Hello, everybody. Antoni here, and I am really ecstatic to have made another milestone on DeviantArt. Yesterday, I reached the 400-watcher mar, and, as of today, I have reached 403 watchers, which I have managed to accomplish in the past three years I have been here. I could not be any more grateful to all of you who have kept up with my craziness and embarked on this journey to my fascinatingly fun and creatively bouncy mind and expressions that I have managed to emit through my works. To show you how grateful I am to all of you, my dear 402 watchers, I thought it would be great to make a collage of twenty-five pieces of work that have resonated with me from three years ago all the way up to today so far. Why twenty-five? Because any number ending with two zeros can be divided by that number. Moreover, this is going to be a tradition I might end up adapting whenever I reach the next 100 watchers because, in my experience, writing journal entries do not always cut it when it comes to showing you who I am as an artist and what springs forth from my mind when I commit myself to drawing these pieces of work regardless of what anybody says. What I might feature right now could change if I continue to produce more drawn works, which I hope to continue to do.
Most of my fan art revolve around my favorite romantic pairings, favorite team-ups, and, of course, some of my favorite muscle hunks. I bet you are wondering where a certain six-person Townsville superhero team and the three main shippings I had in store for them are in this collage. As much as they did form the bedrock of my fan art repertoire, I had to drop them from being in this collage because the passion I had for Team Xtreme sadly dissipated. Furthermore, I was really drained from doing Team Xtreme fan art to the point where it became extremely boring and tedious. At least the fan art I have done of Townsville’s own Team Xtreme can be preserved in my gallery for life. From now on, I am focusing my energy on art contests I am passionate about, my Splendid Seven headcanon starring Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Ayame, Shuran, Hakkaku, Ginta, and Shunran, my jungle AU headcanon involving Basuli and Tarzan as brothers, and many other stuff outside my comfort zone as well as pairings that I rarely feature on my gallery.
Having Basuli and Tarzan as brothers in my AU headcanon demonstrates the great amount of possibilities I have for these two jungle muscle brothers who have a fraternal bond many siblings would envy. It is not just them who have it, but they share that brotherly love to Fernando, Init-Init, Bernardo Carpio, George of the Jungle, and Maugli, thus making this one fantastic crossover brotherhood. Adding in hot, sexy, virile romance for Basuli and Tarzan are Namontack and Kocoum who have come into their lives as husbands. Throwing in Hercules as Basuli’s and Tarzan’s best friend with benefits and lover, who is also involved in a polyamorous relationship with both of them, proved to be just as fun as well as tossing in Grunch the Caveman to be their good friend and occasional friendly rival. As if that was not enough, having Hercules be involved in a multitude of romantic moments with George, Namontack, Kocoum, Basuli, and Tarzan can make for a lot of steamy pieces of work and I would love to continue sharing the passion I have for these muscle hunks with you.
Speaking of muscle hunks, I even believe that the likes of Kavandavanda, Malb’Yat, and Aroc from the old Tarzan comics deserve so much more love than they actually have. Having them be in a brotherly friendship with the Dell Comics version of Tarzan as well as Conan, Ka-Zar, and Zula also makes for an equally fantastic brotherhood. Sure, Tarzan’s and Kavandavanda’s brotherhood is a lot more volatile and rife with competition at best and physical violence complete with bloodied noses, bruises, punches, and kicks galore, but they at least have a strength few other brothers could compare. At least Tarzan’s brotherly relationship with Malb’Yat and Aroc is slightly more loving. Therefore, I do want to keep coming back to drawing more of them should I have sufficient time.
Inuyasha x Ayame, Ginta x Shunran, and Kohaku x Rin may have formed the bedrock of my main Inuyasha pairings, but having Rin be Ayame’s dear daughter, with Sesshoumaru and Inuyasha as the two dads, and Shiori as her sister and Kohaku be Shuran’s son makes them be an integral part of The Splendid Seven family. I always believed that Sesshoumaru, Inuyasha, Shuran, Shunran, and especially Hakkaku, Ginta, and Ayame deserved better, more fiercely loyal, and more genuine friends. By combining these two dog yokai brothers, these three wolf yokai siblings, and these two panther yokai siblings, I figured that they would make the strongest family ever. I may have fully approved of Inuyasha’s and Ayame’s sexy, fiercely gorgeous, and dynamically romantic relationship and Ginta’s and Shunran’s sweet, tender, and pure romantic relationship, but I also back those two up with Sesshoumaru’s, Shuran’s, and Hakkaku’s three-way bromantic relationship, Inuyasha’s and Ginta’s lovingly fraternal relationship, and Ayame’s and Shunran’s tightness as sisters from different mothers. I am even cool with Ayame having a dutiful, loving, and noble relationship with Sesshoumaru to balance out the unconditional love she has for Inuyasha, as well as with Shuran and Hakkaku being a fine duo akin to the Feudal Era version of Laurel and Hardy. The most fun I had with The Splendid Seven was having them be in jungle warrior garb, specifically with Sesshoumaru as the jungle high priest akin to Kavandavanda, Shuran dressed in leopardman garb, Hakkaku being a jungle warrior messenger, Inuyasha totally embodying Tarzan and his brand of strength and power, Ayame donning the Oparian midriff to the best of her abilities and giving Queen La a run for her money, Ginta incorporating the likes of Zembla, Akim, and Kaanga in his jungle attire, and Shunran rocking everything beautiful and bold about Sheena the Queen of the Jungle. Whether I place The Splendid Seven in the African jungle, make them be the super-powered band of yokai warriors that they are, flesh out their lives as children before all the marriages, children, and the like or transport them into the modern era, I could certainly do a whole lot for The Splendid Seven, and I hope to spread the appreciation I have for them to all of you.
