Greetings Animusians (trying out names),

For this week’s mash-ups, I chose the X-Men. At first, I was going to call them the A-Men, you know because prayer humor is cool. But I don’t use the word “Man” in Age of Animus so I had to throw that sweet pun out. I switched to A-Furs, but that was too far removed from the original name so I’m using X-Furs.

I’m enjoying trying new things as I explore different themes. In the Street Fighter mash-ups it was fighting stances and poses. This week, I’m further exploring the effects I started using in the Masters of the Universe mash-ups. Be sure to click to embiggen the pictures for a clearer view.

First up, we have the leader of the X-Men, Oonch-clops.Here he is firing optic blasts through his ruby visor.

The first preview I put up featured Mouser. I didn’t get see any guesses on Facebook as to who he was supposed to be. The answer is Kitty Pryde’s pet alien dragon, Lockheed. Kitty Pryde’s code name is Shadowcat and who’s the shadiest cat in Bree? Sass of course! Here she is phasing through a wall while Mouseheed opts rather to plow through it. I’m not rightly sure how I managed the dust effect, because I haven’t been able to duplicate it since.

The second preview sketch I put up on Facebook was of Nektara. I left out the X on her belt to make the theme less obvious. In full colour, I hope that it’s clear I was gunning for Rogue. Nektarogue is a lot less gimmicky, but I really like how the pose worked out.

Gamrick is a wily cajun who likes to throw supercharged playing cards at his enemies.

Last up for this week is Barnassus, whose mutant power is to morph from fur to metal. He has a lot of the shiny metal techniques I used in the Masters of the Universe mash-ups.

More X-Furs next week (be warned, there will be no Wolverine).