PekoponTAS' Pokemon Teams Art Project

[PekoponTAS | 171]

Something I've been wanting to do for a while is draw my Pokemon teams from my favourite playthroughs of each Pokemon game. My end goal is to have a drawing from the first eight generations (and Pokemon Colosseum) and hang them on my wall as a franchise spanning "Hall of Fame."

To understand why I connect with these teams though, you have to understand the self imposed rules I play by. I play in such a way where the games are significantly harder than normal, and it makes the games way better. While there is a large list of rules, I'll only list the ones that matter to understanding this thread, and the selection of my teams.

• The game must be played on battle mode "Set".
• I'm not allowed to use items from the bag during trainer battles. 
• Pokemon must be fully healed before important battles, to avoid abuse of turn one status or low health based tactics. Important battles I define as gym leaders, elite four members, champions, villain team bosses and admins, and rival battles. Battles with other plot important NPCs generally fall into this category too.
• I must have six Pokemon on my team that are viable for the elite four at the end of the game.
• Temporary party members are not permitted. This is a hard rule to set concrete logic too, but generally if I need a certain Pokemon to get me past something I couldn't beat without it, that Pokemon must stay on my team as a permanent party member. 
• Only Pokemon that are new to the generation may be used on a team. Older generations of Pokemon may only be used if they evolve into a newly introduced one, and must be evolved as soon as possible.
• A team of Pokemon cannot have a single overlapping type.
• Pokemon taken into the Elite Four cannot be leveled higher than the Champion's "ace" Pokemon.
• Pokemon on my team cannot hold the same item as another Pokemon on my team during trainer battles.

There are other situational rules, but none of them are important for this thread. This is the abridged version of the set of rules I've been using for many years now, and it genuinely makes the games harder and more competitive. As a result, some of these playthroughs have allowed me to get really attached to the Pokemon I use.

At this point I'll explain how I go about drawing a larger scale picture. The first drawing is for my Pokemon Pearl team.

• Step 1: The Doodle

This is a crude, small scale doodle done without reference pictures. This is done to get a vague idea of what I want the drawing to look like without worrying about the details. Drawing characters off model can lead to really fun results, so I like drawing from memory for the first few doodles.

It's important to explain why Bastiodon is sad, as he was what made this playthrough so special. Bastiodon is a really cool Pokemon that I love the concept of, but in practice he's just not very good. During the game I would repeatedly throw Bastiodon out in moments where he should have been good, but in the end he just couldn't accomplish much. There were two points in the game where I considered breaking my rules and abandoning him for Lucario, but both times I decided against it.

At the end of the game it was down to my last Pokemon against the champion's last Pokemon, and Bastiodon was able to use his specific talents to defeat Roserade and save the day. His special bulk and steel typing resisted all of Roserades attacks except for Energy Ball, which he was able to tank. Due to his low speed, he was able to move second and use a super effective avalanche attack, which doubles in power if performed after your opponent's attack. Bastiodon didn't have a lot of victories under his belt throughout the journey, but still ended the game as a hero.

I tried to showcase Bastiodon's self doubt, with Drifblim and Lopunny comforting him. Floatzel on the other hand is antagonizing him for being dead weight, while Luxray and Torterra (who were consistently reliable on their own) are keeping an eye on the others in case they need to get involved.

• Step 2: The Really Rough Draft

The next step is to make a larger scale and more detailed version of the doodle without going overboard. It allows me to get a better sense of what works and what doesn't. I realized I didn't know how to draw the perspective of Lopunny doing the motivational head pat, and that I'd have to change it for the final version.

• Step 3: "The Rough Draft"

This drawing is already in the process of being converted to step 4, but "The Rough Draft" is where I start drawing what will end up being the final picture. This is where I make a serious attempt to draw the off model characters in a way that looks nice. During this process, I decided to change the context of the picture. Rather than being during the middle of the adventure, this is directly after Bastiodon saves the day and is being congratulated by the others. Floatzel's attitude is now saying "Nice work, champ!" and Lopunny is giving Bastiodon a well deserved side hug for overcoming his journey long arc. Drifblim's in the process of being converted, but she's next to Lopunny as they worked really well together in battle through the whole game.

Luxray and Torterra's mindset have been altered too, where Luxray looks on at the commotion with a hint of resentment that she and Torterra did a lot of the work, and Torterra with a small smile and one eye half open is telling Luxray to "let them have their fun".

• Step 4: "Work in Progress"

Step four is the conversion of the off model designs into more accurate designs. This phase is usually hard for me, as I tend to fall in love with the off model versions. However by converting them into the more accurate designs, this allows me to keep certain off model elements that I like and create a fun hybrid. Only Lopunny and Bastiodon have been converted so far, but I kept Lopunny's off model eye design in the transition. Bastiodon's details had to be completely redrawn, but the shape of his body is pretty much the same as before. One thing I did keep from Bastiodon's off model design is his rounded off shoe toes, which in his actual design are sharp nails. I thought the shoe shaped toes made him look a little more weak and innocent like he was in-game.

This is what I have so far, and I plan to update this thread as I go along. The Sinnoh team was by far the team with the most character, so I likely won't be as long winded in the following updates. This will all take a long time, but hopefully you'll join me.

Also since this tends to happen in forum art threads, please don't post your own artwork here.

We're not even anywhere near colouring the first picture out of nine!

Edited December 15, 2022 by PekoponTAS

[T-Pac | 7,590]

@PekoponTAS dude, this is awesome! I love how the whole team is interacting and telling a story in the drawing rather than just being a lineup of "standard pose Pokemon".

Keeping those unreferenced personal-touches is great, too. I also prefer to draw game-characters with my own twist on them (But I'm never confident enough to start without looking up reference images - so kudos on that haha).

-CasualCart

[PekoponTAS | 171]

I was looking at the positioning of Bastiodon's feet and having a realization that he needed to be completely redrawn. The good news is that I'm pretty happy with how Lopunny and Bastiodon look now, so I scanned them in using some fancy scanner settings to convert the line work to PNG black and white. This is how I scan these drawings in to colour them on the computer, but I'll likely go back and add some more size variation to the lines before actually colouring. Compare this one to the one above, and I think it looks better. I also decided to change Bastiodon's expression, as I feel like despite all of the self doubt and ridicule he got through the game, he'd still be humble about his victory.

I also won't lie, Lopunny was fun to draw. XD

[PekoponTAS | 171]

It's been a bit since I worked on this, but I needed to separate myself from it for a while. I've got Floatzel finished now, and the mindset of this version has also changed a bit. I didn't like how agreeable Floatzel became in the previous version, so in this version he's gone from antagonistic to something more along the lines of Falco from Star Fox. Floatzel is praising Bastiodon, but still pokes fun at him in a friendly way. In this version I think of him saying something along the lines of "Nice work, ya big dope".

The lower half of him needs some work, (that foot is completely wrong) but I'm pretty happy overall. Drifblim is next!

Edited December 15, 2022 by PekoponTAS