I might be embarrassing myself here but, as you all know, I LOVE Pokemon. I've talked about a large majority of them and spent a lot of time analyzing them, studying their designs and inspirations, and this has of course led me to many times jotting down my own ideas for Pokemon. Typically this has just been text but...
Having purchased a drawing tablet finally, I've slowly begun to practice my drawing, and drawing my Pokemon ideas has been a common practice I've undertaken. And I thought I'd share. My drawing style? Amateurish. I think (in my opinion) I'm alright at conveying the basic idea behind my designs, but my perspective, color theory, construction, and shading needs a lot of work. But I thought I'd share some of my sketches here to see what you think. It's probably opening me up to being a "oh that's an OC guy", and that's fine, I've loved making my own characters for series since I was a little kid, but I'm stuck at home most of the time now, have a bunch of free time, and I thought I'd share some fun little ideas for Pokemon.
I drew a couple of Pokemon before this but this was the first drawing I felt did a "decent" job at capturing the Sugimori style somewhat---I think it's because my first couple drawings I was associating cleanliness (clean lines) with a good drawing, but here I was a little more accommodating to the original sketch and not trying too hard to clean it up and make it looks super clean.
My general theme for my Pokemon Region was one sort of exploring the religion of the Pokemon World, but sort of borrowing from a bunch of different sources to not make light of any actual religion. I wanted to have a character inspired by the Wu Shaman of ancient China, woman shaman, and a familiar for them, so I created the Psychic-type Psymon here. Like there's a spirit in the Wumtyhology that wears a bearskin, so I made this Pokemon bear-like---a mix of the Japanese oniguma, "demon bear", and a real world sun bear, so it has this sort of dopeyness to it.
Like Abra it's intended to be the new Psychic-type three-stage link evolution line, and like Abra it starts out weak and gimmicky---it doesn't learn any offensive Psychic-type attacks, but has Pin Missile, a Bug-type move which allows it to fight back against Dark-type Pokemon since its role it as a fighter of evil. Anyway it fires off its hair like a porcupine, of course inspired by Kitaro from the GeGeGe no Kitaro anime.
My only gripe with this design is that it kind of came out looking like a male version of Smoochum?
This is Kwindol. It kind of looks like it could be a Fire Starter, but it's my idea for an early game Fire-type...which isn't too common across the franchise. It's kind of my "version" of Poochyena, Nickit, or Shinx, an early game Pokemon that's a bit more intimidating than the rodent, but not necessarily all that more powerful.
It's based on the somewhat obscure carnivorous marsupial the tiger quoll, and its evolution line follows that as it changes between different carnivorous marsupials---going to a tasmanian devil to a tasmanian tiger. The quoll isn't a well known animal, so I felt I could make its design a bit more ambiguous, as it doesn't quite look like a real quoll (sort of a weasel looking thing?), and has some more tiger-like elements. One thing the quoll has is, of course, a pouch, which I incorporated here into its Fire-type. While most Fire-type have internal fire sacs, Kwindol has an external one that's on the bottom of its belly pointing out, and this leads to a flicker of flames shooting up along its backside under its tail.
It's a small, but fierce Pokemon, like the real quoll, and because its fire pouch is always leaking it's always looking for food. I thought of a new Ability to connect to this known as Heart Burn, where after eating a Berry its Fire-type attacks increase in power.
I tried to do a sort of "overhead" view of this Pokemon, but I don't think I quite get perspective. I also think I made it a bit too fierce for a Pokemon that's only around 2 feet and is unevolved, it looks a bit too tough here.
I have a weird soft-spot for boring fish Pokemon since Finneon, so I wanted a boring fish Pokemon---in fact, one that's so boring it's basically nothing more than a fish.
So this is Macrill, a Water-type. It's basically just a mackerel. There's nothing particularly special about it in design, though since its whole gimmick is it's constantly fished up by fisherman and eaten, I gave the middle part a sort of "tuna roll" design with the black line and "fluffy rice". I consider it a Pokemon that has "given up" and resigned to die.
I did give it a gimmick where its Ability has its moves use double PP, but in exchange when a move has 1 or 2PP remaining (as in its Ability would mean a 2PP move is its last use), the power is doubled. This would also increase the power of the move Struggle, and it's learn Trump Card, which powers up based on PP remaining, so it'd be interesting from a gameplay perspective.
I like the creativity in modern Pokemon, but at the same time I sort of see the appeal of the classic Pokemon who had more, um, "solid" body shapes with more weight to them a simple colors, so I kind of mixed the two design mantras for my style.
And I'll end with Kidoro, a Dark/Flying Pokemon.
It's a dromaeosaurus. I made it a mix of what a raptor really looked like probably, and the JP-version.
It's not actually a fossil Pokemon, but an extant Pokemon---my reasoning was like raptors are rumored to be, it was smarter than other ancient Pokemon, and managed to survive to modern times, but lives in a valley. Now they mainly prey on eggs rather than meat. Nothing super special about them...I wanted a fun dinosaur Pokemon.
This design actually came about from another idea. See, like GameFreak did I thought of a "mascot Pokemon" like Lucario or Zoroark, and came up with this weird thief Pokemon with modified wire-stretch arms. The Japanese word for thief is "dorobo", in Japan that's how you'd pronounce the beginning of Domaeosaurus I believe, so I made said Pokemon vaguely a raptor. And then I thought this is a modified version of a pre-existing Pokemon, and needed a pre-exiting species this Pokemon is modified from, so I created a more standard raptor. I'm still working on drawing out this "special" variant, but basically I imagine it having more humanoid proportions as a mascot, more expressive eyes, and less feathers, because rather than glide around it uses AoT-style wire gear to move around.
