Persona 4 - Final Fantasy VII

A fella can think up the weirdest things while doing the dishes.

I was doing the dishes--involuntarily, of course--and I just randomly thought of how similar Tatsumi Kanji of Persona 4 and Barrett Wallace of Final Fantasy VII are, and how Kanji would look cool in Barrett's clothes. This led me to think of how Shirogane Naoto would look cool as Vincent Valentine. I proceeded to pair off P4 party members with FF7 party members, and the rest, as they say, is history.

I'm ultimately proud of how this came out. I'm REALLY proud that I was able to fit ten characters on one page (my limit is 3) without squashing people in, making them sit on each other, etc. I started out by drawing The Fox/Red XIII, then Rise-chan/Yuffie, then Seta/Cloud, then Yukiko/Aerith, then Teddie/Cait Sith, then Chie/Tifa, then Yosuke/Cid, then Naoto/Vincent, then Kanji/Barrett, to finish off with Nanako/Marlene. Just, you know. In case anyone cares.

Moving on, here are my thoughts about them individually...

Souji Seta/Cloud Strife:
The choice to make the protagonist (Souji Seta) was obvious; he had to be Cloud Strife, because they're both the stoic leaders of their respective groups. My only problem was that Seta's hair is very dull, and Cloud's clothes are kind of dull by Final Fantasy standards (this goes for most of P4's characters; they have much more realistic hair than the average FF character). This is part of the reason that I gave Seta glasses. That and the fact that I like to emphasize his Badass Bookworm qualities XD

Satonaka Chie/Tifa Lockheart:
Could there BE a more obvious pairing? I think not. Chie is pretty much my favorite P4 character, and so I had a lot of fun drawing her. This was actually my first time drawing Chie-chan XD I had a huge problem (heh heh) with her chest; Chie's pretty fairly endowed, but Tifa is famous for having ridiculously oversized boobs. I wasn't sure whether to honor Tifa's memetic boobies or to make it just Chie under the costume, and compensated by accentuating her bust only slightly, but not to the extent of Tifa. I also considered making changes to her outfit to give her a zettai ryouiki, to spice up her outfit, but decided against it/forgot to do it before scanning the drawing in.

Hanamura Yosuke/Cid Highwind:
Interesting story; when I was mapping this out, I completely forgot about Tifa, and cast Chie as Cid instead. This left me with no-one to be Yosuke, and I worried I might have to cast him as Zack (who's really not part of the FF7 cast, admit it). Then I remembered Tifa and made the obvious switch. I originally had Yosuke with a cigarette, but then I thought it might be a little out of character. Also, note the goggles; Cid wears them on his head, but Yosuke is wearing them around his neck, where they do nothing. This is for two reasons; A) he looks stupid with them on his head, and B) as a reference to his headphones.

Amagi Yukiko/Aerith Gainsborough:
Again, this one was obvious. The Yamato Nadeshiko girls as one another. I admit I was a little unsure about putting Yuki-chan as Aerith, knowing she would die. : P Anyway, this was my first time drawing Yukiko, and she's the only one I'm not completely happy with. I think I made her eyes too wide. Otherwise, she came out pretty well, IMO. I forgot to include Aerith's rod, though. Oh well.

Tatsumi Kanji/Barrett Wallace:
Kanji was virtually the alst one I drew, and I had a huge problem with him; while most of the characters are mercifully similar, appearance-wise, to their counterpart, Kanji and Barrett have completely different body types. I couldn't exactly give Kanji Barrett's hugely exaggerated body, so I compromised by giving him JUST Barrett's clothes, and I daresay it came out alright. Interestingly, they both have skull tattoos on their left shoulders; I considered switching Kanji's out for Barrett's, but decided against it. This was my first time drawing Kanji, and I had lots of fun. He has weird eyes O.o

Teddie/Cait Sith
After I drew Teddie, which was immediately after some frustration with Yukiko, I got a little disheartened with the picture and put it away for a while. I'm not big on drawing animals, much less cartoon-y ones. After I finished Teddie and Cait Sith, they looked rushed, as though I hadn't put a whole lot of work into them. (I might not have.) Then I drew Chie as Tifa and felt MUCH better. Anyway, that aside, I was torn between using the stuffed Moogle that Cait Sith uses in FF7 or having Human!Teddie riding Bear!Teddie. I chose the former because it looked more like Cait Sith that way. Teddie went ultimately unchanged (although he's much smaller than in P4) because I thought a cape and crown would look corny on him.

Kujikawa Rise/Kisaragi Yuffie
Rise was the first I drew, except for the fox, and I'm very, very happy with how she came out. (This was my first time drawing her.) Rise is just so cute XD She's also a rare case in which her hair looks better than her FF7 counterpart. Not much to say about her; the choice of Yuffie was kind of obvious, considering the other girls were taken and Yuffie and Rise are both cheery young girls. It's nice to see Rise in the fray for once. XD

Shirogane Naoto/Vincent Valentine
Here's another that seemed obvious to me. The two brooding, dark-haired snipers get paired off. The only problem with dressing Naoto as Vincent is that Vincent is very tall, while Naoto is quite short. (Naoto's not even that tall, actually; Rise is supposed to be slightly taller by comparison). I also switched out Vincent's turban thingy for Naoto's hat, because Vincent's thing doesn't make sense with short hair like Naoto's. I'm pretty proud of this one, as I've never drawn Naoto before.

The Fox/Red XIII
The Final Fantasy VII party is bigger than the Persona 4 party by one member, and that member is (actually Vincent or Yuffie, as they're the optional party members) Red XIII. Fortunately, P4 also has a mysterious fox who is kinda sorta part of the Investigation Team, so I used him as Red XIII. Note that there are few changes in their design, except the fox head and a couple of different scars.

Dojima Nanako/Marlene Wallace
What's Nanako doing here? Marlene was never part of the party, nor was Nanako. So why? Well, when I was finishing this drawing, I'd just watched the cutscene you get after defeating Mitsuo, where the cast goes to Dojima's house to eat dinner. Nanako was so almost part of the group that I decided she practically counts as one of them anyway, and stuck her in. I had a hard time finding a picture of Marlene and almost used her Advent Children outfit, but ended up using one I only vaguely believe Marlene ever wore.

I originally planned to do a crack version of this, with Tifa as Cid, Rise as Aerith, and (the gem here) Teddie as Bear-ett, but I don't see that happening anymore XP Well, I hope you liked it! (Uh, assuming someone sees this...)

(P.S.: I don't know why it's purple. It just scanned that way and I *like* it.)