Saturday, December 1, 2012

Style Exploration: My Pokemon Battle Team

I've been busy with multiple freelance jobs lately and I haven't had time to work on anything personal, so I took a day off and decided to let off some steam by drawing Pokemon:


This is my Pokemon Battle Team. Strategy-wise, it's not the best lineup but these six Pokemon are my favorite to use in battle. CLAYDOL, CHANDELURE, BISHARP, and SCOLIPEDE are from my Pokemon White Version team whereas GALLADE and MISMAGIUS are from my Soul Silver Version lineup. The hexagon boxes below the images are the techniques I gave them in their respective games, the red highlighted boxes being the move used in the illustration.

Style-wise, I wanted to take a break from line art because that's the part of my drawing style that takes the longest. Since this was a stress-reliever exercise, I wanted to draw these Pokemon quickly, so after creating a rough sketch of their poses I went straight to colour.

For those curious about the nicknames:

[CLAYDOL] "Pendulum"
     - Named after my favorite band, plus "Pendulum" seemed to fit this Pokemon. I like Claydol's design for some reason - I think it has something to do with the "eyes" all around its head. It's weird, therefore I like it.

[CHANDELURE] "Daniel"
     - Named after the player character in Amnesia: The Dark Descent. This Pokemon is a ghost and a source of light, so I paid homage to the lantern Daniel carries in the scariest game I've ever played.

[GALLADE] "Jak"
     - Named after Jak from the Jak & Daxter games. I wanted to give Gallade a slick name and "Jak" was the only one I could think of at the time. I also gave him a partner: a Buizel nicknamed "Daxter".

[BISHARP] "Mr.Justice"
     - A name I thought of out of ridiculousness because Bisharp looked like a total badass. His design reminded me of Ultraman or some superhero, so I made him a guardian of justice. I made sure to match his techniques with the epicness of his name.
     - Mr.Justice is my favorite battle Pokemon on this team. Imagining him as a superhero makes him extremely fun to play.

[SCOLIPEDE] "Snare"
     - For the longest time, his nickname was "Pendoraa" which is his Japanese name because it sounded so cool and I couldn't think of a better name. So I took my Knife Party-inspired centipede plush's name and shared it with this centipede-inspired Pokemon.
     - Scolipede holds my favorite design out of this whole team.

[MISMAGIUS] "Onryo"
     - "Onryo" are vengeful spirits in Japanese folklore. Honestly, I was kinda bummed that I couldn't catch a female Mismagius, so it was tough nicknaming this male one.
     - Onryo was the first Pokemon in my Soul Silver Version to reach level 100.