Godzilla Stamp Information: (PICS NOW ONLINE)

So how does he do it? Well with a little bit of practice and a lot of patience. I've been illustrating now for over 20 years. The past couple of years I've done over 200 book covers for young adult thrillers. That's where the bright colors came from. I wanted my covers to leap at you, so I saturate the color. Working with an airbrush that means spraying the color over & over. My union with Inter-Governmental Philatelic Inc. began 2 years ago when the art director Mordechai saw my work and asked if I would be interested in doing some postage stamps of animals. I asked him if he meant individual stamps or a painted scene with animals in it and he said, "whatever you want". Somehow Rudyard Kiplings' Jungle Book popped into my head and when I mentioned it he said, "sure, let's give it a try". It took me a couple of days to work out which animals went where because I wanted all the characters to be in perspective. The painting had to look great over all, but also each of the 12 individual stamps had to be able to stand on their own. When it was all finished I felt that I had met the challenge. Now I was very skeptical that IGPC would be able to reproduce them and maintain all my detail and color. Wow! When I saw the finished product I was so impressed that I asked immediately to do another. My wife and I had been painting a mural in our local school cafeteria that was an underwater adventure. This was quite a departure from my normal painting size of 23-1/2" by 29" because it was 14' high and about 110' long. We were painting life size fish, dolphin and seals. In facing all the new problems of painting on this scale I wished I was doing these fish with my airbrush at home. It was then that I thought to propose Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Seamaid, which Disney turned into the Little Mermaid, to Mordechai & IGPC. Funny how things happen. Obviously IGPC was happy with the reproduction quality and my design of Jungle Book because they too had a proposal to make. One I couldn't turn down. I mentioned my idea and Mordechai said great, but first I have an idea too. How about trying Jules Vernes' 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This was exactly what I wanted to do but a different story. Even a more dramatic one. Here I really went over the top. The painting size doubled and I needed 25 stamps. There are four separate backgrounds all blended together. Painting this one was a nightmare because of the complexity of the painting, and so many elements overlapping each other. It took me a month to do but I was pleased with the finished product. Never would I try to do that again. Simplify! Simplify! So with the the Little Mermaid sketch I chose one element for the background. My daughter, Tilli was perfect for the main character and I decided to work on only 16 stamps to complete this scene. My sketch was approved and I started to paint, when Mordechai called me with news of a new project that had to take precedence if I was interested. He wanted me to do something that would tie in with the soon to be released Godzilla. One of my favorite movies as a kid. I said yes in a heart beat. They only wanted six stamps this time. I started looking in the internet for reference pictures of Godzilla and his adversaries. I couldn't decide whether fans would like to see 6 different versions of Godzilla or a painted scene with Godzilla and his buddies. I contacted Chris Nickerson through his e-mail figuring here's someone who will have a definite opinion and he did. That night I did sketch #1 and faxed it to IGPC to see if they thought I was on the right track. Next day they gave me a go ahead, So I tightened everything up and submitted sketch #2. That being approved I went ahead with my finished painting. I just had to destroy Tokyo as one of the stamps as a tribute to all the destruction reeked by these monsters. The color for the sky came from www.Godzilla.com site which I'm sure you're all familiar with. Rodan and Mothra were also movies I enjoyed, so I wanted to include them too. Ghidra was a classic and had to be there, and Battras merit was that he fit into the layout. It's been fun and now we'll have to see which one of the Caribbean countries gets the go ahead to publish the stamps.