier or have a better story, but at least I can try and make each video look better and better. Which is when the whole goal of my channel emerged — to document me teaching myself animation and get to show people a stronger and stronger end product with each video that comes out. That’s my main goal.
JL: I did see you were a fan of The Prince of Egypt before beginning our interview. Can you remark on that, since you are into animation?
QZ: I will say, they [DreamWorks] have yet to top that. I love me some Shrek 2 and everything like that…, but we will never get a movie like that again. A 2D biblical animated epic. That’s on scales like that’s, that’s one of the main things with that movie that blows me away. Aside from the animation. Everything is just on such a high level across the board, I truly think that we’ll never get a movie like that ever again, in our lifetimes, probably. Such a good movie!
JL: What were some of the biggest influences or takeaways from that movie? Has it influenced how you animate? Have you looked at anything behind-the-scenes for technique and lessons?
QZ: The Prince of Egypt is more so something I look up to. I mean, I could try and take things away from it. But I’ll never be able to animate like James Baxter does, like the masters of animation who worked on that. I look up to that movie, but I guess with my style, it takes more away from Saturday morning cartoon style. I wish I could make something that hardcore and fluidly animated, but right now I’m mostly just looking up to the film as the pinnacle of the medium.
JL: Funny that you bring that up. I do know that when I shared your short, Rodan’s Egg, there were several comments in my feed comparing it to classic Looney Tunes cartoons.
QZ: I love Looney Tunes and a lot of the early silent cartoons and everything like that. I’ll go and just watch compilations of silent cartoons, just to see what humor can be pulled off when no one is speaking. That is everything in my video; it has to be done through facial expressions. There’s occasional writing with the notes and everything, but it can be it can be a little difficult trying to comprehend everything just through facial expressions and body language and whatnot. It’s definitely a task in itself.
JL: I think that’s better than how they talked in Godzilla Vs. Gigan. (laugh)
QZ: I don’t know if I want them to talk like they do in that movie. It sounds like they smoke 40 packs a day!
JL: HEY ANGILAS, C’MON! SOMETHING FUNNY GOING ON, YOU BETTER CHECK!
QZ: I remember the first time I saw that. I was like, okay, I didn’t know this was the direction these this was going to go in, but strangely, I’m okay with this.
JL: The characters that inhabit your world — Titanosaurus is like a like a vacation getaway travel agent, Spacegodzilla is like a big hunky himbo kind of guy, chilling on the beach, smoking a cigar and chugging beer. How do you assign these specific character traits to characters we normally see as just monsters?
QZ: I’ll talk about Spacegodzilla specifically. I remember that with him, when I was working on that, I think that was right around the time when the Super Mario Bros. movie came out. A significant amount of people have made the comparison of Spacegodzilla to Bowser in that movie, in the way that they have the really cool guy who’s actually super insecure with being rejected by someone, kind of vibes. That’s a bit of a tease at the next episode, though!
With the bad guys, like Spacegodzilla, you kind of have to like add that extra personality thing because in their movies, you know, besides like Gigan or Megalon, there is not that much personality to work with. You kind of have to add that extra like, alright, this guy’s a schlub, or Hedorah is a arthouse freak or whatever. An extra little kick, so they’re not evil guy #1 and #2. Just whatever makes logical sense in my brain of how I how I would think the character would act or be like in a cartoon animated setting.
JL: When I showed the KU staff your short Rodan’s Egg, the first message I got back from Rachel was “TURN ON THE CLOSED CAPTIONS! HAVE YOU SEEN THE CLOSED CAPTIONS?!”
Where did the idea of adding that tongue-in-cheek narration in the closed captions come from?
QZ: I mean, I never expected anyone to notice that. It was kind of just a one off joke sort of thing. And I started doing with them with the Team Fortress 2 ones. It’s just kind of a sarcastic narrator to make things funny. Like some people said, it’s like a nature documentary, someone giving context to the shenanigans on Monster Island.
JL: Like [David] Attenborough!
What do you think are the biggest challenges in switching between illustrating human characters in your Team Fortress 2 shorts, and going back to kaiju?
QZ: Hmm. Well, honestly, I find drawing kaiju to be easier than drawing humans. Humans, even when they’re cartoonish, they have such rigid and set anatomical structure. Everybody has a head, torso, etc. With kaiju, you have four-legged guys, three-headed guys, blob monsters, it’s just all over the place. There’s so many different ways to illustrate a monster!
JL: I saw that this past G-FEST was your very first. Congratulations, welcome to the community gatherings! How was it going to a con the community talks all about?
QZ: That was the first one I’ve ever been to; it was at the very last minute. And I’m so glad that I decided to go, because it was it was really sweet meeting people in person for the first time that like my videos. I’ve never experienced anything like that before. It blew me away and made me a little emotional.
JL: Do you plan on showcasing the Spacegodzilla short you’ve been teasing at G-FEST?
QZ: Yes. I’ve pitched it! That is the plan. I hope they say yes! I’ve set up my schedule this year so that even if they say no, it’ll still be coming out hopefully planned to be in the summer around that time.
JL: How do you choose who to focus on? What made you conclude that you’re doing a Spacegodzilla-focused episode? Was that just because the people that watch your videos love that character? Or are you like alright I’m gonna I’m gonna do Anguirus, King Ceasar, etc. this time?
