Interview: Bob Eggleton on Painting Technique, Monster Mythology

If there ever were to be a Hall of Fame for artists in the science fiction, fantasy, or kaiju realm, it is our belief that the first inductee would be Bob Eggleton. With a legendary career spanning over 40 years, Eggleton has painted your favorite monsters, gifted us with beautiful landscapes, epic tales on the high seas, and so much more. There is a story to be told within art, and Mr. Eggleton has one to tell in every piece that he paints by hand. He’s also a devoted fan of movie monsters, his love for everything from the classics to the modern MonsterVerse is well-known. Bob’s been to just about every major kaiju convention around, his warm presence at G-FEST being a favorite part of the show for many attendees. Inspiring generations of artists, Bob always tells upcoming and passionate artists who approach his table to keep creating and to follow their dreams, showcasing the profound level of impact that he has on our community. Kaiju United is proud to finally have the opportunity to catch up with Bob Eggleton and chat about being a monster kid, painting techniques, and the lasting legacy that he would like to leave.

JL: Hello, Kaiju United! I am here with Bob Eggleton. Bob has won nine Hugo Awards, twelve Chesley Awards, a Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award, the G-FEST Mangled Skyscraper, among others. Basically, if you can think of an award, he’s won it!

Bob, did you want to go ahead and introduce yourself?

BE: I’m Bob Eggleton. I’m a guy that does a lot of artwork – I’ve done so the past 41 years for a living. My predilection I like is science fiction, fantasy, science fiction… all kinds of stuff. And with that, especially the likes of Godzilla, Ultraman, and Star Trek. That’s what got me started in this business.

JL: What was your first exposure to Godzilla/kaiju media?

BE: My first exposure was, believe it or not, Godzilla on the cover of a board game called ‘The Godzilla Game’ – I believe it came out around 1964-1966. The cover had what resembled the 1962 Godzilla looming over New York City, setting it on fire. I loved that painting. I love that artwork. And you know, it was a cheap little board game. You get the 69 cents, and it’s super easy to play. You spin your thing to determine how many turns you got to take, but you could end up underneath Godzilla’s footprint and get sent to the hospital. Stuff like that had an interesting effect on a six year old mind. After that, I always wondered who Godzilla was, and my prior love for dinosaurs shaped that curiosity.

The first kaiju film I ever actually saw was called Gorgo. That was the British cousin to Godzilla, as some people like to call him. In fact, there was a strange Japanese connection to the film. Japanese investors wanted to do something to upstage Godzilla, so they went to the King Brothers to make this giant monster film in England called Gorgo. As we know, the film came out; they did what they did. There’s all kinds of monster movies that were made at that time in other countries around the world, such as Reptilicus. The first Godzilla film experience I had was back in 1970. Universal Studios would rent movies like King Kong Escapes and King Kong Vs. Godzilla to this local little theater we had called the Jerry Lewis Theatre, and for $1, you could get in the afternoon to see a movie. The latter film was probably my first big screen viewing of Godzilla. And then at the same time, American International Pictures started releasing pictures like Godzilla Vs. The Thing, perhaps better known as Mothra Vs. Godzilla, and other films like Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster and Destroy All Monsters. I saw Yog: Monster From Space that way, too!

JL: There seemed to be a strong Monsters presence in comics too, being right in the middle of the Bronze Age, with stuff like Marvel Comics’ Tomb of Dracula or Werewolf By Night.  A bit before then, you had EC Comics as well; it’s worth mentioning those perhaps contributing to the monster love in that time period.

BE: EC comics was more of the 1950’s, but we definitely had the comics of that time. Marvel Comics was the big thing back in my day, and it was the Bronze Age. And you know, they were 15-20 cents apiece, and you had a myriad of incredible titles. You had Where Monsters Dwell, Monsters on the Prowl, and Creatures on the Loose. They were all these old Jack Kirby & Stan Lee stories that were repackaged and re-released in the early 70’s, because there was a big monster boom going on. All the kids loved monsters. The magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland is a very good example: there were 350,000 copies of that magazine being reproduced every single month because it was so hot, and it was on cheap newsprint. It was priced around fifty cents on the dollar, but it didn’t matter to us. I mean, you got all that joy for that, and you waited for that. There was no Internet; there were no websites, and no social media. We had these issues coming out, and we had to rely on what we read in the Marvel Comics’ ‘Bullpen Bulletins’ where they talk about what they’re going to do next, or Famous Monsters’ ‘Fang Mail’, as they call it, where they would have previews of upcoming movies.

