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CAP 4 CAP 4 - Art Submission Thread
- Thread starter Sunday
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Did you mean this one, or the other, sexyalejandro?Umm... uh... err... this is totally salvageable...
The other one... the crazy weezing-evo... that looks like it could eat a baby...
I just thought it was funny how they named those 2 posion pokemon after breathing problems... HAHAH the last one HAS to be chocking... so therefore
CHOKING
- Choking, the smog pokemon. Choking is weezing's evolve form. It can be found roaming around hospitals, restaurants and toy factories. It goes around giving children of 3 years of age and younger, toys small enought to fit in their mouth and likes the sounds of asthmatic kids. It evolves when its trainer has had a real close encounter with a constipated Slaking. He cures cancer
i just figured out what the ohojee looks like.
look up a play called ubu roi by alfred jarry. find the pictures jarry drew. it looks like it belongs in that play...and i hated that play...no offense presump...
and the smogimp is still tops for me, but there are a hell of a lot of good submissions.
look up a play called ubu roi by alfred jarry. find the pictures jarry drew. it looks like it belongs in that play...and i hated that play...no offense presump...
and the smogimp is still tops for me, but there are a hell of a lot of good submissions.
We need a Pokemon that takes the best qualities of all the suggested creatures so far...
The Naga-thingy's snake0like lower body.
The Smogimp's angry kawaii-ness and perpetual fart... I mean smog cloud. >.>
The Daddy Longlegs' multiple legs.
The Shiny grass-thingy's espionage-like demeanor (couldn't think of how to say it).
The Oho Jee thing's freakiness.
...
*runs off to start working on this... whatever*
The Naga-thingy's snake0like lower body.
The Smogimp's angry kawaii-ness and perpetual fart... I mean smog cloud. >.>
The Daddy Longlegs' multiple legs.
The Shiny grass-thingy's espionage-like demeanor (couldn't think of how to say it).
The Oho Jee thing's freakiness.
...
*runs off to start working on this... whatever*
Or, you know, just superglue everything together. Worked great for me! :D
Some of you have mentioned you'd like to hear the backstory on my design. This is a long read, since I put a lot of thought into this design. I've listed a lot of background details below. I also wrote a section on my inspiration sources, for anyone interested in how I came up with the design. And finally, for anyone dedicated enough to read through this whole thing, I've included some alternate colorings at the very end.
Here's the design, for reference:
Background Info
This pokemon is a large serpent that lives in the desert. It has a thick bone carapace to protect it from damage and harsh desert weather. It can "swim" the through the surface of desert sands like water.
The carapace is for protection, but it is also a nifty form of camouflage. When it rests, it burrows into the sand slightly, but leaves the top of its carapace exposed. So all you see are various fragments of bone. This makes it look like the skeletal remains of a dead animal. You know how movies always depict skeletons of dead animals in the desert? Well, perhaps those skeletons are really a sleeping desert serpent....
This pokemon raises up out of the sand and shows its brightly colored body and underbelly to scare off potential attackers. Although the pokemon looks intimidating, it's actually a defense mechanism.
I envision this as a helpful pokemon. I made sure not to include any obvious attacking features on the design (ie fangs, claws, etc). I can see it helping lost or stranded travelers in the desert. For some reason, I thought of dolphins when thinking of helpful animals. You know how dolphins supposedly help swimmers by fending off sharks by butting the sharks with their nose? I don't know if that story is true, but that's what I was thinking of. I even rounded the spikes on the carapace to look a little like dolphin fins. To me, dolphin fins look friendly. Since this pokemon can swim through the sand, I thought the "fin" concept made some sense. I picture this pokemon coming to the aid of other pokemon in the desert, helping fight off wild packs of Sandslash, or something like that.
The belly design is meant to look mystical. Because of the overall magical look of the serpent, I think desert cultures would have folklore and mystery surrounding this pokemon. "Does it really exist? Was it a mirage?" That sort of thing. Perhaps it could be like the "Spirit of the Desert" lore behind Flygon. I'm a huge Flygon fan. I picture this pokemon getting along with Flygon. Flygon is the air-based desert protector, this is the land-based desert protector.
This is a rare pokemon. The sort of thing you only find at the end of the game. Kinda like Rotom or Lucario in D/P. If it were ingame, you might get this pokemon by teaming up with a nomadic Bedouin NPC and going through a series of double battles in the desert. The nomad uses this cool team-support desert serpent and at the end gives you your own. Maybe an egg like Riley/Riolu in D/P.
