I guess I should formally make a post here about this, even though it’s been out for a while now:
HISTORY: This project is something that I’ve been actively working on for the past 2 years and I am very proud to be able to finally present the fruits of my labor! Growing up, I’d always been a massive fan of the Donkey Kong Country titles. I remember finding “Legend of the Crystal Coconut” on VHS at my local video rental store and pleading with my parents to rent it for me. I was blown away, finally being able to put voices to kharacters- and while the overall quality of the animation and writing was rather dubious in hindsight, most of the vocal performances always stood out to me as being THE definitive voice cast. For an awkwardly-animated cartoon of the mid-90’s, the writing was fine for what it was and touched on the normal ‘Saturday Morning’ kids block tropes. However, I’d always felt that there was something more that could be brought to the table in terms of storytelling if things were more kongsistent with the games. Here’s where I come in. Fast-forward 25 some odd years and I’m now living out my childhood dream, as ko-producer, kreative kongsultant, kasting director and voice actor of my own little motley krew of Kremlings!
I hope you all will have as much fun watching this as we did making this!
#46 - Pirate's Scorn (Alestorm)
Yes this is unironically. Also don't ask how that hat works - I already hate drawing Pirate Hats and Croc Heads are Hard.
Skurvy, your water-type Gym Leader for the Pokemon Trainer AU
Using characters from the cartoon was inevitable.
Quint Skurvy is Unova's own water-type gym leader, and the head of Humilau City Gym. Coming from a long line of gym leaders and whatever predecessor the position has all over the world, Skurvy is loud and brash, often boasting about his seafaring exploits to anyone who will listen. While what he's talking about usually is nothing to bat an eye at, others have noticed dangerous incidents taking place when he opts to go out at sea. The people of Humilau believe their gym leader to be just a prideful, if a little reckless, fisherman, but are certain he wouldn't harm anyone who doesn't deserve it... right?
Skurvy is originally from Kalos, but also carries heritage from Hoenn and Alola. He would like to go out to sea more often than he gets to, but understands why his duty locks him to the land more often than not.
His team consists of:
Undertow (Sharpedo, male, Adamant nature)
Iscan (Basculegion, male, Timid nature)
Aquanarius (Dondozo, female, Bashful nature)
Jolly (Cramorant, male, Sassy nature)
Crysta (Slowking, female, Impish nature)
Kremin (Seismitoad, male, Naughty nature)
Some additional fun facts:
-Design-wise, there aren't any inspirations from the main Pokemon games. Skurvy's whole being is "pirate", so there wasn't much to work with from DKC canon either. Trainer-wise, there's bits of Archie (pirate aesthetic) and Iscan (fisherman vibes) if you squint, but not much else. Any references I could have made to the cartoon or even DKC2 are seen more in his pokemon than anything else.
-He was ultimately picked among the remaining characters at my disposal because he had the most to work with. This is because he was, if I recall correctly, the next to last league-related character to be drawn up.
-When at sea, he tends to let all of his pokemon out of their balls for the duration of time they're not on land. The larger ones will ride along his boat while the others hang out onboard.
-Most tend to call Skurvy by his surname, but others will also call him Kanon from time to time, because when he sees a friend he will come barreling at them like a cannonball.
-He has a younger brother, but they were separated as children.
Fun Fact: This line actually got censored after the first airing of this episode (I believe the episode is, "Legend of the Crystal Coconut", right?). In airings after the first airing, and in the horrendous Legend of the Crystal Coconut ''movie'', the "may he rot in hell" is replaced with Skurvy's laugh (Though, if you listen hard enough, you can still apparently hear his original "may he rot in hell" line)! It wasn't until the Season 1 DVD was released that the edit to the was apparently removed. Though since they censored this, I'm surprised they didn't censor/remove Skurvy's somewhat disturbing part of one of his lines in "Booty and the Beast" ("In the name of me great-great-grandpappy, Captain Scurvy, may maggots ravage his rotten remains"). Perhaps Nelvana simply weren't able to censor it due to not enough budget, time or they probably just didn't care after firing the original staff of writers
The good news is that I can fight Pipe Lion (the name of the Giant enemy) THAT FRICKIN ATE MY MOM AND MENTOR.
Sigh.
For some reason a lot of people from my adventure were here.
Captain scurvy was trying to make a profit on some of the stolen goods.
Daisy was there taking charge
The beanish family were championing me.
Alice was threatening to shoot Pipe Lion
Ricardo and Mario's family we're trying to keep calm.
Miyamoto had that weird screen thingy he uses trying to figure out what was going on.
Rosalina and Egadd were the most notable.
They had given me a new weapon.
The warp staff
It's some weapon that uses pure warp energy to create concentrated blasts.
The only other thing similar to this was made by a guy in the '70s after drinking a lava lamp. He was discovered on an entirely different Island from where he apparently was last seen with no clothes, a yogurt container, and something he called a "boom tube"
I knew what I had to do. Fight.
@shootysturs / @poyo-shooty-art Drew this boss fight in the art style of Mario and Luigi.
That thing is actually a lot more huge than it's presented here though.
It was a pretty standard fight.
I managed to defeat it after shooting large blast of energy that builds up while dodging it's attacks.
The weird thing is that my mom and Mario didn't leave its mouth.
Kaptain Skurvy sets sail into Super Mario Spikers! I think I'll save his breakdown until I can cover multiple characters at once, because there's not a ton to talk about with him - but it's a fairly obscure character that I think I payed homage to really well! The decision to add him was fueled almost entirely by Return to Krocodile Isle (which was amazing btw), and giving him a Kaptain K. Rool-inspired outfit worked out way better than I thought it would.
My one regret is the logo is just the DKC logo but darker. But like... the show is just called Donkey Kong Country what was I supposed to do lol