I love the cartoon Thundercats. Have for a long time. I have a Thundercats belt buckle on my keychain as I type this. I'm pretty much a dork about it.
I remember watching the cartoon as a kid. Loved it, but even then, I questioned the look of the characters. Lion-o in particular. For those who don't know, when the Thundercats' planet, Thundera was being destroyed, Lion-o was a boy. The cats were put into stasis and found their way to Third Earth, where Lion-o awoke a man. In the cosmic knowledge of cartoon Sci-fi, sure. But what got to me is how this guy woke with all these muscles like he had developed into his body.
I always thought of that growth in the capsule to be stunting. He would be smaller, leaner, almost a runt. What an awesome character dynamic for the lord of the Thundercats, right? I know, I guess I'm reading too much into it, but it was never out of the back of my mind. So I decided to finally put my thoughts into an image.
I know hardcore fans are most likely gonna pick it to death, but what can you do, right?
My version of Lion-o.
Below are some progress images.
The above is probably my favorite passage in the illustration.
To get the sword as close to the cartoon as I could, I took a still shot from the web and did some work in photoshop to get it's angle as close as I could. I then brought it into AI and did the build up to perspective by hand using shapes. Was not easy.
Lion-o has three different faces. Geeze.
While I was doing this I wanted to make sure I paid as close attention as I could to the detail of the character design of the cartoon. I guess I'm a purist that way, but the underwear jumpsuit had to go. Plus ribbed clothing is a great way to add dimension and form to a drawing. I use it a lot :)
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