It has a bone rattle at the end of it's tail. It goes well with the bone carapace and evokes rattlesnake imagery. This rattle could be used to produce sound-related moves. Possibly it could be used for moves like Hypnosis, Sing, or Charm.
It has magic jewels embedded it its snout. These jewels could be the source of all kinds of beams and rays.
I posed it in a spiral to show that it can spin around, thus supporting Rapid Spin. With the segmented carapace, I could see it working like Donphan and rolling up into an armored ball.
This is somewhat off-the-wall, but I imagine this pokemon is really a symbiote. Two creatures bonded together and working as one. The "carapace" is actually a Ground pokemon with no real means of locomotion. The "body" is actually a blind Poison worm or snake with no eyes, the jewels in the snout are its only sensory means. By working together, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The carapace provides protection and eyes. The body provides fast locomotion and intimidating coloring. Basically, one pokemon is "riding" on another. They are joined together for life and cannot be separated. If I had total control over evolution lines, I would make two different species of pre-evos, one Ground and one Poison. Both species evolve into this pokemon, by virtue of them "joining together". This sort of evolution is unprecedented in the game, but it would be cool. I think the symbiote concept is perfectly fitting for a "team player" pokemon -- the pokemon is a little "team" all by itself!
Sources of Inspiration
I sketched the first draft of this design as soon as Poison/Ground became a legitimate contender in the polls. Although I voted against Ground, I was secretly hoping it would win, just so I could use this design.
The huge design dilemma for me was trying to come up with something that looked fast AND defensive. From an artistic standpoint, that is very hard to do. Very few fast defensive pokes actually look both fast and defensive. I kept thinking about my Milotic from Emerald. It's the first pokemon I ever bred to get a 31 speed IV, so even though Milotic isn't that fast, I think it is. And Milotic is quite fast compared to other pokemon in its general defensive category. There is something about the serpentine design of pokemon like Milotic and Gyarados -- they look fast and bulky. Since Poison was a given in the typing, I kept coming back to serpent designs as the best way to achieve my design goals.
But snakes are SO CLICHE for a poison pokemon. I like doing original designs. I cringed at the thought of turning out an Arbok ripoff. I knew I needed to do something interesting with the ground aspect of this pokemon, in order to move the design away from the "Poisonous snake... how boring..." cliche.
The ground inspiration for this design came from a weird bit of trivia I have always noted in Pokemon -- Why is "bone" associated with the Ground type? Moves like Bone Club and Bonemarang, and obviously Marowak is a "bone" pokemon, but has Ground typing. That's odd, but I can't really think of a better typing for "bone". Anyway, this tidbit hit me very quickly after settling into the design process. I wanted to work in some element of "bone" into this pokemon, and use that as the cornerstone for anchoring it to the Ground type. Even if other people didn't realize the bone/ground connection in pokemon, bone is generally colored in a light tan color, therefore it would "look ground" to everyone, if I included enough bone elements. Since bone is hard, I wanted to use it as a defensive mechanism. That's when I started thinking of a serpent with a bone carapace on it. If I drew it correctly, I figured I could make it looked armored and defensive, but show enough serpent to keep it sleek-looking and fast.
In order to use a variety of utility moves, I wanted it to have a mystical/mythological/stuff-of-legends sort of feel to it. I thought I might be able to do something cool with the bone carapace, like adding in small bone talismans or have mystical symbols carved into the carapace. That would give it a tribal witch doctor feel. Unfortunately, that idea didn't pan out. The details were too much. I've been criticized for making pokes that were too detailed for pokemon, so I wanted to keep the design elements somewhat simple. But, in trying to figure out mystical symbols, I was inspired by one of my other hobbies -- comic book collecting. I recalled the window design in Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, which just reeks of mysticism to me. By expanding on that fundamental "magic cross-hatching" technique -- I could add a cool element to the serpent. Before I drew a single line, I knew I would use that technique to replace the normal segmented belly of the serpent design.
Last of all, I did not want any overtly obvious attacking elements in the design. This is a utility pokemon, so I didn't want to focus on anything normally associated with attacking. No fangs, no claws, no weapons, no big muscles or attacking limbs. But, I still wanted it to look like a badass. Through proper use of style, color and pose -- I hoped to achieve an intimidating look, without actually including any overt visual reference to badass attacking moves. This last decision was the thing that really unlocked most of the character story behind the design.
