Friday 28 January 2011

Thunder Cat Hype

One of the high points of growing up in Ghana was that i watched all the past cartoons as well as the modern ones. Even though i rolled with yu-gi-oh, pokemon, Samurai Jack and all that, it put me onto cartoons like He-man, M.a.s.k., Gummi bears, She-Ra, Silver Hawks, My little Pony...i watched everything i could and of course Thunder Cats, an 80s show, was one of my favourites.

And now there's a revamped version made by Studio 4c, the Japanese studio behind Animatrix and part of Gothan Knight. It's for Cartoon Network 2011

The new designs look good but with anime bursting at the seems i would have preferred a style which wasn't too obvious it anime. Like one fan said,"Lion-O with Naruto's face."
Also some parts of their appearance are very cliché in the fantasy realm, like young lion-O's one-shoulder guard and Panthro's oversized 'viking-ish' look and scar on his eye but i did like his baldness, it added a normalness to the character. So far, Tigra is my fav, with the best redesign in the group, Cheetara isn't bad either. They also did well to keep certain aspects, like weapons, of the old show.


Another redesign on the net done some time ago. I like this better. If he was given more body mass like the Studio 4c version, a freed mane and the claw-sheath(minus the side-pockets) it would have been perfect, in my eyes.
I did a sketch myself basically enhancing areas i like ie Lion-O's mane, and Panthro's original design and adding and adapting some of the new features: Panthro's baldness, scar and spike gloves and guard.
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