Back to working on
my design. The "wings" will essentially be visually identical to existing Rorschach tests, so I'm not worried about those. My main priority right now if figuring out what to do with the body; I don't want it to be too simplistic like in the original concept sketch, but at the same time it's probably going to be a relatively small part of the picture, so I don't want to make it too busy or complex. Above all, I want to make it look like a psychologist.
Here's some of what I sketched at work today, though unfortunately I don't have a great scanner. I decided to remove the pupils from the eyes, because I want them to look more like glasses. I tried working on the placement of the antennae to make them look more like thin hair than angry eyebrows. I thought that the mandibles looked a little bit too malevolent, so I just removed them entirely. Finally, I removed the legs and second pair of arms as unnecessary for the design. You may also notice that I wrote "Psycholobug" in the image. That's just my working name for it. I hope that it's okay for me to call it that openly without it being considered name poll-jumping, because the name is one character too long to be allowed anyway and would thus not be a legal name submission.
What I'm mainly questioning right now is body shape and design. I'm trying to go for body lines that look believably insect-like but also make it look like it's wearing a sweater-vest, as that's the attire that comes to mind when I think psychiatrist. I can imagine the oval of this Psycholobug's body being thinner (2nd down from top-left) or rounder (2nd down from top-right) or something in between (top-right), but I want to avoid the kinds of V-shapes or athletic builds that could make it look like a competent fighter.
I have two main concerns right now about the design in general. The first is with with Psycholobug looking rounder, which I fear could end up too Shedinja-like. I love Shedinja, and I think that Psycholobug looks better round like that, but I'm worried that the similarity may turn people off. My other concern is that, well, to put it bluntly, Psycholobug is not a Pokemon who looks badass, and it is not a Pokemon who
should look badass. It's a Pokemon that should look a little out of shape and maybe even a little bit pathetic, because that's what the concept that I'm going for calls for. If I try to make it look badass, it's not going to look "right". Unfortunately, looking back on what's won before, CAP voters vastly prefer something that looks badass, if not in its final submission image then at least in the supporting artwork. Who knows, though? I might be able to ramp up the badassery in the supporting artwork when I get to working on what I really want it to be able to do with those "wings"...
Anyway, feedback and ideas appreciated as always.