Fun Alternate Colorings
The way I color my drawings makes it very easy to recolor. So I like to play around with alternate colors. I prefer the main colors shown above, but these are just for fun. Click the images to see the recolors in full size.
The first one is what I call the "Dirt and Grass" version. Since this pokemon lives in the desert, what if it had a "cousin" that lived in the jungle? This is what that might look like. I could see this as the shiny version of this pokemon.
I played a lot of Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD. The coolest thing about those games were the colorings of the Shadow pokemon. This is what I imagine this pokemon would look like in Shadow form.
Thanks to anyone that made it this far. I hope this post gives you helpful insight into my design, and maybe it makes you look at it a little bit differently -- hopefully for the better.
Here's the design, for reference:
Background Info
This pokemon is a large serpent that lives in the desert. It has a thick bone carapace to protect it from damage and harsh desert weather. It can "swim" the through the surface of desert sands like water.
The carapace is for protection, but it is also a nifty form of camouflage. When it rests, it burrows into the sand slightly, but leaves the top of its carapace exposed. So all you see are various fragments of bone. This makes it look like the skeletal remains of a dead animal. You know how movies always depict skeletons of dead animals in the desert? Well, perhaps those skeletons are really a sleeping desert serpent....
This pokemon raises up out of the sand and shows its brightly colored body and underbelly to scare off potential attackers. Although the pokemon looks intimidating, it's actually a defense mechanism.
I envision this as a helpful pokemon. I made sure not to include any obvious attacking features on the design (ie fangs, claws, etc). I can see it helping lost or stranded travelers in the desert. For some reason, I thought of dolphins when thinking of helpful animals. You know how dolphins supposedly help swimmers by fending off sharks by butting the sharks with their nose? I don't know if that story is true, but that's what I was thinking of. I even rounded the spikes on the carapace to look a little like dolphin fins. To me, dolphin fins look friendly. Since this pokemon can swim through the sand, I thought the "fin" concept made some sense. I picture this pokemon coming to the aid of other pokemon in the desert, helping fight off wild packs of Sandslash, or something like that.
The belly design is meant to look mystical. Because of the overall magical look of the serpent, I think desert cultures would have folklore and mystery surrounding this pokemon. "Does it really exist? Was it a mirage?" That sort of thing. Perhaps it could be like the "Spirit of the Desert" lore behind Flygon. I'm a huge Flygon fan. I picture this pokemon getting along with Flygon. Flygon is the air-based desert protector, this is the land-based desert protector.
This is a rare pokemon. The sort of thing you only find at the end of the game. Kinda like Rotom or Lucario in D/P. If it were ingame, you might get this pokemon by teaming up with a nomadic Bedouin NPC and going through a series of double battles in the desert. The nomad uses this cool team-support desert serpent and at the end gives you your own. Maybe an egg like Riley/Riolu in D/P.
It has a bone rattle at the end of it's tail. It goes well with the bone carapace and evokes rattlesnake imagery. This rattle could be used to produce sound-related moves. Possibly it could be used for moves like Hypnosis, Sing, or Charm.
It has magic jewels embedded it its snout. These jewels could be the source of all kinds of beams and rays.
I posed it in a spiral to show that it can spin around, thus supporting Rapid Spin. With the segmented carapace, I could see it working like Donphan and rolling up into an armored ball.
This is somewhat off-the-wall, but I imagine this pokemon is really a symbiote. Two creatures bonded together and working as one. The "carapace" is actually a Ground pokemon with no real means of locomotion. The "body" is actually a blind Poison worm or snake with no eyes, the jewels in the snout are its only sensory means. By working together, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The carapace provides protection and eyes. The body provides fast locomotion and intimidating coloring. Basically, one pokemon is "riding" on another. They are joined together for life and cannot be separated. If I had total control over evolution lines, I would make two different species of pre-evos, one Ground and one Poison. Both species evolve into this pokemon, by virtue of them "joining together". This sort of evolution is unprecedented in the game, but it would be cool. I think the symbiote concept is perfectly fitting for a "team player" pokemon -- the pokemon is a little "team" all by itself!
