Not Yeti Friday - Gigas

From the Wikipedia entry: "List of Ultraman Monsters":

"First Appearance: Episode 25 'Rogue Comet Cyphon'"

"Gigas (or Gigass) was 39 meters tall and weighed 15,000 tons, with a design and character very similar to that of the legendary yeti. Gigas was a natural creature who lived in the mountains of Japan until the comet Cyphon (Tsuiphon) pass close towards Earth's orbit, causing the giant to reveal himself."

"At the same time and location, the Science Patrol were searching for six missing nuclear weapons that could accidentally go off. After being chased by Gigas, they then encountered the comet's own native monster Dorako. The two monsters soon met with one another and fought for hours until a third beast, the violent Red King, who unfortunately has also eaten the said missing bombs, appears and easily defeats them both. After Red King kills Dorako by tearing off his wings, Gigas fled the scene, only to be destroyed soon afterwards by a new weapon developed by the Science Patrol."

Via The Vault of Buncheness

Scooby-Doo Yeti

I found some screenshots from the 2007 feature-length animated film "Chill Out, Scooby-Doo!". Here is what the yeti from it looks like close-up:



White hair and blue face like Bumble. But very bestial.

Scooby-Doo and gang have gone up against the Abominable Snowman before. In 2006, I blogged about an episode from classic Scooby called "That's Snow Ghost" and then in 2007 about one of the covers of the Scooby comic book series, which features an even more bestial yeti. Recently, I blogged about Scott Jeralds's cover too.

I think that the continued popularity of Scooby-Doo and the yeti come from the same place. We like our solitary, unknowable monsters haunting their icy caves or their broken-down amusement parks. We like our intrepid explorers sneaking around their lairs, risking all to get chased and possibly eaten by the frightening monsters. There's always the possibility the explorers will unmask the monsters, take away their power. They may not be monsters after all. They may just be the common, the knowable, the natural - just a person, with human foibles and desires: a base criminal, a greedy old man, a friend in disguise trying to keep people away to protect a noble cause. We want our monsters to make us afraid, and then we want our meddlers, our tricksters, to take the fear away.

Ontiveros Yeti

"A-Bomb" by Martin Ontiveros

Via Monster Brains

Hie Yeti

Digital painting by Vincent Hie

I like the effect he evokes with the light, the snow, the scale. Icy breath is a nice touch.

Making Faces

Mummy 3 will probably be remembered mostly for its yeti.

Chris Gun was the concept artist for the film, and on his blog, he has been posting production art from it.

These are a set of facial expressions he created for the animators to draw from:


You can see these bigger here.

I've read a main inspiration for the yetis' design were these cute guys:



And two years later after the film, James Cameron's Avatar featured a race of limber, leaping CGI cat people.

Are CAT-PEOPLE "in" right now?

(Answer: yes.)



Does this mean there is going to be a revival of the musical "CATS" but done with a bunch of YETIS instead?

(Answer: no.)

Fifty Years of Yeti (...and Some of his Influences)

Cosma Yeti Crab

A lovely digital painting of the yeti crab by Mr. Oscar Cosma.

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P.S. The yeti crab has been getting a lot of press lately because the Census of Marine Life announced this week that their final report will be released on October 4, 2010 (about 8 months from now). Although it will feature 5,000 newly discovered ocean creatures, the yeti crab is the clear star of the show. It gets mentioned in every article about the Census, front and center. I expect this recent resurgence in awareness to inspire a whole new generation (how often is there a new generation again?) to venerate the beautiful kiwa hirsuta in art and song.