#titanium maiden

TheHeroesOfCRASH.com I took a little inspiration from the Looney Tunes short "Feed the Kitty" and the trash compactor scene from Monsters, Inc. for TM's reactions.

See you in Art Fight, btw, folks! (Side note: The "A.I. character" I mentioned on my card is NOT AI art or generative AI of any kind! It's a character who IS an artificial intelligence!)

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TheHeroesOfCRASH.com

TheHeroesOfCRASH.com [Insert holiday greeting/well-wishing]

What can I say? The holidays are hectic, and even this filler took time to draw.

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Belt Boy comes to a realization about what being a leader means (fairly literally!).

One of my less-traditional layouts, as I tend to favor 4-panel strips in a 2x2 layout. If you count the bottom left panel as 9 panels instead of one, this strip has more panels than any other strip I've done, at a whopping 14!

Speaking of that 9-in-one panel, that was especially fun to draw. I wanted to make sure that each mini-panel showed off its character through the background and his/her facial expression. Gelatin Boy is a bit nervous about Belt Boy's faith in him, and his background is based on the wobbly shape of his head. Dodge and Dino-Mo are calm, but impressed by Belt Boy's attitude, and their backgrounds show a flying dodgeball and a dinosaur fossil, respectively. Sugar Rush, as always, is enthusiastic and ready to help out her friend; she's got a peppermint swirl background. Titanium Maiden is feeling proud that Belt Boy seems to have gotten over his attitude problem from earlier and is showing his team proper respect, and she's thankful that he's okay; her background, of course, is her signature flower. Cannon's smirking as if to say, "About time you wised up, BB," as he sits in front of his purple-on-green stripe (His hand resting on the panel frame represents his tendency to break the fourth wall, by the way!). Unk is almost as pleased as Sugar Rush to help out a friend, but is a bit more chill about it, as he is regarding most things; his background shows off his shades. Enticia is moved by his attitude toward his team, especially as she's been reflecting on her own leadership abilities; the insignias from her "heartbreaker pants" (as I call them) are in the background. Jackknife, with his pointy insignia behind him, is doing that mock-gagging thing because he's sick of all this sappy emotion-sharing. And of course, in the last panel (or space between panels), Belt Boy and B.O.N.N.I.E. stand before Belt Boy's signature utility belt buckle.

If you missed my announcement on the main page, I've greatly updated my Fan Art page! This includes two bits of fan art I got through social media this past week: Cannon by BigNoseBug on Twitter (a storyboard artist for the upcoming Thundercats cartoon), and Belt Boy by Ken Bailey (creator of EnergyGirl, and the winner of my last birthday contest)!  Here they are:

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Belt Boy's creation debuted WAAAAAY back in strip #96... over ten years ago!  Up until now, the Detach-a-Cape has only been used in battles against Miss Sunflower.  The first time kept Sunflower from grabbing him (Eat your heart out, Edna Mode!). It would later be mentioned in strip #253 before being used to taunt and misdirect Miss Sunflower six strips later.

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While I always strive to update my comic every single week, I tend to put some other aspects of my website on the back burner. No, I'm not talking about the Links pages - although I definitely AM working on adding some new sites to my Links - I mean my downloadable wallpapers. I find this particularly embarassing because most of my wallpapers have been prizes for my Annual Birthday Fan Art contest, and I tend to wait until the next contest comes around before I actually get around to creating the prize for the previous year. To be fair, it's usually because I try not to do too many filler updates in a row anymore, and I tend to have a few fillers around my birthday, but I still feel bad that I tend to make my contest winners wait.

But that's in the past... Last year's winner has done enough waiting! CD Rudd, creator of SailorSun.Org (Check out my Links page for his site, along with a full description!), requested that I draw my characters doing whatever it is they do in their spare time. I decided that they do the same thing my friends and I do when we get together: eat pizza and play video games!

I wanted to make sure all the characters looked interesting and dynamic; usually when you're playing games with friends, you're all sitting in the couch, controller in hand, and that's it.  I decided to give everyone a different pose and a different controller (If Nintendo can make multiple controllers for a single console, so can I).  Cannon - or rather, Dave - may not be wearing his big, clunky armor, but he does have a controller based off the N64 controller, but with his armor's color scheme (I'll bet it's one of those see-through controllers that I wish they still made.  Also, Dave would totally rule at Mario Party, since his prosthetic hand can't get blisters from the Tug-of-War minigame).  His pose is the most aggressive - albeit comedically so - of the three, which fits his personality quite well.  Max may not be in his full Belt Boy gear, but he still wears his goggles (which just look cool) and his belt to help him snack without distractions (And yes, the design on his cup is based on a famous paper cup design, but with Belt Boy's uniform's red and blue hues).  Max is holding a controller reminiscent of the classic SNES controller, even with its classic color scheme (The SNES was always one of my favorite consoles).  Tiffany doesn't wear an outfit as Titanium Maiden; she just takes on the name, so she doesn't really have any costume change.  The controllers are based of the Wii nunchucks, except they're two joined remotes without a joystick (and their color-scheme is based off another pizza-eating hero who uses nunchucks!), which shows off Tiffany's impressive biceps rather nicely.

I've put some work into this background: look closely and you may notice that a photo in a wall frame offers a subtle homage to CD Rudd's comic (Those figures look a lot like Bay and Honey...), and that Tiffany forgot to use the wrist straps the first time they played.  The gaming console looks like a GameCube and Wii mashed together, with dual cartridge slots on top reminiscent of one of those non-official consoles that are designed to play both NES and SNES games.  I call this console the PlayTend Box 90 (Because it forms a 90-degree angle).  I didn't intend for this to be any character's specific living room, but in hindsight, it does have Cannon's purple-and-green color scheme, so maybe this is at his house.  I drew shadows on the background, but not the characters, so they pop out a bit more, making them look like characters on an animation cel (My comic IS supposed to be reminiscent of a classic Saturday Morning cartoon, after all!).

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Enticia accepts Dino-Mo's accusations; conversely, Belt Boy can't accept defeat.  I like how this storyline's been exploring Enticia and Belt Boy's characters in different ways.

Enticia has always been a flawed and somewhat egotistical character, who has put distance between herself and others, and allowed people to get hurt in the process.  Now, she's seriously considering what people think about her and trying to listen.

Belt Boy, on the other hand, has always been a seemingly perfect boy scout-type, but while he's friendly with others, he's hard on himself.  Now, he's sinking further into his delusion that perfection is attainable, and he's becoming blinded to what he's doing.