Give them a break, they eepy

And it miiiiiight be turning into the full blown WIP

Will probably post the full color tomorrow, I’m also experimenting with darkening Panthro’s fur and so far it’s turning out pretty good!

A Fiery Duel With The Shadow-Self

“Do it Lion-O! Or they’ll burn!”

(WIPs for this project and some Reborn AU tidbits under the cut!)

We're back babey! This time it's Panthro's turn, the scars and prosthetics are for backstory reasons as you may soon read. I always thought Thunderians being "bald" (presumably they've still got fur on their heads) wasn't rally my bag. I didn't wanna go with the way 2011 did it and wanted to reinforce the Afro-Brazilian and Afro-Carribean influences that partly inspired this redesign. The pants are Capoeira inspired and the top is loosely based on a sleeveless martial artist uniform top. I think the next time I draw him the fur and eye/mouth marking distinction will be a bit sharper but I'm otherwise pretty happy with how he turned out!

Panthro's Reborn Origin Story

Though Panthro was born during the Plundarrian occupation, his early childhood would be untouched by its horrors. Growing up on a small archipelago between the lands of the Jaguar & Leopard Clans. Born from a people gifted with shadow dappled fur otherwise a rarity to their ancestral clans. Panthro would spend much of his youth (when he wasn’t bringing wild animals home as “pets”) helping his parents’ in their repair shop.

His peaceful little island community was able to thrive thanks to sitting atop a rich deposit of Thundrillium, steadily and carefully extracted via bio-mining. Of course, when the Plundarrian war machine learned of this, the world Panthro had come to know would come to an end. As Ratar-O sent one of his favorite Generals, Pterror the Bat and his War Cauldron to conquer the islands.

It started with the raids, Pterror and his aerial units would distract the adults by snatching up cubs and dropping them into the ocean. Panthro being among the victims, with the scars to prove it from the times he fought back in midair. While the adults numbers thinned to retrieve their kin, Pterror’s ground and sea units would steal and destroy anything within claw’s reach. Again and again, stripping them of means of providing for, let alone protecting themselves. Poisoning their waters with more “efficient” means of extracting their precious livelihood.

(The rest of his origin and my art process photos are under the cut! Feel free to submit any questions you'd like!)

I know I wasn’t tagged… but it’s one of my fave tv shows so, I’d like to fill it out. Maybe even make some new friends? 👉🏻👈🏻 (I don’t bite)

The original is located here and I saw it on @northstarfan’s blog.

How old were you when you became a ThunderCats fan? (and/or) How long have you been in the fandom?

I think I started on the second run when it was in Cartoon Network? My first memory of it is hazy but I remember checking out VHS tapes.

Who is your favorite ThunderCat?

It’s always been Tygra.

As a young kid he was another father figure I could run to (my family wasn’t toxic and I loved my dad so whatever that means) and I looked up to him a lot. His voice was/is very comforting in a way I can’t explain. Like having a bad day? Go watch Thunder Cats and hear him talk and you’re relaxed.

When I got older that childhood reason turned into half crush and well o////o.

I still think it’s funny I became a Graphic Designer and he’s a “designer” in his own way. 😅😌

Who is your favorite reoccurring villain?

This one is hard. 😅 I think Jackal Man. The other mutant voices bother me and minus Mumm-ra …

Who is your favorite ThunderCat ally?

Willa (and her sister) and the Berbils. She cracks me up and I love how powerful she is without magic. And who doesn’t like robot teddy bears with candy fruit?

Who is your favorite one-off villain?

The driller!!! He used to terrify me as a kid. Kind of still does now.

What is your favorite episode?

I have several:

My original favorite episodes that I checked out at the movie store repeatedly: Pumm-ra, The Ghost Warrior, and Trouble with Time. (I still get that nostalgic feeling each time I watch them and it makes me feel like a kid again - it’s such a weird warm feeling that’s hard to explain)

My newer ones after I got the DVDs:

The Fireballs of Plundar (if I need a Tygra hit of dopamine I’ll put this one on 😅)

Silky

Keystone

The Dream Master

The Wolfrat

The Micrits

The Mumm-ra Berbil

Trapped (For that sweet Tygra and Kit moment at the end where she jumps in his arms)

Out of Sight (invisible Tygra being a polite ass hole - what isn’t to love?)

The Thunder Cubs Movie

The Chain of Loyalty

Return of Thunder Cubs

Locket of Lies

Bracelet of Power

The Wild Workout

And then the outlier of my usual preference in episodes:

The Totem of Dara

Mr - “Don’t Drink the water, Kit and Snarfer, it’s dangerous and poisoned” then proceeds to drink said water and passes out - Lion-O 🤨😭

The joke was: this is season one nonsense, Lion-O. Not season 3. You’ve moved past this or so we thought 🙃

What is your favorite canon character dynamic?

The adults taking care of the kittens.

My biggest head canon is that Tygra and Cheetara are the kittens adopted parents. And in so many episodes you can see it and I love it.

The other big one is Tygra becoming more confident.

After the keystone where he explains being nervous and stuff all the the time and noticing it in previous episodes- it’s cool watching him move on from that.

It was also an interesting character dynamic that you really don’t see until you’re older. I always thought he had it together and was the real leader of the Thunder Cats while Lion-O was the face of it until he was old enough to handle it.

The five of them being a “family”

Most of the episodes up there are where the five of them are co-existing in some way and just being themselves. I don’t like when they are separated in later seasons. It still wrecks me that Tygra stays on 3rd earth and Cheetara and the kittens go to new Thundera. I’ve written SEVERAL stories off this trying to fix it 🤪😅 (and yes I know my head canons aren’t real but watching them realistically 65% exist with them and then splitting up?? 😞🥲)

What is your favorite ship?

Tygra and Cheetara hands down.

I will admit though in a very far left (all the way over light years away to the original location of Thundera) alternate universe if Lion-O wasn’t aged up in an adult body that he and Kit would be cute together. Kit, Kat and Lion-O were around the same age and so it would make sense in a weird way.

Do you have a ThunderCats OC? If you do, give their name and a little backstory if you'd like!

I do. Her name is Emma/Snowy. I made her up as a kid and when I got back into TCats, I expanded on her, giving her a better back story.

She is Tygra’s daughter that he had with his first Wife (a blue tiger) Amara.

Amara was killed because of her magic that scared other cats in power. Emma was born a rare golden tiger because of her mother’s genes mixing with Tygra’s clan.

Her stripes aren’t always visible because she can’t control her magic very well. She has Tygra’s invisibility powers but she can’t control them. Her actual powers are the ability to control ice. (I made her up a decade before Frozen was even thought of) the way she meets the others is by freezing Lion-O solid when he scares her.

She was kidnapped as a cub but he thought she was dead. Tygra was so distraught and upset at the death of his family that Claudis and Jaga blocked his memory. So he only knew Cheetara after that. Panthro and Cheetara both knew the cub and the mom but were sworn to never speak of it.

Tygra’s memory block is removed by accident during Lion-O’s annoinment (sp) trials when he uses a lot of his mind power, and it all goes down hill from there.

Once she’s back, he’s super protective and helps train her magic.

What is your favorite Sword of Omens ability?

Sight Beyond Sight.

Tagging wise: @kibaweissvulf and I had a friend who had a lion-o icon also in the CATS fandom and I think they changed their icon - I can’t find them.