antthegao

[antthegao]

Title(s): Smile Bomb - LegendGaogamon // A Cruel Angel's Thesis - LegendGaogamon: Merciful Mode

Original Upload Date: July 12th, 2024

(Original Created Date: September 2019)

This is one of those rare cases where I did have a finished picture, then some reason deleted it off of my Twitter, then revisited the idea, with the original render and a new render, in the form of "Merciful Mode." (For some reason, I mixed up "Superior Mode" and "Merciful Mode," but like one Digimon had the Merciful Mode title with their new form, which was Omnimon, while Superior Mode was given to more than one. First ones I think of is Shoutmon X7 and Arresterdramon. Guess my mind kind of combined them together since only those 3 Digimon had that weird "mode" title.)

Anyway, when I went back to redraw LegendGaogamon for the new form, I was watching both Yu Yu Hakusho (which I need to finish) and the Netflix dub's Neon Genesis Evangelion. Both openings were stuck in my head, so that's what inspired both backgrounds for each picture.

This is the weirdest project ever, with the amount of back and forth I did, with the rendering, redrawing, redoing, and everything! However, I can positively say: this is the definitive versions of these pictures, because God knows how many more times I'm gunna go back to this project, because of something!

[antthegao]

Title: LegendGaogamon Strikin' On In

Original Upload Date: September 13th, 2024

This picture had an interesting coincidence. I saw this pose that SSJ2 Goku was doing, for a promo art for the Fusion Reborn movie:

and while I was drawing this, I saw this tweet trending as well:

and I did make it official that in order to digivolve into LegendGaogamon, you do have to Biomerge with Gaomon! Since Biomerging is technically two characters sharing a "new body" in the form of a Mega-level Digimon, I say it counts! It was fun to put two-and-two together, since I do love drawing LegendGaogamon in DBZ-like poses, since he is heavily influenced by Vegito & Gogeta!

[antthegao]

Title: Yagami the Grovyle (TwilightVolt)

Original Upload Date: September 27th, 2021

Another gift art I drew for another online friend who I never knew, were in the same websites/group/activities at the same time without knowing each other, until a little later after that convenience. He's definitely been an awesome friend that shares so many interests and continued to be friends up, counting the amount of years we've known each other! Like all my friends, I appreciate you being my friend and wish the best for him as well!

[antthegao]

Title: Wiley the MONKE (HyperionNova)

Original Upload Date: August 28th, 2021

A quick gift art I drew for a online friend who's known me for a long time. Sadly we don't get to chat as much as we used to back then, but I'm always happy to see him pop up every once in a while in the server we occupy together in Discord! He's definitely made me appreciate the Chimchar line and cowboys much more than I did back then! I know he's super busy with his RL life, but if he does see this, I appreciate you being my friend for so long and wish the best for him!

[antthegao]

Title: Pursuing the Blaziken Self (AwesomePlayerZ)

Original Completion Date: April 29, 2024

A piece I never released to the public, besides for the friend I drew this for: it was a quick gift art I drew for a new online friend, since we have gotten so close, at this point of time. He had a Blaziken-sona, and since I made him play through PERSONA 4 Golden, at the time, and enjoying the hell out of it, I had to draw this for him! It was fun, since I've never drawn Blaziken before! Why not, for a friend?

Here's one with the iconic yellow background, to fit P4, and one transparent version:

[antthegao]

Title: Wolf Cousins SPARKING!

Original Upload Date: September 19, 2024

I have such an interesting history with Bergamo, it's funny to look back on. Back in 2017, when Bergamo was revealed for the Tournament of Power arc for Dragon Ball Super, the DB fandom was quick to harass me, just because they thought I ripped Bergamo off for my Digimon character. First off, they did not read timestamps for s**t because I debuted LegendGaogamon back in 2015, YEARS before Bergamo came into existence. Secondly, these DB fans WEREN'T even Digimon fans! Why were you jumping franchises to harass out of no reason!? Still though, when I did see Bergamo, I did think this fandom had the other way around. Bergamo had WAY too similarities to my Digimon Mega. Really?? Blue wolf man, with a red scarf?? I mean, come on.

So, you could say I made a picture idea "out of spite." Here's the original version I made, back in 2017, when Bergamo was doing that exhibition match with Goku! Funny enough: the original title for this piece was called "Wolf Cousins."

Now that 2024 is giving us a new Budokai Tenkaichi (which I sadly missed on the originals back in the PS2 era), you could say my hype levels are crazy high! But seeing him for Sparking Zero, I thought it'd be fun to do a "SPARKING" version of my initial idea! This was definitely fun to go back to, especially how much my drawing ability has improved! just by a little This is also the first picture where I'm testing out some new stuff, from a new line art pen to draw with, a more "colorful" approach to shading, instead of the 25% shade I do with the color Black, and upping the resolution to 300 dpi. So it'll feel a bit more crisp, at least, in my eyes.

[antthegao]

Titles: Ant-pool & Gao-lverine (Mask and Maskless Versions)

Original Upload Date: July 25th, 2024

In anticipation for Deadpool & Wolverine, earlier this month, I did an X-Men live-action movie marathon (including the Deadpool movies), since I never really grew up watching these movies. I did grow up with when they were coming out, but they never grabbed my attention, until the Deadpool movies peaked a little bit more interest in the mutant side of Marvel. After hearing the 3rd Deadpool movie being a celebration of sorts, for the Fox X-Men universe, I figured why not give the X-Men a shot, expecially Wolverine. It's funny because there was no real reason why I didn't like Wolverine: specifically Hugh Jackson as Wolverine. I was a stupid kid who thought he was "annoying." NOW, I wanna slap my kid self silly, because I've now grown to really appreciate Wolverine and the X-Men!