There were films advertised in these magazines, such as Frankenstein Meets the Giant Devilfish. All of us at the time were like. “What is that?!” There were photographs of the giant octopus from that shot for, but deleted from the US version of Frankenstein Conquers the World, but showed up at the end of some broadcasts of the Japanese version. And so everybody’s waiting for this mysterious film. Nobody knew what it was; we’re all guessing. What was that film? We never saw that one.

Then there were all these other ones, like Godzilla Vs. The Devil, which never materialized. That was an announced movie from late 1976-77 that they were going to do. Henry G Saperstein was going to pay Toho to do that film, because there was a whole Satanic Panic thing at the time with films like The Exorcist and fear of The Devil going around. Saperstein was a great guy. He distributed a number of the Godzilla movies – about five. He did them through his company UPA [United Productions of America], as it’s called.  Then of course, in 1976, a different company called Cinema Shares acquired Godzilla, and they released Godzilla Vs. Megalon. They did a huge road show, meaning that it went from state to state across the country with prints of the films. They only made roughly 30 prints of the film, that’s my estimate. They’re expensive, too. During this roadshow, the company would have a guy literally run them from state to state to different theaters and make sure they get distributed. And then, he would just collect the take at the end. Well, it was very successful, because the movie made $3 million in a US release in 1976 which pretty good money, but that’s pretty good knowing that was just a $25,000 investment on Cinema Shares’ part.

JL: Some of the influences I’ve seen you cite include Schoenherr and Thomas Cole. You’ve said that you studied these master painters extensively in the past, and that anybody that wants to get into art needs to do the same. Hypothetically, let’s say a new artist is beginning their journey. They step into a museum to study. What’s the first thing they must look at?

BE: The first thing for me is the presence of the painting. You walk in. It’s on a wall. It can be a gigantic work of art, and it has a presence to it. And that’s what we love about art. That’s what art does for us. It makes us realize that art has a presence. The other part is, is looking at things from the point of view of like, what were they painting? What were they getting into? What were they trying to tell us? And if you look back to centuries ago, with artists in the 1600’s and 1700’s, they painted dragons. They painted amazing work – dragons, monsters, all kinds of stuff. Except, they never called it “Fantasy Art”, which is what this kind of art is dubbed nowadays. They called it sublime and romanticism.

JL: Earlier you mentioned how influential Famous Monsters was to your upbringing, and the first thing I thought of was Basil Gogos’ incredible work that splashed every page.  Would you call him an influence as well?

BE: Oh yes, Gogos is amazing. He’s the grandfather to all of us; of great monster artwork. The thing is, he was such a great fine artist in his own right. The monster stuff was a small bit of what he did. And people don’t see that, they don’t want to see it, but that’s okay. We love the creature work, too. I had nice discussions with him when he was alive. And, you know, he’s nice. He’s a quiet man. He just kind of said, hey, you know, I did what I did, and so on. In terms of influences, I can name probably about 200 artists that I really am influenced by, that I really like. I can learn something from every single one of them. I can learn what their work looks like; why they are doing what they’re doing. And you know, We can learn from so many different artists, but you have to be open to that. That’s what you have to be. Younger artists need to be open to looking at lots of different artwork and getting lots of different influences – lots of different ways of thinking. Don’t be afraid of those things, either. Don’t be afraid of mixing it all up and mashing it all up and exploring new and interesting techniques. Just don’t be afraid of that.

JL: When I watched your interview on Fast Forward, you brought up underpainting, and I found that particularly fascinating. For context, my expertise is more in writing than art, so I’m not sure what underpainting entails. Can you explain that?

BE: The underpainting is where the structure of the art begins. Everything you want to say that goes on top of it starts with the underpainting, which is usually a monochromatic wash in of different kinds of work. It’s a bunch of different kinds of paints, too. And then, you establish your shadows, you start working your way in, and begin doing all the details.

