#fusionlore

[10bendog]

The thumbnail art that was commissioned for this episode is the image you see right here (and further down without the added text, as usual).

It's this image illustrating a level 17 mission line, where Numbuh 1 starts to wrongfully accuse Grim of working with Fuse after reading the situation wrong.

And I love this piece, because it takes place on the shore of Bravo Beach and I made it super saturated and bright, and colorful, and warm, and oh my god summer is finally coming right around the corner, my favorite time of year;

BUT

There's this scene that's described by the end of the episode that just kinda gets me and I really feel like illustrating it too soon, lol.

I won't describe what it is, but you can (and should 🤨) watch the episode to figure it out.

[10bendog]

New FusionLore dropped and this week it features my favorite thumbnail I've done for the series so far!

Not only do we have 3 characters this time, not only is one of them a Fusion, which are always really fun to draw, but also just drawing Father and Prof. Utonium here... idk I kinda ship it now, lmaoo.

Like, do you see that look Father is giving the Professor?; Don't tell me you don't see it! 🙂‍↕️

Anyway, here's the Angular Dad YAOI in full view for y'all to enjoy. 😏

And on the note of shipping;

See y'all tomorrow!

[10bendog]

The relationship between Imaginary Energy and Fusion Matter has always been one of the most interesting aspects of this game's lore for me.

Both of them are used to create life, but in a different way.

Imaginary Energy is created from a person's imagination and with it they are capable of bringing Imaginary Friends to life out of thin air. Meanwhile, Fusion Matter is a substance that is used to infect other things and spread Fuse's influence further. It creates life by corrupting items and turning them into monsters, and Fusions are just an advanced variant of those same monsters, using characters' DNA as a basis of their creation.

But things get really interesting when the two substances mix;

When a Fusion is made of an Imaginary Friend, they never act like they should and seem to have a lot more free will than the rest of Fuse's army.

And then there's the ultimate counter to Fuse's invasion - Nanos, which are synthesized from a mixture of Imaginary Energy and Fusion Matter (along with the given character's DNA).

Magic and Matt talk some about this relationship in this episode, but also go over previous missions together with their special guest - RadioRave.

Go check it out, and also check out my art for this too.

[10bendog]

Really enjoyed drawing Fusion Mayor here. It was very fun to try to replicate the slimy gooey texture the Fusion's green skin has in game, as opposed to the simpler and cleaner look the Fusions have in official art.

Anyway, check out the new FusionLore episode out now! And here's my thumbnail art on its own.

[10bendog]

Something I really love about FusionFall is that at first glance it looks like this "edgy" anime Cartoon Network crossover, where all the characters from the shows you loved as a kid have suddenly found themselves in the middle of an intergalactic war and they have to fight off this gargantuan eldritch alien planet, that's trying to assimilate Earth into its mass; And then, like, the game's story itself is super fucking unserious and half of the missions you complete are asking you to do the most random-ass shit for the CN characters, a good chunk of whom are entirely unbothered that there this massive amalgam of planets constantly looming over the sky and slowly approaching us. It's like if in Majora's Mask, nobody gaf about the damn moon. I like it because imo it's a perfect mix of the tones from the different cartoons featured in the game. I tried to do something similar when writing "CN Akumas". The story was edgier at times, but just as often I wanted to have chill chapters with a heavier focus on comedy.

Anywayyy, here's the thumbnail. Some background editing went into this thing, because the bumper cars were a little too small, but I bet you can't even tell, lol. Now go watch the video.

[10bendog]

New FusionLore episode covering the last of the Future missions is out now.

Go check it out! :D

Here's also my art for the thumbnail.

[10bendog]

The monster behind Townsville Park has been one of the strangest mysteries about FusionFall's lore, at least to me.

I remember when I replayed through the game in more recent memory and paid very close attention to every mission and dialogue, taking notes of it all. (It was during my first year of uni when Retro had finally brought back the original game from the dead, and I was finally a certified English speaker, having passed IELTS and was now studying in the UK,) There's a lot of things I learned about the game that younger me never learned about because I couldn't understand it, and a lot of them were really interesting too. However, the mystery behind the monster below Townsville Park always just kinda stuck with me.

Could it have been yet another big bad monster that the Powerpuff Girls would fight in the show? But if so, then why did Fuse need that ancient magical rune to wake it up, and why was it sleeping underground when most of the PPG monsters are from Monster Island? Maybe it was something more related to Juniper Lee, seeing the magical relation. But June never got involved in that mission line. It was really only the trio stationed at the park + Gwen who deduces that the rune is an alarm clock.

I can't honestly say what the game's writers had in mind when writing this mission line. Magic in the video jokes it's probably the Blowfish from "Uh-Oh Dynamo", but I don't believe that... especially since the Blowfish itself appeared out of the sea at Candy Cove during the 2010 Mother's Day update.

In any case, I kinda like how little we actually know about this supposed destructive entity below Townsville Park. It gives this mystique to it, y'know. The less we know about something, the more ominous, illustrious and dangerous it sounds. Yapping session over. Go watch the new FusionLore video!

[10bendog]

Yay, we finally got to this thumbnail, which was very exciting to make. Firstly, Matt was also excited about the totem plot line, so he took it upon himself to make all the edits to the background that you see here, which, imo, really gives some oomph to the scene and showcases the magic of the mysterious magical totems (that also have Hanna-Barbera characters etched onto them, for some reason).

And secondly - I got to draw teen Gwen in the Classic Ben 10 art style (tho this time without my outfit redesign). I hinted at this when I posted the art for Ep 18, which featured Grandpa Max - I brought up this topic before doing that thumbnail and we had a talk about how I should represent the Ben 10 franchise in FusionLore. We settled on everyone being unified under one art style and that being Classic's, a.k.a. the superior one, which means Ben, Gwen and Kevin needing to be adapted to it. The reason for why I even brought that topic up in the first place was because; (WARNING: Long probably autism-fueled explanation ahead!)

Ben 10 has a bit of messy history with FusionFall, because when the game was being developed, the Classic series was still running on Cartoon Network. This is why you can see 10-year-old Ben in the prequel/promotional FusionFall manga - Worlds Collide, as well as him and 10-year-old Gwen having official art, and also Ben being able to be seen in some old crusty pre-beta footage.

But then, very close to the release of the game, Alien Force came out, which caused Grigon (the people behind FusionFall) to hard pivot to representing the sequel show instead. They changed Ben, Gwen and Kevin to reflect their teen selves and altered some of their missions to fit better, while also adding Nano Swampfire and Nano Humungosaur to the pool, replacing the Nano Ghosfreak and Nano Upgrade that were left behind in the files.

However, they also didn't change enough and left a lot of stuff from Classic in the game, like Nano Four Arms, Tetrax, Hex and Vilgax, the villains' Nanos, Grandpa Max's old design and Fusion Kevin being 11-year-old Kevin's amalgam form. Gwen is also very heavy on magic in the game (as you can see in both the thumbnail and the video, which you should totally watch after this, of course), while Alien Force at first tried to retcon her powers to being only alien in origin and not magical.

Funny thing is that both Gwen's magical side and the three OS characters - Hex, Tetrax and Vilgax all later appear during season 3 of Alien Force.

And in regards to FusionFall, eventually Gwen, Kevin and Vilgax were updated to their designs from Alien Force season 3, while the game added a ton of Ben 10 missions items, NPCs and Nanos from Alien Force and later Ultimate Alien. By the time the original game was shut down, Ben 10 had dethroned the Powerpuff Girls in both the NPC and Nano count.

Anyway, thank you for coming to my yap session. Here's the full art of the thumbnail and now go watch the video. Adiós!