Sources of Inspiration
I sketched the first draft of this design as soon as Poison/Ground became a legitimate contender in the polls. Although I voted against Ground, I was secretly hoping it would win, just so I could use this design.
The huge design dilemma for me was trying to come up with something that looked fast AND defensive. From an artistic standpoint, that is very hard to do. Very few fast defensive pokes actually look both fast and defensive. I kept thinking about my Milotic from Emerald. It's the first pokemon I ever bred to get a 31 speed IV, so even though Milotic isn't that fast, I think it is. And Milotic is quite fast compared to other pokemon in its general defensive category. There is something about the serpentine design of pokemon like Milotic and Gyarados -- they look fast and bulky. Since Poison was a given in the typing, I kept coming back to serpent designs as the best way to achieve my design goals.
But snakes are SO CLICHE for a poison pokemon. I like doing original designs. I cringed at the thought of turning out an Arbok ripoff. I knew I needed to do something interesting with the ground aspect of this pokemon, in order to move the design away from the "Poisonous snake... how boring..." cliche.
The ground inspiration for this design came from a weird bit of trivia I have always noted in Pokemon -- Why is "bone" associated with the Ground type? Moves like Bone Club and Bonemarang, and obviously Marowak is a "bone" pokemon, but has Ground typing. That's odd, but I can't really think of a better typing for "bone". Anyway, this tidbit hit me very quickly after settling into the design process. I wanted to work in some element of "bone" into this pokemon, and use that as the cornerstone for anchoring it to the Ground type. Even if other people didn't realize the bone/ground connection in pokemon, bone is generally colored in a light tan color, therefore it would "look ground" to everyone, if I included enough bone elements. Since bone is hard, I wanted to use it as a defensive mechanism. That's when I started thinking of a serpent with a bone carapace on it. If I drew it correctly, I figured I could make it looked armored and defensive, but show enough serpent to keep it sleek-looking and fast.
In order to use a variety of utility moves, I wanted it to have a mystical/mythological/stuff-of-legends sort of feel to it. I thought I might be able to do something cool with the bone carapace, like adding in small bone talismans or have mystical symbols carved into the carapace. That would give it a tribal witch doctor feel. Unfortunately, that idea didn't pan out. The details were too much. I've been criticized for making pokes that were too detailed for pokemon, so I wanted to keep the design elements somewhat simple. But, in trying to figure out mystical symbols, I was inspired by one of my other hobbies -- comic book collecting. I recalled the window design in Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum, which just reeks of mysticism to me. By expanding on that fundamental "magic cross-hatching" technique -- I could add a cool element to the serpent. Before I drew a single line, I knew I would use that technique to replace the normal segmented belly of the serpent design.
Last of all, I did not want any overtly obvious attacking elements in the design. This is a utility pokemon, so I didn't want to focus on anything normally associated with attacking. No fangs, no claws, no weapons, no big muscles or attacking limbs. But, I still wanted it to look like a badass. Through proper use of style, color and pose -- I hoped to achieve an intimidating look, without actually including any overt visual reference to badass attacking moves. This last decision was the thing that really unlocked most of the character story behind the design.
Fun Alternate Colorings
The way I color my drawings makes it very easy to recolor. So I like to play around with alternate colors. I prefer the main colors shown above, but these are just for fun. Click the images to see the recolors in full size.
The first one is what I call the "Dirt and Grass" version. Since this pokemon lives in the desert, what if it had a "cousin" that lived in the jungle? This is what that might look like. I could see this as the shiny version of this pokemon.
I played a lot of Pokemon Colosseum and Pokemon XD. The coolest thing about those games were the colorings of the Shadow pokemon. This is what I imagine this pokemon would look like in Shadow form.
Thanks to anyone that made it this far. I hope this post gives you helpful insight into my design, and maybe it makes you look at it a little bit differently -- hopefully for the better.
I'm sorry, are any of you still talking? My mind was made up pages ago.
There is only one clear winner in my mind. This has my vote.
There is only one clear winner in my mind. This has my vote.
Can we get a picture of it from the side it doing some support/utility move? That is awesome in that you put so much into this drawing. The backstory and inspiration part of your post was brilliant.
My support go out to:
Smog imp
Doug's Bone Serpent
Poisonous Horned Lizard.
My support go out to:
Smog imp
Doug's Bone Serpent
Poisonous Horned Lizard.
