#the tmnt pit has influenced me

[adorabledrugl0rd]

Did I make a turtlesona? Perhaps

[ryukang1995]

My latest drawing that pits Liu Kang from Mortal Kombat against Jason Lee Scott aka The Red Ranger from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

After seeing the crossover comic of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighter, I just had to make this. For the designs, I went with a huge movie influence.

Liu Kang's design is more or less what he wore in the 2021 Mortal Kombat movie with the Black pants, the White uniform top, and the Red headband and sash. With that being said, he also has a strong resemblance to Robin Shou from the 90s MK movies. I also added the bracers to his look because I honestly can't picture Liu Kang without them (they're just as essential to his design as his headband imo).

The Red Ranger's look is from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie with the more armored look as opposed to spandex. I recognize that the Red Ranger in that movie was Rocky and not Jason, but this idea is also based on the Sega Genesis game based on the movie where you can play as the original Red, Black and Yellow Rangers (Jason, Zack and Trini) for some brief flashback levels.

Admittedly, this was my first time drawing a Power Rangers character in a long time, so it was a challenge trying to get the pose and details right, but I quite like how it turned out. Power Rangers was a huge part of my childhood alongside MK, TMNT and Street Fighter, so this was a trip down nostalgia lane for me.

That's all for now.

[attract-mode-collective]

It’s Zelda 2, But Starring “The Zelda Trio”

Arne Niklas, whom you may recall as the artist behind that in-between a NES and SNES in a different timeline, is back with an alternate take on everyone’s not so favorite Legend of Zelda, aka Zelda 2: The Adventure of Link (though for a hot minute there, it was the cool thing to claim as being your secret fave).

Just like last time, Arne likes to lay it ALL out, and as someone who also has massive reasons for the tiniest of details, his rabbit hole is one that I very much admire and enjoy. Here’s his explanation behind the four figures above, BTW/FYI…

“One way to lessen the monotony of a game is to offer multiple playable characters… which character that you choose has more to do with play-style than solving puzzles, and I like that. In TMNT, the turtles act as lives, making you use all of them.

Three characters seems right for a Zelda game, of course. They could each embody a triforce piece - Wisdom, Bravery, Strength. You'd start the game as any of the characters, setting out to find the others in the early game. Like in Zelda 2, you'd level them up, but they each have slightly different proficiencies (Diablo 1 style?).

Left to right: Wisdom, White Mage, Rogue - I wanted to draw something more "girly" to balance the other characters which I had already drawn. The outfit is based on traditional white-pink/purple-gold Zelda from the "newer" games (anything >Z2 is newer games to me).

Bravery, Warrior - Started out as a redesign of the old future/bikini Zelda concept art piece, but I ended up putting some more clothes on for some reason…

Strength, Brute/Barbarian/Ogre - Fuzelchomp. Influence should be obvious, but there's a little Sheik in there too…

Uh... so, I added a figure and now it's a trio of four? Three princesses representing the three pieces, but, surprise twist, it's actually a 3D Tetrahedron, which has four faces. Maybe the characters are from South, West, East and North? Or perhaps from different worlds altogether. There are a bunch of fan theories about a fourth triforce piece. Some say the 4th piece is the negative space and the origin of shadow Link.”

And here’s additional concept sketches; again, things you’ve seen countless times without giving them any thought are expanded upon, and connections made between things that seem so obvious, but only now…

Again, there’s a LOT to dig into, including brand new lore, though I mostly dig the critiques…

“Zelda 1 had an unreal feel to it, with many strange monsters and no signs of ordinary life or earthly culture themes. The desolation, with old people hiding in caves suggested that something had gone down, perhaps long ago. The bustling towns in 2&3 undermined my narrative, though Z2 still had an exotic feel to [it] with the Cambrian(?) monster designs.

