Last year, my husband picked up a few of the original 1950s Godzilla/Gojira movies. I was a little skeptical about this sudden shift in his taste in movies, but he insisted that it was all in the name of cheesy fun. And cheesy fun they were! Our youngest really got into the movies and watching them became one of our weekly family events. When we finished them we picked up a few more Godzilla movies to keep the fun going. From there, we branched out and picked up a few featuring two other giant monsters, Gamera and Mothra.
Gamera is a tusked turtle, not too far removed from Godzilla’s reptile form. But, Mothra is an unexpected twist in the sea of giant, scaly monsters. She’s female. She’s a moth. And, to beat the other monsters, she glitters them.
Glittah!
The glitter is meant to be poison powder, but really … it’s glitter. It’s absurd. It’s awesome. And I decided that I needed a Mothra bracelet.
I started with Blue Deserts to represent her poisonous glitter gift (thankfully, I have a few ;)) but when I added the orange, yellow, and white beads to represent Mothra’s colours, they didn’t compliment each other. So, I pulled the Blue Deserts and stole my somewhat glittery Magical Lamp from my dragon bracelet to use instead. Problem solved. One of Mothra’s other attack methods is to spew tiny silk threads at monsters to disable them, so I added Ball of Yarn and the bracelet was almost done.
In a few of the movies, Mothra (or her babies) go through a larval stage, which is surprisingly quite cute. I was tempted to craft a blobby little larva, but I decided to skip it this time. Although I decided not to make the larva, from the start I was pretty sure that I was going to make an adult Mothra bead. Trollbeads has their Dancing Butterfly and Ohm Beads also has a Butterfly, but they don’t quite capture Mothra’s appearance. She actually changes quite a bit between the movies – sometimes looking more like a butterfly, sometimes more like a moth – but I wanted to represent her look in the first movie that I saw her in, Godzilla and Mothra: The Battle for Earth where she has more of a moth-like shape.
I love the final result! Although the wings aren’t quite right, I think that they’re pretty close. I love her face. And her nose/mandibles. And her little feet. And, I managed to give her sparkly eyes! The eyes were the final piece, added after I fired and oxidized the bead. I started with two blue zirconias but wasn’t happy with how they turned out. With a bit more browsing I found these lovely opals from Starseedcharms on Etsy.
Although I can technically say that I stuck a stone in a hard place, I’m not quite ready to cross my second resolution off of my list; I still want to try and make a bead where I add the stone first and then fire the bead.
Do you have a favourite movie creature?
She is beautiful, and I am so impressed with your bead making, it’s awesome. She really turned out well, and was worth all the teaser pics on IG!!
I loved those cheesy Godzilla movies as a teenager but haven’t watched them for years! Happy memories of watching with my little brother.
Thank you Debbie :) I am really pleased with how she turned out!
My husband and youngest still watch Godzilla every week while I’m out with my oldest for one of her activities. We really need to pick up a few more so that they don’t have to keep watching the same ones over and over :D But she won’t watch any of the Mothra movies if I’m not there <3
SUPER CUTE! I love her <3
Ignoring the stones for now, this looks like quite a complicated build with the wings… and kudos for the stones!
Mars xx
Thanks Mars! I love her too – my poor husband had to listen to me go on quite a bit about how much I loved her and how excited I was about her :D
He was also quite a good listener when I couldn’t find the right stones. I went on about them quite a bit ;) I am really excited that I managed to find these opals, although they are a smidge too big; I had to drill into the fired bead a bit to make the original holes bigger (I had planned on 2mm stones, these are 2.5mm). But the sheen to them works much better than the blue zironias which were too uniform in colour for her eyes.
I think the opals are an inspired choice! Definitely better than a uniform colour for this beauty so I can see why you chose them.
So exciting seeing your designs develop and take shape, love the inspiration too!
Whilst I wait to see if my glass panel works, I need to come up with some new ideas and designs for the next stage… going away for the weekend but taking my sketchbook and glass book so I can work out some ideas… hopefully the trip will help :)
Mars xx
Yup, the more I look at the opals, the more I just love them :) I wore the bracelet for the first time today since I added the eyes. I was so afraid of losing them! But I was working at home today, so I figured that if one did fall out, at least I’d have a limited number of places to look for it :D
Can’t wait to see your glass panel!
Very nice, Tracy! I think Gollum is pretty cool as a movie creature!
Thank you Liesbet :)
Gollum is a great movie creature!
Gorgeous little bead! I don’t think I have a favourite movie creature, but then, I haven’t given it much thought. (I did quite like the first, cute gremlin…)
Ah, yes! The furry gremlin was rather cute :) It’s hard to find cute monsters, but I think Mothra does fall into the cute category. Although I guess it’s also a bit of a stretch for me to call her a monster since she’s mostly on the side of good. But, she’s also about the size of a building …. :D
Wow! That moth bead is gorgeous! It’s so fun that you based your creation of it off of a movie. How long did it take you to put this bead together?
It’s tough to say how long it took .. probably a few hours over the course of about three weeks? I like to have each piece dry before I add bits on so that I don’t accidentally squish any parts. I did the base first (around the hole), then added the rest of the body, then the wings, then the face and the feet. And then the little bits of shaping for the wings, mandible and to shape the feet more. And it rarely goes the way that I want it to :D I had to break off one wing and attach it again because it didn’t dry at the angle that I wanted it to.