JL: On average, how long does it take you to complete one piece from start to finish?

BE: I can spend anywhere from two days to a week. I’ve got to be really on and in that zone we discussed, though.

JL: In another discussion, you brought up sketching these small images before beginning the process of your painting. What are those called?

BE: Those are thumbnails! You do thumbnail artwork to get an idea of where you’re going before you get to the painting part. It is crucial to come up with a good composition before starting, and then you build everything based upon that. That becomes the backbone of everything!

JL: When you’re going to sit down and do a painting, whether it’s landscape, seascapes, Godzilla, or dragons, how do you get in your zone? How to you find that rhythm and focus?

BE: Lately that’s been really tough, because I’ve had too many things I have to do… which I call adulting things, and it’s got me behind a little bit. I’m trying to get back into doing the work that I gotta get done. I’m doing some upcoming covers for IDW, I’m doing a separate project on Ultraman. I just did some work with Mondo – those two big posters that came out. Truthfully, it’s all going very well, but it’s very hard for me to juggle sometimes. I have to sit down and really get into it. And it can be difficult when you’ve got a lot of things you got to handle in like, a month, you know? For instance, I had a July that I don’t want ever, ever again. Crazy. I was just going from one thing to another that I had to take care of, be it personal or professional.  I’ve been at this 41 years, and I’ve managed to handle and juggle everything all at once. And it all works out. Everything works out. But there’s been a few times in the last couple of months where I’m sitting there thinking, well, will this work out? I don’t know, and it’s very tiring sometimes. I’m going to be 64 this year. As I get older, it wears me down a little bit. I don’t have the energy that I once had to just do something. Sometimes I just have to shut right off and I just gotta go watch a movie or something like that, just to get out of the whole thing. It’s like a Chinese finger trap – if you try too hard to get into the zone, you won’t get into that zone. It’ll just avoid you completely.

JL: Has there been a current project that has made you feel like it will work out?

One of the fun projects I’m working with right now is a thing called ProgCore Fantasy: Dark Age of Theer. If you visit their page you can find a lot about it. It was a Kickstarter initiated by my friend, actor Todd Stashwick from Star Trek: Picard Season 3. He’s also in 12 Monkeys, NCIS, and is just such an energetic and enigmatic guy. In Picard, he played Captain Shaw and he and I, through the various currents of social media, became good friends. And so I started designing some stuff for him and working with him & his creative partner, David Nett. They’re doing this great thing, and we raised over $150,000 in the Kickstarter. If you’re into role playing games, it’s going to be sort of an agnostic Dungeons & Dragons, without it being D&D for copyright reasons, of course. It’s gonna be written stories that will also be told in animations that I worked on. The animations are new wine in an old bottle, as Todd likes to say, and wherein, you know, you’ve got these great ideas and the things we loved about the 70’s thrown in there, like the Rankin Bass cartoons and Ralph Bakshi’s Lord of the Rings. And it’s all that kind of, that animation, that kind of look, and the progressive rock of the time and all that, and all of that is being dialed into this and fueling this. And so I’m designing some elements and some landscapes and some fantasy dragons for the project; I’m just so excited about it!

It’s kind of a passion project. That’s what happens when you get older. You want to get into passion projects. You want to get into the things people remember you for. One of those things I got to do recently was illustrating the original novelization of King Kong, and that was from, oh, 1932, and we released it for the 90th anniversary of the original 1933 film last year. The book sold really well, so I’m really happy about it. Actually, I was involved with two King Kong projects for his 90th anniversary last year, which is kind of fun, because King Kong really was the progenitor of all the giant monsters. He came along, and then Godzilla was inspired by him, and so on and so forth. And now what’s happening? Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire was one of the hottest movies of the year after Kong faced off with Godzilla again in 2021. King Kong is now officially in the Titan universe. I mean, it’s sort of King Kong’s enduring legacy. That’s kind of a fun thing to be involved with and contribute to.

JL: When you step into the shoes of some of these iconic franchises with so much legacy behind it, is there any pressure like having to step in and make sure it’s done with love and care?

