Lariria

@Ligana5

She/Her They/Them Fae/faer

Commie non-binary trans woman.

Lariria @Ligana59/15/2024, 5:29 PM

Misty @dog

🃏Clip🃏@ArnoldArmadillo6/29/2024, 9:58 PM

Punky... Squirrel? Yeah, Sure, Why Not?

A couple of years ago, I stumbled upon this little-known Indonesian site that used to sell bootleg PlayStation 1 and 2 games. A lot of the site's catalog was pretty standard, including those dime-a-dozen SNES Station ROM compilations (which they've apparently continued producing until at least 2017, judging by this one's cover!) as well as the occasional amusing edit (the bootleg Cleopatra Fortune cover proclaims it to be the "BEST AND UNIQUE PUZZLE GAME OF THE YEAR", which, I mean, is true, but it's still a funny way of phrasing it).

When I discovered this cover, however, I was instantly taken back by its sheer ludicrousness; someone clearly had an imported copy of the Japanese version of Punky Skunk but lacked any knowledge of Japanese, then proceeded to assume that Punky Skunk was actually a squirrel, decided to look for suitable "squirrel" images online in the early days of the commercial Internet (or possibly a CD filled with .GIFs), managed to find the most mid-90s furry art of a warrior squirrel, thought to themselves, "perfect", and then pressed and printed several bootleg copies under the brand new title of "Squirrel Adventure". This cover has been stuck in my mind ever since.

Ever since first laying eyes on this, I've wondered where the hell they sourced this drawing from. Obviously judging by the artstyle and subject matter, it had to be from some sort of 90s-era furry website, but not really being familiar with the 90s furry "scene" personally, I wouldn't really know where to start looking. I did make a few attempts to search it out every now and then, but always came back empty-handed. There appears to be some sort of text near both corners of the stolen image (one may be a signature), but this incredibly low-resolution scan is the only image I've ever been able to find of this specific bootleg.

If anyone with more knowledge of 90s furry art than mine would like to help with identifying this specific drawing, please feel free to. I've been pretty curious about where they nabbed this drawing for at least two years now.

#ps1 #retro games #obscure games #punky skunk #bootleg games

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in reply to @ArnoldArmadillo's post:

Setsune @Setsune6/30/2024, 1:25 AM

As a loose guess, Terrie Smith, but the headshape isn't quite right maybe. There's someone else it reminds me of, but I can't quite pin it down yet. Someone who used to show up in zines I think.

🃏Clip🃏@ArnoldArmadillo6/30/2024, 1:47 AM

It's not a million miles off, but I don't think it's her work; the squirrel's irises seem to be far wider than any of the pieces I've seen from her, the posing seems a little more stiff, and Smith seems to have primarily worked in traditional art, whereas this drawing seems to be digital, judging by the far flatter colors and circular gradient (although the postage-stamp quality of the scan doesn't really help in trying to tell).

Setsune @Setsune6/30/2024, 6:56 AM

I really thought I'd be able to figure this out quickly, but my best guess is Jerry Collins. https://www.deviantart.com/georgieganarf/gallery/all?page=191 Try going to their oldest posts and working forward, you'll see a lot of similar eye shape, proportions, long thin blades, etc. They don't usually draw squirrels, but I found this picture I had saved by them (NSFW) https://staging.cohostcdn.org/attachment/d31cfb29-ecd8-4ef8-86c4-f1e8bb4554a6/jerrycollins01.jpg that really comes close.

If that's a wash, my backup guess is Ken Singshow (but they don't really draw straight weapons like that a ton, or do that doubled eye shine really).

🃏Clip🃏@ArnoldArmadillo6/30/2024, 6:24 PM

Some of Collins' digital art does bear some resemblance (and as you said, the work you linked is very similar) but I couldn't really find anything that would be a match going through the gallery. I did, however, manage to find at least one eBay listing for one of Collins' Bambioid pieces that bears a far stronger resemblance to both the work you linked and the squirrel.