Where the InuAya family is concerned, even the family I created for Inuyasha and Ayame increased in size from starting out with two sons in the forms of Kenta and Keita to now having older brothers in the forms of Masataka, Masaya, and Motomu, younger brothers in the forms of Kazuhiko and Kaito, and younger sisters in the forms of Momoko, Makoto, Mikoto, Maya, Minako, and Meika. Looks like the InuAya family ended up a whole lot bigger and happier, and I am loving it. That is just how strong my love for InuAya really is.
I am also not limiting myself to just Inuyasha x Ayame, Ginta x Shunran, and Kohaku x Rin as my most beloved OTPs of all time, those titles have even extended to Texhnolyze’s very own Ichise x Ran and Wolf’s Rain’s very own Kiba x Cheza who have also been incorporated to my Splendid Seven headcanon. Ichise, Kiba, Ran, and Cheza, where my Splendid Seven headcanon is concerned, are great friends to Sesshoumaru, Shuran, Hakkaku, Inuyasha, Ayame, Ginta, and Shunran, thus showing a closeness and a warmth that they can preserve for a long time. Outside Inuyasha, Texhnolyze, and Wolf’s Rain, I even have my fair share of favorite crossover anime pairings, namely Baki Hanma x Rosé Thomas, Kiichi “Kiibo” Miyazawa x Winry Rockbell, and Ippo Makunouchi x Maya Orihara because nothing is more fun than seeing these courageous, spicy, and sultry ladies get it on with these muscular, fun, strong fighter guys. Despite not being seen in this collage, worth mentioning are the equally great crossover pairings of Ichiro Miyata x Rose Anderson, Kintaro Toyama x Solty Revant, Alexander Volg Zangief x Megumi Minami, and Ryuichi Hayami x Kaoru Ichinose. I am definitely keen on making more crossover anime pairing fan art because it is not only fun to do, but I can also perceive dynamic relationships occurring that I can be very creative with.
I was even fortunate to have gotten myself into some really fun art trades and contests involving pairings that I loved when I was a child, specifically Poison Ivy x Harley Quinn from Batman: The Animated Series, Kevin Levin x Gwen Tennyson from Ben 10, Chase Young x Kimiko Tohomiko from Xiaolin Showdown, Beast Boy x Terra from Teen Titans 2003, and even Star Butterfly from Star vs the Forces of Evil and Mabel Pines from Gravity Falls being the best friends forever that they are. Despite not being a contest entry, I was even happy at the prospect of producing a piece of Arnold x Phoebe and Gerald x Rhonda fan art, as I have been a longtime Arnold x Phoebe partisan when I was a little child and I found the idea of Gerald being in a romantic relationship with Rhonda absolutely fun and fascinating, given how much they can have in common. Furthermore, when Steven Universe was running on Cartoon Network during my early twenties, I was quite partial to Steven and Connie being a couple because of the sweet moments they had together.
OCs are absolutely enjoyable to draw. I should know because Mister-Sukeruton’s Zak and Sisa, Obelis’s Eneys and Rilla, and even the characters I had in store for a couple of contest entries for Aryaveandyou, namely Princess Alana, Engelbert the Penguin, Iris the Unicorn, Philippa, Victoria, Shirley, Michael, Oscar, Matthew, Carey, Kenneth, and Quinn, were absolutely involving, thus finding a lot of personality in each of them. I could not have felt a lot more fulfilled than I am now.
I especially want to thank BrickercupMasterX3, Obelis, Mister-Sukeruton, ModernEddy01, kaykeyser, cmara, Detective88, batkink, and BeardedLuckDragon for the motivation throughout the art trades and, especially, the contests, for I felt enthusiastic and energized to partake in them. I wish you well in everything you do as artists and as people.
Once again, I would love to thank all of you, my dear 403 DeviantArt watchers, for being absolutely awesome, supportive, and encouraging in all of my endeavors. Regardless of what comes along, I am never going to give up on what makes me happy. Should there be any suggestions and more anime and cartoon pairings, team-ups, and ideas you would love for me to draw, please let me know in the comments below. Until then, have a great day and stay awesome, everybody.
