This is my favorite of anything I've ever drawn, it's maybe one of only times where I managed to get exactly what was in my head on paper. In theory it's the first in a series (which also includes the Auk painting, see below) of ladies fashion combined with extinct animals. There was a trend in the late 19th/early 20th centuries for taxidermy to feature in women's headware, though, to my knowledge no animals were hunted to extinction for this specifically (furs maybe...)
The woman in blue's outfit is based on Mongolian wresting clothes, though much less revealing. Which actually ties into the story. The character is based on Khutulun, a legendary female wrestler, who no man could defeat. Supposedly this lead to the tradition of topless wrestling to that no woman could enter the fight again. I was debating on making her like a proxy of Khutulun's younger sister. The sumo cowgirl is based on the Japanese tradition of doing sumo and of cowgirls. And nipple flails. I think I was looking at a lot of Akira Toriyama panels and I drew them based on his style
Pirates are just fun! I was also thinking a lot about Marc Davis' drawings and sketches for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride and wanted to try to work on something similar (but of course not as good. Still showing some Toriyama too
The great Auk looked like a large penguin (though it's related to puffins not penguins) but it lived in the northern hemisphere. The supposed last sighting of a great Auk was 1852.
sometimes you just need a space cigarette
Tomoko Tomoe (played by Yuriko Hishimi) was one of the protagonists from 1972's Godzilla vs Gigan, my favorite Showa Godzilla movie. The best Godzilla movies all have fun human casts of doofuses and the cast of Gigan is maybe the goofiest (maybe) and most visually diverse (definitely). I was watching a lot of Mission Hill at the time (this is a theme I guess?) so I drew the main cast in that style (I'll post the others later).