So, this thought came to my head while marathoning. This was super fun to draw, especially at the thought of Gaomon dressed like Wolverine and sporting that iconic mask! To be real, my Gaomon would relate more to Wolverine than Cap. But right on time did I finish this, before going to go see the movie myself!

[antthegao]

Titles: Ant & Gao (Digimon 25th Anniversary Edition Pieces [Chibi & Regular])

Original Upload Date: April 16th, 2024

After seeing Digimon celebrate the anime franchise's 25th anniversary with two different pieces

(1)

(2)

I know I had to draw my duo in these two different styles for each piece! Definitely not because of my hyperfixation of my own OCs since I'm a conceded pr**k. But I definitely had a blast drawing these goobers again in the varying styles too!

https://x.com/AntTheGao/status/1780448215973970419

[antthegao]

Title: Gaomon & Koromaru's All-Out Attack

Original Upload Date: January 31st, 2024

I wanted to do this meme so bad, but at the same time, I couldn't think of something clever, until I realized the closer Persona 3 Reload was coming out, this idea finally came to me! Attack of the good boys!

https://x.com/AntTheGao/status/1752779966704758871

[antthegao]

Title: The Blue Guys

Original Upload Date: November 8th, 2023

This was a fun, but quick picture I threw together, in anticipation for a friend and I going to see Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning. I had never drawn Veemon before and I went through too many rough drafts, before I was like "SCREW IT!" and drew whatever came to mind! I think it still turned out good!

https://x.com/AntTheGao/status/1722417193047163130

[antthegao]

Titles: Full Character Reference Sheets: Anthony "Ant" Matsuo // Gaomon // LegendGaogamon - version 2.0

Original Upload Date: November 11th, 2023 (11/11 baby!)

Honestly, I did not expect to do the equivalent of a "video game update/patch" for my character references, but LegendGaogamon's "various colors" in his color scheme was bugging me so much, I had to basically sync them together so I have less color "splurging" for future projects! However, what ended up happening is that the references did look a bit "barren" a bit, not realizing all the energy went towards the renders for these referecnes.

So, I took advantage of my "tweaking" and basically retouched these references back up, putting in proper height differences, since "showing is better than telling" how tall they are, some repositioning of renders, now in better quality, and to throw in some tidbits too! Some in-lore stuff, like what attacks characters have and what they're like, to some design inspirations and callbacks to my past I remembered inspired why I did that for my characters. Either way, for basically an unexpected update, I'm quite happier with these new renditions!

Link to the original version:

[antthegao]

Title: Spider-DigiBuds 2

Original Upload Date: October 17th, 2023

You have NO idea how excited I am for the newest Spider-Man game for the PS5! So much so, I had to do a sequel of sorts to an art piece I did, with my duo dressed in some of the suits from the "Spider-Man: Miles Morales" game! Since we haven't had our hands on the game just yet to check out the suits, I just did the standard suits Peter and Miles for Ant and Gaomon! I'm still hella suprised by how I was able to make this piece within 2 days! REALLY happy with how this turned out!

Original "Spider-DigiBuds," made back in 2020!

[antthegao]

Title: Jet the Hawkmon

Original Upload Date: September 27th, 2023

Something I wanted to draw for a friend's birthday! TwilightVolt is a fan of Sonic Riders, especially for the cool art the game has for the characters, so why not try drawing in that style for his gift? (or at least try to.) Tried drawing his Digimon OC, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

[antthegao]

Title: Together for the Birthday

Original Upload Date: August 29th, 2023

A quick sketch I drew for myself for my (my OC's) birthday, with his Pokemon and Digimon partner with him! (In reality, they do hate each other, but they'll only be together only if their human trainer is with them.)

[antthegao]

Titles: Full Character Reference Sheets: Anthony "Ant" Matsuo // Gaomon // LegendGaogamon

Original Upload Date: July 7th, 2023

A project I have never been so "in-depth" for, but I knew I was due to some proper character references. I think what really brought this upon was me trying to commission someone, only to have NO "real" character references for the artist to work off of. So, I figured after all this time: how come I haven't made a proper one yet?

...now I know why: nearly 1 1/2 years, this ballooned into a project I'm SO happy how it turned out! From trying to be as detailed as I can, TO not going overboard with the details, a LOT of back-and-forth was happening behind the scenes, since there's no real "manual" on how to make a character sheet for your characters(s). But, I feel like I've got a good balance on how to make ones. At least now, I can say I finally have proper sheets for these guys, after how-many-years I've drawn them without one!

[antthegao]

Title: when your Pokémon and Digimon partners don't get along (WIP)

Original Upload Date: February 20th, 2023

An old sketch I forgot about that IDK if I'll finish! The title for this was "when your pokemon and digimon partners don't get along.jpeg"

I actually don't know if Gaomon or Empoleon would get along, considering how different they are!

[antthegao]

Title: One Way Dream

Original Upload Date: December 6th, 2022

Boost your spirit off the ground, I'm a spark that won't go out. We can go much higher now, Gravity can't hold us down. We're only at the beginning of this one way dream.

This year hasn't been the best for me but definitely brought me joy to draw this out before the year ended. These are based on the Digi-protag cards that the Digimon Card Game have been releasing, and I wanted to give it a shot, with my favorite OC duo and their Mega form! I'll jump on board at any chance to draw LegendGaogamon in a badass way, especially with the two people that can form him! I also have the renders that are "outside their card boundaries" of Anthony Matsuo, Gaomon, and LegendGaogamon!