QZ: I guess it’s half and half, especially around the beginning of working on these shorts. When I first started, there was no audience quite yet; people were just catching on. Of course, with Little Godzilla, that was fully my choice. Little Godzilla Makes a Burger was my little passion project just to show my love for Little Godzilla as a character, because he’s just the cutest little guy. Regarding Anguirus, he’s one of my favorites as well, so that was a favorite pick too. Rodan on the other hand, I was kind of setting him up for his own, like showing him in some short little snippets sitting with his egg, paving the way for his little story to unfold with his egg. I always knew Spacegodzilla was going to get his villain episode. I’m going back and forth from doing the good guys and the bad guys. Oh, I almost forgot! I love Gigan too. He’s my little sweetheart; he’s just the funniest little shithead.
JL: On your initial appearance on Talking Toku, you mentioned Biollante and that you were just waiting for the right time. Are there other any other kaiju that are just kind of waiting for the right approach and time to animate properly?
QZ: Mostly Biollante, as I really want to give her character justice. As a character, she is also a bit more serious. There’s that horror element to her as well, because of her infamous origin story. I am definitely waiting to approach her until I feel a lot more confident that I can actually do her justice. With a lot of the other guys, the more cartoony stuff suits them just fine, but in a situation where she is the main protagonist of the episode, I’m waiting until I’m a little bit more skilled to approach her. There are some other kaiju where I’m like “you don’t look fun to animate, so I’m not going to mess with you unless it’s for like a short couple second gag or something like that”, as well.
JL: For sure, for sure. My favorite kaiju, for the record, is Baragon. I think you have done Baragon complete justice.
QZ: Thank you. He deserves only the world.
JL: On a on a truly deeper level: What does Godzilla or kaiju media mean to you?
QZ: Oh, jeez, that’s a hard question.
JL: Loaded question!
QZ: It is a loaded question. Because there’s, there’s 100 different good responses to that, I feel. What does it mean to me, I mean, I just love craftsmanship and appreciation for art in all forms. And suit-mation, especially. People can be judgmental and whatnot. But all I see is people who just care so much about what they were bringing to life. The craftsmanship put into these monsters and the stories, as an artist, that that really speaks to me. Especially as an artist who loves me a good monster story. I’ve loved monster stories since I was a little kid. And that’s all Godzilla is. It just clicks in my brain and my heart.
JL: You mentioned earlier that the kaiju community has been very welcoming and very friendly. And all that fun stuff, which is great. That’s what we’re all about. That’s what I want to see. How has it felt being embraced by the wider kaiju community? Just like reacting to your videos and stuff. I mean, I saw that Matt Frank was one of your patrons, which is pretty rad.
QZ: Matt has been a true a true homie. I’ve only met him in person once, but I mean, if you told me when I was sitting like in my car waiting to go to the dentist reading Rulers of Earth for the first time that a year later that that Matt Frank would be supporting my Patreon, I would say you’re lying. I’d say there’s no way in hell, because it still blows me away. These artists that I have looked up to tremendously are making fan art of my videos. It’s not about a popularity contest, but being validated like that as an artist, it means everything to me.
The community — my most viewed one has 6 million views at this point, I think. And that that’s a lot of people. And just seeing the way that people appreciate, like, all the work and the study I put in and seeing them discover and enjoy the Easter eggs I deliberately put just for them, it’s lovely. It feels really, really good. I’m always so excited to see how people will react; that’s my favorite part. I mean, animating and making the cartoon itself is one thing, but getting to see everyone’s reactions when it comes out. That’s when I get my dopamine boost for the month.
JL: For the whole month?!
QZ: That crazy dopamine cake. Lasts the entire month!
JL: What else can we expect from Quazies in 2024?
QZ: I have I have ideas for future shorts. But I guess I guess the choice of which one actually gets to become an actual thing first depends on which character I’m going to choose to focus on. And obviously, I’ve already planned for Spacegodzilla in the summer. I haven’t planned that far to the future, but it’s going to switch back over to the good guy roster. I don’t know which good guy it’ll be, however. Maybe we’ll finally do a Mothra episode! She’s definitely on the on the waiting list. I think she deserves one. But maybe I’ll give attention to a less popular monster as well.
Which is, which is kind of what I like to do anyway. I did that with Gigan and Anguirus. I know saying they’re less popular to people within our fandom does not make sense. But like, like for a kid who’s only watched the MonsterVerse movies, like, yeah, those are definitely you know, not as recognized. characters. So yeah, I mean, I haven’t planned that far ahead, but I just try and give spotlights to lesser recognized characters so maybe, maybe it’ll be Mothra or maybe it’ll be someone unexpected. I’m not sure. Yeah, not too sure yet!
JL: Varan’s Hot Dog Stand?
QZ: Well, you know, he’s currently missing…
JL: What’s he doing?
QZ: No spoilers!
JL: He’s running the Chicago Cubs, managing the hot dog stands.
QZ: That’s a good twist.
JL: I guess we’ll have to wait and see!
Thank you again, Quazies, for agreeing to sit down with us to talk about your work and the various loves we have for Godzilla!
QZ: Thank you very much.
