Another prototype for Datu Talim is Sultan Kudarat.
A great warrior/leader who lead a group of clans
during the spanish occupation, that was NEVER
subjugated by the consquista in the PI. Way Cool!

i here some people do not like this statue of lapu lapu. I do.
it looks great, and a lot better than the one in mactan. there's a little lapu lapu in datu talim, i think. i specially love the kampilan he has here.
never cared for the scimitar that the one in mactan has. same with the shield that the mactan statue has.

out of curiosity, i went and browsed through the Soul calibur IV game manual. i went directly to Datu Talim's namesake to see if there was any new development to this pseudo pinoy character. lo and behold, the makers finally gave up and instead of defining the female character as she was originally was (pinoy) , now she is a generic "south east asian" babe, whom you could never even guess she was from, the way she was depicted in the game. shame on Namco! this typifies the ignorance of the media concerning Filipino culture. it's not enough that they would make up a character without any semblance to the culture she was supposed to be from, but now they jettisoned the concept entirely and wrote some bogus "south eastasian" origin for her, and so generic at that! Datu Talim will be better that this. Datu Talim will fully represent pinoy culture albeit in a hi concept way. hi concept, meaning i will use the real culture as a template and honor the source material, not like soul calibur IV. the story of Datu Talim might happen in a idealised, fictionalized version of the Philippines, but there would be no mistaking as to where the designs came from.

Here's my comicon Datu Talim shirt. i really like the design but i got stuck
with a print service that really sucked. they couldn't even match the colors i have in
my jet printer! and not only that, they could bearly support a job done on a mac
platform! there's gotta be some one that could do a better job for the right budget.

all right, it's that time again. every year i've been attending comicon
in hopes of getting plugged in somewhere. so far, i got a couple of nibbles
(got printed in IDW) and met a few pros who seem to like my work. this year,
i volunteered in hopes of getting more connections. could this be the year for
datu talim?
stay tuned!

this reaally bugs me.
i found out, about a year ago, that there is a character in soul calibur by the name talim. since i'm not really a game player (for shame!) i was totally unaware of this. so i went and googled this and i just couldn't believe what i saw.
the character (which is female by the way) has NOTHING to do with pinoy culture.
with the exception of the name and the "signature" moves she has, the character is devoid of ANYTHING remotely reflecting filipino culture. all NAMCO did was co opted the word WITHOUT any research what so ever. from the costume to her weapon, NOTHING looks like it came from 'pinas.
what's worse about this is that it reinforces the fallacy of the Philippines
not having an identity. i understand about the design part of it, but for goodness sake, at least use EXISTING historical designs as a template rather than making things up or at worse, ignoring it all together. i wouldn't have minded them using the name if they had respect for the source material but as it is it just bugs me to no end.
hence forth, just to differentiate my talim from theirs, the official title now will
be DATU TALIM. the prefix datu means a chief, which in datu talim's case would fit
because he will become just that as the story unfolds. datu talim bantugan will have more relevance in reflecting pinoy culture more than an empty shell that NAMCO'S character has become. His full name is Talim Bantugan

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durian is the uncle of Datu Talim. as Datu Talim is a master of the kalis, durian is a master linguist, able to speak several
languages, which helps him in his travels as a merchant. he has an uncanny ability in business. it is through his contacts
that Datu Talim was able to travel extensively throughout asia. unfortunately, uncle durian has a weakness in games of chance
which puts him and his nephew into some precarious situations. pictured with him is tuk tuk, durian's pet binterong, an animal
native to palawan, an island in silangan.

jamila is her name. she is possibly the best swords woman ever, bar none! one of talim's allies in silangan, she
is a member of a royal tribe. i like strong women in this type of stories, so i thought of having a sort of counter
balance to Datu Talim. a leader in every sense, jamila never the less, has not lost any of her feminine qualities.

final Datu Talim Bantugan version. here's our boy in full color. the main man of this story. as it unfolds, we'll learn more about him
and his past. and why does the story open at the edge of the gobi desert . i mean, what on earth is an island boy
doing in this god fosaken place?