Brutal Paws of Fury Tribute

I have finally completed my submission for the final challenge of 2019:
https://www.deviantart.com/game-art-hq/journal/Our-Last-Art-Challenge-of-2019-Is-SPECIAL-816622906

The challenge presented to me was to draw all twelve characters from the now discontinued fighting game 'Brutal: Paws of Fury.'
Yeah I drew some art of this game in the past. Of course it was the character people only really cared about: Foxy Roxy.
https://www.deviantart.com/shinragod/art/Foxy-Roxy-665046210
I still think this will always be my best work of her.

So now the challenge was to draw the rest of the cast competing for the 'Belt of Heaven.'
It really wasn't that hard; though the color pallets of these characters change drastically with their in-game sprites and animated cut-scene counterparts.
Also trying to get that fish-eye lens effect by hand without a reference was kinda hard. I had a Street Fighter II poster to help me.
Which is essentially what Brutal: Paws of Fury is. It's Street Fighter meets Animalympics.

So now I managed to fit the whole cast in a sort of pyramid hierarchy. At the center bottom with his long arm bands flowing upwards is the current champion of the Brutal tournament the Dali Llama. And right next to him are Foxy Roxy and Thai Cheetah. Yeah Dali Llama being a llama and the cheetah's name being Thai Chee-tah. Get it?
Well it may have giving the characters comical names but their back stories are actually pretty true-to-life and sometimes a bit serious. Foxy's backstory for example involves her being a social activist politician representing Indian from the UN entering the tournament to help feed her starving people in India. Again bringing Street Fighter up again this is pretty much akin to Dhalsim's backstory on why he chose to fight.
Foxy Roxy was among the most important characters to represent here. (I had to redraw her a number times because of this.) Like I mentioned she's the character people really only care about; and among the only reason people would want a re-make of this game. (Brutal: Reclawed or something.) She's also the only female character of the game: the Chun-Li of this series if you will. Naturally people would like to see more female fighters. And naturally they'd like some of their designs to be among them.
, they're anthro but they don't have hair.

Prince Leon to the right of Foxy technically has hair. But he's a lion so that's really his mane. He's also one of the few characters who uses an outside weapon in the tournament: his guitar. Yes his amps are so powerful they can damage you.
Thai Cheetah and Prince Leon aren't the only felines of this game. We got two more of them to introduce to you. Immediately to Prince Leon's right is Psycho Kitty. If you think he looks like a Kitty on crack you're not far off. He's a feral fighter entering the tournament to feed his drug habits. See there's some serious issues they deal with here. Poverty and drugs in a game featuring fighting animals. Well their cartoony designs say otherwise; but if the controls were not so clunky in this game I might be more into it.

To Thai Cheetah's left is his student Kendo Coyote. Oh; the Ryu of the game right? Nah not really. More like Ken. Kendo is a promising student to Thai but he's really motivated by greed and fame. He's an amoral fighter and apparently still a red belt. I didn't know red belts could compete in such a brutal tournament. Nor could tiny little mole creatures. That would be Chung Poe to Kendo's left. But he's no ordinary mole. He can stretch his limbs and even morph into a dragon. So he's a combination of Dhalsim and Lu Kang evidently. Yeah the game really does cross between Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat....just no fatalities.

Climbing the hierarchy we see Rhei Rat directly over Dali Llama. Nothing much to say about this guy except he's a skilled Muay Thai boxer who has his own motives to the tournament. I think he's in it for money hence his smug look but whatever. Same thing with Kung Fu Bunny (yes that's his name) directly above him. I never beat this game with all the characters so I dunno much about Kung Fu Bunny other than he's a Xaolin monk who's a bunny. This game really wasn't a lot of fun so I didn't bother discovering everyone's endings. This thing can be a slog to get through. I've only played the SNES version with only trying the Sega 32X version on my Rasbperry Pi. And it still is broken.
MAYBE the Amiga version works better but I don't have an Amiga. I'm sure there's also patched versions of this game online that are worth playing as well as MUGEN characterizations of these characters. All in all I guess I was too focused on other things to really try it out. Nor do I honestly care to. XD

Flanking Rhei and Bunny is Karat Croc and Ivan the Bear. Karate Croc is the only reptile of the game; and the only non-mammal in general. I actually like his simple design. He wears a typical karate gi with shades. And on a crocodile that actually looks cool. So he's a neat design. I'd say Ivan the Bear is our Zangief of the game. An ex-Soviet body builder who's the strongest fighter in the game. But that also means he's the slowest. Yeah I say he's the Zangief of the game. Except he doesn't grab people, put their faces in his crotch and pile drive them. He's just big n strong. For some reason he reminds me of Gruffy from Gummi Bears...if he took steroids.

Lastly at the very top is Pantha; a panther-like feline who is part of a sinister cult. He has fairly mystic moves and wears a shroud. He does really remind me of a Mortal Kombat character; cloak and red eyes.

That's all I gotta say about it. I fulfilled the challenge and got it completed right on Thanksgiving. Now if you excuse me, I got some Thanksgiving dinner to enjoy.
But hopefully you enjoy this piece.

Original Text by shinragod