American Ninja

I haven’t played Street Fighter in ages, I was always always bad at it, but I love it dearly. And I’m always happy to see the next generation of characters, so here’s some fanart of Kimberly, from the upcoming Street Fighter 6! Happy 35th Anniversary, Street Fighter! 💪❤️

Yatta!

What can I say, I love an obscure costume variant! Here’s Chun-Li as seen in her outfit from the original ending of Street Fighter II. ✌️

ink on paper

a few marker sketches from the past year plus…

a blue dragon…

 
an Oliver Queen/Ken Masters mash-up..

 
Doctor Leonard “Bones” McCoy…

 
and a practice Dr. McCoy (TOS era version) that actually turned out okay, along with a bonus Data…

His theme goes with everything…

Here’s one of my favorite Street Fighter characters, Guile!

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I lieu of me rambling at length, just listen click on the video below and get psyched for whatever you’re doing:

(This is a late post for Friday. Hanging in there at 2 missed posts. I feel like catching up on those last 2 posts is the procrastinating blogger’s equivalent of “losing the last 10 pounds” for a struggling dieter.)

Bruce Lite

It’s the Street Fighter franchise’s ersatz stand-in for Bruce Lee, Fei Long:

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I’m continuing my attempts to pepper in some more actiony pieces in my series of Street Fighter drawings. I was pretty pleased with this when I came up with it… but as often happens, I’m not sure how I feel about it after the fact. Hmmm…

Not So Secret

He’s the least secret of all secret characters, but he’s still bad-ass. From the Street Fighter franchise, Akuma!

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Akuma’s greying temples are seen in some of the offical art from Street Fighter III, but generally are not standard. I decided to include them, because I like the idea of this being the most ‘current’ version of Akuma, relative to his imaginary age. I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore. Bedtime!

Brought to you by the letter Q…

My love of obscure characters is no secret. In fact, I hardly ever shut up about it. From Street Fighter III, here’s the mysterious Q:

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Q doesn’t exactly fit in with the assorted commandoes, kickboxers, and karatekas of the Street Fighter universe. Judging by his name and face mask, he appears to be based on Shotaro Ishinomori‘s character Robot Detective K. However, he also bears a strong resemblence to Mitsuteru Yokoyama‘s character Iron Mask (from Babel II), and Osamu Tezuka‘s character Pero (from Astroboy and Metropolis).

Incidentally, all three of the mangaka that I just mentioned were contemporaries. Ishinomori was Tezuka’s assistant at one point (this is well documented), and I’ve read the same thing about Yokoyama (but I couldn’t find a reliable source on that). If you’re a fan of manga, anime, tokusatsu, or even Japanese-made video games, I highly recommend that you check out the works (and derivations there of) of Tezuka, Ishinomori, and Yokoyama. Their influence on is tremendous, and continues to this day.

Think of him as "Malibu Ryu"

The Street Fighter fan art deluge continues–in sharp contrast to the subdued Ryu, here’s Ken:

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This turned out better than Ryu did, but the forced perspective was still unconsciously blunted by my inner desire for boredom.

Red Hot

If my sketch of Ryu represents the Street Fighter franchise in general, today’s sketch represents the most recent installment. Fresh from her debut in Street Fighter IV, here’s Crimson Viper:

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When I first saw the screenshots of this character, I wasn’t that impressed. Her braid seemed a bit too reminiscent of Cammy, while her outfit seemed more appropriate to Street Fighter’s rivals over at the King of Fighters series (not that I have anything against King of Fighters, it just felt like an odd fit). Well, a few rounds of unleahing her bad-ass flaming split-kick (quarter circle back + kick, executable in mid-air) changed all that. Now I’m totally won over by her extravagant pompadour, her Morpheus-esque nose-pinching sunglasses, and yes, her tremendous knockers.

You must defeat Sheng Long to stand a chance

A few weekends ago, I had a chance to play Street Fighter IV at a friend’s house. Had I been wearing socks while playing, those socks would in fact have been knocked off.

I’m a big fan of Capcom in general, and of their fighting games specifically–however, playing Street Fighter IV really pushed those characters and that franchise to the forefront of my thoughts. I find myself humming the music constantly. My mind has been desperately trying to create scenarios where I can justify buying the game itself, a console, a new television, and two tournament quality arcade sticks. Of course this is all going on while I draw fan art until the sun rises. Here’s Ryu, perhaps the single best-known of the Street Fighter cast:

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I’m going to be honest with you… this one didn’t turn out terribly well. The perspective was supposed to be much more forced and dramatic, but I have this problem where apparently my brain strives desperately for mediocrity, and while drawing, I unconsciously make things moderate and boring instead of extreme and dynamic. Regardless, it’s nice to draw a character like Ryu every now and then–he’s very recognizable in spite of being so visually plain. Those factors make me feel comfortable drawing him from a rare rear view, because I don’t feel like we’re missing any interesting costume details from this angle, and I’m also confident that he’ll still be indentifiable. I thought that showing Ryu’s back turned helped emphasize his aloof demeanor. Likewise, I tried creating poses-reflecting-disposition in the other Street Fighter pieces I drew… which will be flooding this blog shortly. Stay tuned!