...and the first appearance of Our Heroine!

I was inspired to give Red a Clydesdale by the Pixar movie Brave, which similarly features its heroine Merida riding one. As Pumpmonger himself put it, a big girl needs a big horse!

Another change from HATMM: unlike Hercules/Maciste who traveled alone, Red is accompanied by the faithful Keiko. She's another of Pumpmonger's creations, who makes occasional appearances in the art that Pumpmonger commissions for his deviantART site.

Keiko was originally posited as a slave whom Red freed; I decided to take a different tack with her backstory. In this version, Keiko is a samurai who was forced to flee Japan when her father was falsely accused of conspiring against the Shogun; rather than obey the order to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), she fled her homeland with the intention of returning to clear her father and restore his good name. She met Red in China, when Red rescued her from yet another attempt by her family's enemies to assassinate her.

I modeled Keiko after popular Japanese adult video star Hitomi Tanaka - in face and figure (so she's also much bustier than Pumpmonger's original version.)

©2014 David C. Matthews