The Kaiju United Team recently caught up with RJ Axen, who has notably debuted a Showa cosplay of Godzilla 1964 at events like Days of the Dead and G-FEST. RJ is a Tokusatsu enthusiast with a deep knowledge of the genre, doing extensive research on his costumes down to the finest detail before bringing it to life. Below is our brief Q&A with RJ and a gallery of his cosplays, including the 1964 Godzilla, his in-progress Ultraman Dyna, and even a cosplay of a character from Zone Fighter.
Q: What was your first exposure to kaiju/tokusatsu media?
A: When I was around four or five, my brother put on a VHS copy of Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, of which I’m pretty sure I ended up playing so much that I wore the tape out eventually.
Q: What made you decide to do G64, the design from Mothra vs. Godzilla, specifically?
A: Godzilla 1964 has always been a personal favorite of mine, but I was scrolling through Twitter one day and saw a series of old ads from the 80’s featuring a very charming looking recreation suit that Shinichi Wakasa and his team had done. After seeing that particular suit, I knew exactly what I wanted to try basing mine off of. My only regret is giving the current version of my suit a closed mouth, as now the inspiration is even harder to recognize.
Q: Biggest challenges in having a big Godzilla-sized costume? (Logistics, getting it to G-FEST, making the tail stay on, whatever it is).
A: Storage itself is, of course, an issue since the suit itself is about nine feet long laid flat.If you plan on building a large scale costume like this, I would recommend either having a garage or a spare room that you won’t miss too much, as it will take up a pretty substantial amount of real estate. An even bigger concern is safely moving the costume around. The suit itself is fairly lightweight, but it is very long and needs to be loaded into the bed of my truck and covered by a tarp in order to get brought to conventions. I’m always anxious that something is going to catch the wind at the wrong angle and get torn clean off.
Q: Biggest tip for someone that wants to make their own cosplay/suit for the very first time?
A: I personally believe that starting out with smaller projects and working your way up is the best way to go about it. Huge, full sized monster costumes are always gonna seem appealing, but they require quite a lot of compounding experience that you can only get from working on smaller-scale projects.
Q: What tokusatsu media do you enjoy now?
A: I have watched every currently airing Ultraman show since X and continue to do so until they either stop airing yearly or become impossible to watch here in the states. I’ve been fairly on and off with Rider stuff after being incredibly disappointed with Revice, but Gavv has been very fun so far.
Q: Are there others that make costumes/other cosplayers that inspire you?
A: Sean Sumagaysay of Project Nautilus Cosplay has been a huge inspiration, and it’s actually his pattern that the body for my ’64 suit uses as a base. He has been nothing but kind and helpful anytime I come to him with some sort of question and I’m quite sure that I’m not the only person who’s had this sort of experience with him. The same could also be said about Matt Tichota, who more or less mentored me during the first iteration of my 64 suit’s fabrication.
Q: What are you currently working on?
A: I am currently working on an Ultraman Dyna suit and it’s been a learning experience, as most costumes tend to be. Both the head and color timer are 3D printed, and have been both sanded and processed in order to give them a smoother look closer to something that was pulled from a mold. The body is made out of smooth skin wetsuit neoprene, and the pattern for it was made by covering myself in duct tape and cutting seams into it. The material itself is far too thick for my sewing machine to handle, so it is mostly glued together with contact cement, although I do plan on hand sewing certain areas like the wrists and armpits that’ll have more strain placed on them.
Q: Where can we follow your work?
A: I post all of my work on my Instagram page boatscanfly_and my Twitter/X account BoatsCanFly.
