I AM VERY SLOW AT ART

For He Xuan I really wanted him to look depressed af and I hope I delivered - for all of them I wanted something a bit more practical and less flowy/extravagant while also keeping the air of superiority regarding their status. There's a golden skeleton-fish hairpin braided into the side of He Xuan's head :3

Hua Cheng I adore his typical design, but I just felt like making something new. His weird ass cape thing is meant to be like butterfly wings, and I cba to do the butterfly embroidery properly so rip. His gauntlets I'm quite pleased with, though.

Qi Rong I struggled with the colour scheme, and I'm still not happy with it but ehhh what can I do. I liked his mask in the donghua and went with the green peking opera masks - green characters typically being brutal, oppressive, hot-tempered and/or brave.

After over 6 months of depression and complete art block, ordering the 8 TGCF books (finally!!!) and getting back into MXTX's incredible works has ignited a small spark of creativity and healing, which I will be eternally thankful for even if it's short-lived.

INFERNO

I went very heavy with the knight imagery, serving his rrroyalty!! Went with a mix between a trapjaw ant and turtle ant because I wanted a shield. He has dual flame-throwers on his back/shoulders connected to the ant-butt because might as well add another mix with the yellow crazy ant, that sprays acid (in this case flammable liquid) through it's rear!

Being grabbed by those extremely strong, extremely fast mandibles of the trapjaw ant before being blasted by a flamethrower to the face sounds like a wonderful time <3

RATTRAP

Rattrap I wanted it to feel like an Italian mobster, I think I went a little too on-the-nose but, I like it! He has a fedora-type helmet, with a lovely cigar alongside some hidden suspenders and I tried to make the rat head have a tie - on his wrists he has tools such as lockpicking devices, torch, other things ;)

In my continuity he's primarily infiltration and sabotage, with a heavy preference for explosives

RAMPAGE

Rampage was fun, I stuck heavily to his BW design but I wanted the mutant freak part of him to be more emphasised. So, the crab has teeth. And 6 legs? I gave him extra arms because it would be quite hard to grab things with those mega pincers, but also extra arms are cool as fuck. He also has spurs and leg-guns because, again, cool as fuck. I love how his biolights turned out!

I didn't want to spend time drawing massive guns but he does still have his rotating grenade launcher thing - it has all sorts: hellfire missiles, acid bombs, napalm grenades, and other nightmares <3

DEPTH CHARGE

Depth Charge was very fun also, I wanted his colouring to be extremely opposite to Rampage's so he has very muted cool tones while Rampage is blindingly bright. He has twin remora-shotgun things on his shoulders, and I wanted the manta to be more manta, less metallic. I enjoyed doing the gold highlights to add a bit of grandeur and elegance to him.