Having purchased a drawing tablet finally, I've slowly begun to practice my drawing, and drawing my Pokemon ideas has been a common practice I've undertaken. And I thought I'd share. My drawing style? Amateurish. I think (in my opinion) I'm alright at conveying the basic idea behind my designs, but my perspective, color theory, construction, and shading needs a lot of work. But I thought I'd share some of my sketches here to see what you think. It's probably opening me up to being a "oh that's an OC guy", and that's fine, I've loved making my own characters for series since I was a little kid, but I'm stuck at home most of the time now, have a bunch of free time, and I thought I'd share some fun little ideas for Pokemon.
I drew a couple of Pokemon before this but this was the first drawing I felt did a "decent" job at capturing the Sugimori style somewhat---I think it's because my first couple drawings I was associating cleanliness (clean lines) with a good drawing, but here I was a little more accommodating to the original sketch and not trying too hard to clean it up and make it looks super clean.
My general theme for my Pokemon Region was one sort of exploring the religion of the Pokemon World, but sort of borrowing from a bunch of different sources to not make light of any actual religion. I wanted to have a character inspired by the Wu Shaman of ancient China, woman shaman, and a familiar for them, so I created the Psychic-type Psymon here. Like there's a spirit in the Wumtyhology that wears a bearskin, so I made this Pokemon bear-like---a mix of the Japanese oniguma, "demon bear", and a real world sun bear, so it has this sort of dopeyness to it.
Like Abra it's intended to be the new Psychic-type three-stage link evolution line, and like Abra it starts out weak and gimmicky---it doesn't learn any offensive Psychic-type attacks, but has Pin Missile, a Bug-type move which allows it to fight back against Dark-type Pokemon since its role it as a fighter of evil. Anyway it fires off its hair like a porcupine, of course inspired by Kitaro from the GeGeGe no Kitaro anime.
My only gripe with this design is that it kind of came out looking like a male version of Smoochum?
This is Kwindol. It kind of looks like it could be a Fire Starter, but it's my idea for an early game Fire-type...which isn't too common across the franchise. It's kind of my "version" of Poochyena, Nickit, or Shinx, an early game Pokemon that's a bit more intimidating than the rodent, but not necessarily all that more powerful.
It's based on the somewhat obscure carnivorous marsupial the tiger quoll, and its evolution line follows that as it changes between different carnivorous marsupials---going to a tasmanian devil to a tasmanian tiger. The quoll isn't a well known animal, so I felt I could make its design a bit more ambiguous, as it doesn't quite look like a real quoll (sort of a weasel looking thing?), and has some more tiger-like elements. One thing the quoll has is, of course, a pouch, which I incorporated here into its Fire-type. While most Fire-type have internal fire sacs, Kwindol has an external one that's on the bottom of its belly pointing out, and this leads to a flicker of flames shooting up along its backside under its tail.
It's a small, but fierce Pokemon, like the real quoll, and because its fire pouch is always leaking it's always looking for food. I thought of a new Ability to connect to this known as Heart Burn, where after eating a Berry its Fire-type attacks increase in power.
I tried to do a sort of "overhead" view of this Pokemon, but I don't think I quite get perspective. I also think I made it a bit too fierce for a Pokemon that's only around 2 feet and is unevolved, it looks a bit too tough here.
I have a weird soft-spot for boring fish Pokemon since Finneon, so I wanted a boring fish Pokemon---in fact, one that's so boring it's basically nothing more than a fish.
So this is Macrill, a Water-type. It's basically just a mackerel. There's nothing particularly special about it in design, though since its whole gimmick is it's constantly fished up by fisherman and eaten, I gave the middle part a sort of "tuna roll" design with the black line and "fluffy rice". I consider it a Pokemon that has "given up" and resigned to die.
I did give it a gimmick where its Ability has its moves use double PP, but in exchange when a move has 1 or 2PP remaining (as in its Ability would mean a 2PP move is its last use), the power is doubled. This would also increase the power of the move Struggle, and it's learn Trump Card, which powers up based on PP remaining, so it'd be interesting from a gameplay perspective.
I like the creativity in modern Pokemon, but at the same time I sort of see the appeal of the classic Pokemon who had more, um, "solid" body shapes with more weight to them a simple colors, so I kind of mixed the two design mantras for my style.
And I'll end with Kidoro, a Dark/Flying Pokemon.
It's a dromaeosaurus. I made it a mix of what a raptor really looked like probably, and the JP-version.
It's not actually a fossil Pokemon, but an extant Pokemon---my reasoning was like raptors are rumored to be, it was smarter than other ancient Pokemon, and managed to survive to modern times, but lives in a valley. Now they mainly prey on eggs rather than meat. Nothing super special about them...I wanted a fun dinosaur Pokemon.
This design actually came about from another idea. See, like GameFreak did I thought of a "mascot Pokemon" like Lucario or Zoroark, and came up with this weird thief Pokemon with modified wire-stretch arms. The Japanese word for thief is "dorobo", in Japan that's how you'd pronounce the beginning of Domaeosaurus I believe, so I made said Pokemon vaguely a raptor. And then I thought this is a modified version of a pre-existing Pokemon, and needed a pre-exiting species this Pokemon is modified from, so I created a more standard raptor. I'm still working on drawing out this "special" variant, but basically I imagine it having more humanoid proportions as a mascot, more expressive eyes, and less feathers, because rather than glide around it uses AoT-style wire gear to move around.