The Z3 monster designs come off as kind of knee-jerk goofy and haphazard. I also thought that the Arabian(?) influence felt out of place. This kind of culture theme'ing is common in many of the newer Zeldas and screams ‘design meeting’. Too derivative and earthly - I shout as I jump hysterically in my hermit pit, beard bobbing, clutching a dirty Zelda 1 cartridge with a long dead battery.”

[brightlotusmoon]

Shoot, forgot the most important thing:

This franchise and fandom is directly responsible for the following:

1. My BA in Creative Writing.

2. My love of superheroes, contemporary fantasy, and the entire overall genre of metahuman fiction.

3. My complete acceptance of myself as a disabled autistic queer nonbinary femme who loves makeup.

4. My fascination with Psychology, Neuroscience, and how love of fictional characters influences a person's neuroplasticity.

5. My discovery of entire communities of people just like me, who wear labels because we want to, because we feel a need to identify and bond and relate. I did not have any of these words growing up in the 80s and 90s. All I had were nebulous frightening thoughts that I could only reflect through stories about my ideas of what these young mutants were going through, which is why I will love every incarnation without pitting it angrily against another just because I see something either in canon or suggested in fandom that upsets me (young hardcore 2012 fans with exaggerated ideas and overblown emotions I'm looking at you and your bullying of each other). Fan theories are called headcanons and AUs because they are What If This Happened scenarios, not Shut Up This Totally Happened scenarios. Marvel has been doing it for decades anyway. Seriously, spend enough time with enough versions of any franchise and you'll start overanalyzing.

6. Neuropsychology studies as a freaking hobby. I have a tag called Neuropsychology Of Michelangelo for a huge reason, and it's not just because I started trying to write a thesis and got distracted by a Tumblr in 2016. This character is legitimately a fascinating study of archetypes, psychological templates, fiction and literature throughout history, human trauma, the poster child for neurodiversity. I view the entire world of TMNT via how he moves through it. Every time I study other characters, it's with Michelangelo in mind. TMNT, specially Michelangelo, is my first autistic interest, the actual reason I went for diagnoses of ADHD and Autism, and why I want to be strong on the inside in all the ways I'm not strong on the outside.

...

I bet I sound deliriously dramatic, but some people are like this over equally uncommon interests.

Stuff I've learned after thirty years in TMNT Fandom:

1. People who say that the fandom is toxic only refer to a portion of fans and should feel glad they're not in the really large long term fandoms that are the definition of toxic.

2. Many fans who argue that certain incarnations of different characters are or are not abusive or terrible or annoying or bullies or stalkers probably have a lot of personal bias without realizing, because let's face it, we all do, and these characters are not even human. We're literally projecting onto giant mutant turtles and a giant mutant rat. We all have headcanons and they are valid. We really really want to hope that we are right about our ideas and beloved theories. However, yeah, Ciro did screw them up in a way by messing with character development and poor writing.

3. Michelangelo has always had undiagnosed ADHD, they just finally acknowledged it in canon. Remember when that was a bad thing and fans hated it? Ableism is fun.

4. Raphael has always been a teddy bear. He sometimes wants to see what kind of stuffing his enemies are made of and that's sweet.

5. Leonardo has always been a master of dad jokes, let him live. He wasn't the leader for over forty issues in Mirage, he's really just a tired kid who doesn't want to be so responsible all the time.

6. Donatello is tired. And often sad. And hopefully while not a stereotype, has enough autistic traits to be undiagnosed autistic, along with Mikey, and hopefully if it becomes canon it won't be used as a terrible cliche.

7. I remember when Queer Turtles became a thing. It was huge. Donnie was the first to be portrayed as gay in fanfiction. Leo and Raph being bisexual was more subtle. Took about a decade but Mikey got written as very happily bisexual or gay.

8. Whatever you are upset about will be spoken of at length, used as fandom discourse, and gradually will be less upsetting. You will become upset at a different thing soon, and the cycle will continue. That is the nature of being a Ninja Turtles fan.