BE: I want to make sure that people will really like it. There’s other things, like when I did that King Kong novel, I could not use any of the trademark images from the movies, so I had to kind of make up my own King Kong, but I gave it a little bit of a recognition that harkens back to the movie. So there’s a little bit of touchstones in there that brings us back to that kind of thing.

JL: Let’s discuss your work with Godzilla.  You’ve collaborated with Dark Horse, IDW, Spiral Toy, Random House, and so many more. What project in particular brought you the most joy or passion?

BE: I would say way back when I did the Godzilla stuff for Random House. They were cashing in on the Godzilla 1998 film, and were a lot of merchandising for the film, like toys and stuff like that. Random House jumped on this idea of doing books and kids’ books based on it. So I did a lot of work for those, and I was really happy about that. And then, I worked for Dark Horse Comics, and I was able to write a story for them, where Godzilla goes backward in time, and he discovers this Cretaceous monster that he ends up fighting. The funny part is that he goes back in time to battle this monster, and during that battle, the meteor hits the Yucatan Peninsula. Part of that became the basis for the story from Rebirth of Mothra III, which Toho did in in 1998. Mothra goes backwards in time, finds a giant Cretaceous version of King Ghidorah eating dinosaurs and all that. Around that time, I went to Japan, and I was visiting Toho Studios.  I met the writer of Mothra III, and I was able to say to him, “You know, I did this story in issue 16 of the Godzilla comics.” And he goes, “Yeah, that was a great story!” After he said that, the crew in the room were all just grinning at me, perhaps thinking, “We can use this because we can!”

JL: You wrote Thunder in the Past (Godzilla Issue #16) for Dark Horse and an issue of Godzilla in Hell for IDW. Have you considered writing more?

BE:  I’d love to write more stuff! I’m back working with IDW on a five cover series on something they’re doing. I don’t want to talk about too much about it, but I’d like to approach them about writing another Godzilla comic.

JL: Over the years, you’ve shared some fantastic stories of being at Toho or working on various projects. What’s the story behind your experience with the 1998 Godzilla design?

BE: That situation was insane, because they wanted me to do these coloring book drawings. The money was really great; it was too good to turn down. The publisher was like, we’re going to need it done in a very short period of time. We need everything done in something like five weeks. And it was like two or three books worth of drawings. I had to think of all kinds of mazes and games. For example, so here’s the maze you have to get through to get the people out of the city and avoid Godzilla. I said well, that means I got to see Godzilla. Now, this was around March before the movie came out. And I said to the editor, “I’m gonna need to see Godzilla.” So I got a package in the mail, and it’s got lots of pictures of Matthew Broderick and lots of pictures of Maria Pitillo and Jean Reno. It’s got some blurry pictures of buildings being smashed. And I said, “Yeah, but there’s no monster. I want the monster.” They said to me, “Oh, yeah, we can’t show that to you.”

I was like, “Well, how am I going to do that without seeing what the creature looks like?” So the editor, Alice, she got on the phone with Dean Devlin, and got me cleared to get some pictures. After a while, I got a fax in the mail. Yes, a fax. That’s how we did things back then. I had to sign my name to it as soon as it came in. The package basically was like, you know we’re gonna send you a package, and if you reveal anything in that package, you know we’ll kill you, and you know your life will be worth mud, and so on. So I get the package from Centropolis Productions, and it’s all these photos.

You have to understand, late 90s photo color photocopies are pretty rudimentary and pretty awful looking at a point. So I got these really rudimentary photocopies, and it was all of the maquettes along with some of the Patrick Tatopoulos things that he had built, the head and all that kind of stuff. I’m expecting, wow, I’m gonna see something I never seen in my life. I see it… and it’s a giant iguana. It’s a giant lizard. I said, it’s a freaking marine iguana! I went, what’s the secret? I mean, yeah, it’s cool for what it is, but it’s no big secret. People are gonna figure this one out in about five seconds. And I said, you know, I’m sorry to say this, but as a Godzilla fan, people are gonna say this isn’t Godzilla. It’s a lizard.

JL: Tell us about going to the premiere of the film in New York City.

