Pokemon

I love Pokemon.

I started playing the Blue version way back in Primary School.I remember skipping meals just to save up money to buy a Gameboy Pocket and the game cartridge. While I did not manage to catch 'em all, I had a lot of fun battling with my friends, with most battles ending in a classic final showdown between Mewtwo and Mewtwo. I did play all the subsequent versions, but the original generation of Red Blue and Yellow holds a special place in my heart.

When I saw this Zelda collage that was created to commemorate the 25th anniversary of that series, I was blown away. This is a piece of Zelda fanart that can end all Zelda fanarts. The sheer amount of details that are crafted into this super awesome artwork is staggering. I can really tell that the artist is an avid fan of the series.

Thus, when my digital painting lecturer called for a personal project as our final assignment, I immediately jumped onto the idea of creating a Pokemon fanart that tries to emulate the epic-ness of the Zelda collage. Multi-figure composition is also another field of study that I hope to explore in. I have always found difficulty trying to portray multiple characters within the same space of the painting, and I was hoping to learn a thing or two when constructing this piece of fanart.

I had several ideas of how the collage piece can look. The original one was to place the characters in a fashion similar to that of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I remember reading about the Zelda Collage on Kotaku, and one reader commented that if there was a St. Peter's for games, that collage would definitely be on the Sistine Chapel. I played around with the idea a little, but realized that the characters and scenes are too separated, which goes against my multi-figure learning objectives.

The sketch is so rough, that you probably can't tell what's going on

I then proceed to experiment with placing characters like how a Marvel comic book cover would. In this way, I was able to divide and break out the page into individual episodes where I can place different groups of characters together. I settled on this idea, with the page consisting of the gym leaders at the left, elite 4 at the top, team rocket at the right and Ash Ketchum in the center.

I usually start a piece of artwork with very loose and sketching lines. Very often, the only person who knows what is going on in these thumbnails is myself, therefore I rarely, if ever, show these to anyone.

I then go on to refine the drawing until it is the viewer can recognize each character just by the lineart. This is the phase where I try to get all the problem solving done. It is always very difficult to try to correct drawing errors during the painting stage, so I try to minimize that by doing a very clean sketch.

Next, I do a quick color test, slapping in tones to suggest the where the lighting is coming from. I switch back and forth constantly between color and grayscale to check on the tonal values. I also keep another window of the artwork, displaying at a smaller resolution, at the side of the screen to make sure that the entire composition reads. This is important as there are many characters present here, and I want to make sure that Ash is always the center of attention.

And finally, the finished piece

This piece took me more than 40 hours from conception to final realization. While it did not turn out nearly as epic as I would have imagines, I am still quite happy with the results. Next time: All 600+ Pokemons!