That coloring book work got me an invite to the premiere of the movie in New York at Madison Square Garden. It was on this gigantic screen, and the place was just filled.  One funny moment I remember is when Godzilla dies at the end on the bridge. Matthew Broderick’s character walks up to him and and you hear that he’s dying. This is supposed to be a cinematic moment, right? Somebody from the audience yelled right out loud, “Broderick, you suck!”

There was this kind of a party zone for the cast down below us. Interestingly, it was a bit of a wrap party as well, because the film was completed so quickly. They brought Styrofoam tanks in and all this kind of stuff to make it look kind of cool and like a battle zone. I saw Matthew Broderick from a distance attending the party, but I didn’t get to meet him up close.

Outside, you had some news reporters from Japan. There was this guy in a tuxedo and tails, and he’s describing it all in Japanese. After speaking, he takes the tails of his tuxedo and pulls them up and walks hunched over, like this new Godzilla did. He’s trying to explain to the news, to the people back in Japan, this is how Godzilla looks. It was so funny to watch him lift his tail up like that to demonstrate how this new Godzilla moved!

JL: What’s your favorite story from your experiences in Japan?

BE: I think my favorite story was being at Toho Studios for the filming of Godzilla x Mechagodzilla and seeing the special effects. I was an extra in that – a running extra – on a 105 degree day. It was that hot, and I had to wear a coat and long pants! We did 10 hours out on the hot sun, and it was insane. I put 10 hours of my day into this for 10 seconds of film of me actually showing up in the finished movie. If you see me, you can see I’m actually moving. I’m in this dark jacket, and it moves quickly up and out of frame as they do a look right down this street where everybody’s supposed to be running from Godzilla coming up at Yokohama Hakkeijima Sea Paradise.

Tomiyama, the president of Toho, was there helping out during breaks. He was personally giving out lunches, which I thought was kind of fun. And then he said to me, of course, you’re coming back to the tokusatsu filming, right?  Come on by to Stage 9. I got a nice tour of Toho Studios; my second at the time. I got to see them filming some of the Tokusatsu work, specifically the part where Godzilla steps on this little house, and the whole house blows up. It’s in the beginning of the movie. In the dubbed version, some guy goes, “My house!”, very amusingly. In this sequence, they had Tom Kitagawa, and he was in these latex Godzilla pants. He was stepping on shoe boxes to practice stepping on the house. He’s getting his foot up and down to get the right amount of momentum in his step. He had his crew with him, and they’re like, get your foot up, come down, and crash right down! They had this beautiful, detailed, miniature little house, and had all squibs in it to blow up when it blew when his foot hit it, and so he had to lift his foot up at the exact height and time to come right down on it. And everything blew up all over the place. I had a piece of stuff hit me in the chest! I was honored that I was hit by Godzilla debris.

And then, they would run over to the video playback to see if they got it right. I was explained that if they screwed it up, if Tom screwed up, or he didn’t get the thing right, then they would have to go back and rebuild the whole little house again, and put the squibs, the charges in and all that. It’ll take a week to do it. So it’ll set them back a week. When they were filming it, the miniature was on a tabletop, maybe two or three feet off the ground. There’s a little guy underneath, and he had the camera pointing up at the house. You can see the angle in the movie.  Godzilla’s foot comes down on top of all that, and it blows up. And then he gets up, and his hair is blown back with gray ash, and his whole face is completely gray covered. He pulls his glasses off, and the only flesh you can see is around his eyes. And then he goes, Oh. I think I was too close. (laughs) Oh, it was hilarious. It was absolutely hilarious.

JL: What are the essential qualities someone must have to become a professional illustrator?

BE: Time management is essential. You gotta have some skill discipline, too. I’ll also bring talent into it, because that’s an obvious thing. I think everybody’s got their own talents; I really believe that, but you gotta have skill, drive, and a bit of luck to do this. You also have to have the professionalism to match it – meeting deadlines and taking people seriously when they need something. Talk with them. Get constant communication going with people you work with. That’s important! It encompasses both networking and just saying hi to people, contacting people and stuff like that, which has become a really weird thing in our more email and digital society. You don’t actually meet people, now you just email each other. There used to be a time when phones were ringing off the hook! Even with all those cell phones out there, nobody’s calling. They’re just texting. And then they’re like, what will it be about? You It’s like, oh, I just want to confirm something with you, then okay, see you later. There’s no calling just to say what’s up anymore.

JL: Have the newer generation of artists and creators taught you anything? What lessons can we learn from them?

BE: Absolutely. I learned that I like learning new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking, and that maybe I shouldn’t be so set in some ways. I should be open to other ideas and other things. I look at viewpoints from younger people, so I understand what they’re saying. I’m one of the old guys that understands this kind of thing. It’s just a different world now than when I was younger, but I totally understand, and I’m willing to listen. I like listening to what a lot of younger people have to say. I’m really fascinated with how they perceive the world and how they they view things, and it makes me look at things in my own different way. You know, it’s an open way of being.

JL: Through your journeys at Toho Studios, you have made several lifelong friendships, including fellow artist and creator Yuji Kaida. How do you guys maintain that friendship and connection through the language barrier? Do you speak Japanese?

BE: We have an interpreter, a friend who’s good in both languages. I know some basic stuff, though. For example, I know how to be polite, and I know you’ve gotta understand a little bit about Japan as a country, the Japanese language and Japanese customs before you go to Japan. You must understand what’s impolite, what is and isn’t accepted culturally, and so on. Most of the time, it’s just learning manners. Yuji [Kaida] is a fabulous artist, a great guy, and always an inspiration. Always absolutely

JL: What is different about Japanese art compared to more Western peers? What do you appreciate about their work?

BE: What I like about Japanese art, is that they love the painted movie posters. They still love the artwork, be it digital or regular paint, however you want to work. They still love that kind of imaginative look to things. And it’s in their book covers, a lot of their movie posters, and so on. It’s a little different than over here, which has become a little bit more functional and utilitarian.

JL: On a deeper level, what do these monsters mean to you?

BE: I love the lore. For example, dragons, they’re something ancient, something much bigger than us, something gigantic. I mean, the MonsterVerse is exploring this in a big way. Their story is that we have these monsters and Titans that go back millions of years. And the Hollow Earth thing. I love all that stuff! I really enjoy the opening credits of Godzilla Vs. Kong, where you had these cave paintings and great hieroglyphs, and there’s all of these drawings of what Godzilla and Kong looked like to different cultures. Historically, that’s how dragons are. It’s a primeval thing – how we like tales of dragons and creatures. It all ties into mythology for me, and so at its core, it’s a great, deep legendarium. Monsters are a great mythology to me, and Godzilla, Kong, all of them, are all part of that.

JL: Lastly, what story would you like to tell about Bob Eggleton, the man. What would you like your legacy to be?

BE: To put it simply, I did what I like doing, and I pursued what I loved. It’s not been an easy road, but I would do it all over again. I mean, it’s the only thing I can do. And at the end of the day, I’m realizing a lot of these people who are in corporate jobs and corporate work, it seems on the surface, oh, yeah they make money. Then they realize how soulless it is. At the end, they’ve realized that, oh, my God, I wish I’d done something more creative earlier on in my life.

For instance, when I get kids coming up to me at G-FEST, and they’re telling me that my stuff inspired them to read, that’s wonderful. There was one autistic boy that really impacted me. He came up, and he was telling me, in his best way, how much I inspired him to draw. I mean, good lord, that really made me feel like, yeah, okay, I did something. I mean, that’s amazing, it really keeps me going; it fuels me.  Money just doesn’t buy that. You can’t get that out of money. The impact from knowing that you make a difference in someone’s life. There’s this other guy, and he comes up and brings me drawings that he does every single year. I’m not going to mention his name, but without fail, he brings his drawings every single year to me. You can tell he has to really be brave to come up and talk to me. And he said to me, while showing me this art, that you inspired this, thank you, and stuff like that. It’s just wonderful. I hope I have a bunch of kids that I inspired to do something go on and pursue their dreams and do all kinds of fun things.

JL: Thank you for sitting down with Kaiju United.

BE: Thanks for having me!