I like your rationale, but honestly I can't see your serpentine beast using many of the desired support options set aside in the design thesis. I'll give you Gravity, Trick Room, Haze, Perish Song, Snatch and Magic Coat at best, but what about Encore, Rapid Spin, Wish, Me First, Toxic Spikes, Spikes, etc.?
Cartoon's design could Rapid Spin. It's not that menacing or evil-looking (unlike 90% of the other designs), so Wish doesn't seem out of the question. There are no limbless Pokemon with Me First, and here his design has an advantage over yours. Spikes and Toxic Spikes can work due to the points all over it's body. In addition, Gravity, Trick Room, Snatch and Magic Coat all look feasible with his design.
The only support moves listed in the thesis that Cartoon's design seems unlikely to perform would be Haze, Perish Song, Psycho Shift and Heal Bell.
Neither of your designs seem capable of Tail Wind, and no one cares about Memento.
WOW DJD, that is a lot of thought... I also tend to create elaborate backstories to most of my designs, but that was amazingly thought out and organized. You kept hinting that people weren't going to read it (because of its length), but anyone who skips over that is making a mistake. Contrary to what you thought, I couldn't stop reading...
Err, it has eight arms. Cartoons! says so, and it's true if you count them. (:
Did you mean "stealthzorz"? I hope you know it was a joke submission, though.
EDIT: Nice backstory, DJD. It's good to see there are other people who put so much into their designs --- I had a backstory for my design as well, although nowhere near as elabourate as yours. Again, good job.
I disagree with your Encore examples, however. All of them have some form of hands ( Victreebell has the leaf things and Shuckles has the yellow apendage-thingies ) exept for Chatot, which was probably an exception only because of all the other noise-related things it can do.
As I said in the backstory, I drew it in a spiral pose specifically to show that it could spin. I completely disagree about the Spikes moves. I put big spikes on the carapace for that very reason.
As for Wish, I made it a mystical beast. The belly pattern and coloring is there to evoke mystical imagery. Wish seems reasonable to me.
I don't know the exact visual for Encore. Sure pokemon with hands can clap, therefore they get it. But what does Shuckle do? How about Swalot? Illumise? I guess any pokemon that can overtly make noise, can reasonably Encore. Think Chatot or Victreebel. This pokemon has a big rattle on it's tail. I think that could Encore. If a grass bell can Encore, a rattle can Encore.
There's no apparent mechanic for Me First. None that I can figure out from the pokemon that get it. So I don't know why this couldn't get it.
Thank you! I am paranoid about boring everyone to death. But, I really like coming up with intricate backstories behind my art. I'm glad you found it interesting.
I very much enjoyed your back story too Doug, as I mentioned on shoddy. It was very well thought out and I enjoyed seeing your take and process for developing your pokemon.
And I agree when it comes to many of the support moves. There is really no fact or basis to a lot of them. If Blissey praying can work Wish into her design, I believe a 'mythical creature' feel can work Wish into yours, if it's so desired. Great job Doug.
Actually, I wasn't (brain fart on my part), but it still holds. Poison/Ground STAB does squat to Skarmory.
And I think I'm sort of drifting off topic, here. Sorry. >_<
(Smogimp for CAP mascot.)
Urza, I looked up Ubu Roi and Alfred Jarry and read about him and his exploits. Although I disagree that it would "fit", I have to say that I'm flattered that you would think my creation would belong in one of his works! Now I really want to see that play. How ironic! (:
Gravity?
My support would go to DJD's symbiote snake, Elagune's naga and Zant's horned lizard.
In my personal opinion, Cartoons' Daddy Big Hands looks like a childs' toy... it's just the limbs, they simply look like they're made of plastic, though that may be due to the orange colouring, i'm not quite sure.
In my personal opinion, Cartoons' Daddy Big Hands looks like a childs' toy... it's just the limbs, they simply look like they're made of plastic, though that may be due to the orange colouring, i'm not quite sure.
There were a few joke pieces from me: Hamburger, Katamarimon, Purpzebra, (and, though not mine, the "Warthog"). The Shine-Trap wasn't one of them. In fact, it was my most serious one, though one of my least well-rendered. Glass Cannon I realized the design was poor, and Konjesting I hadn't known about the no-evo rule.
I felt like drawing something, and it is no use making any more concept submissions as all artists have probably designed their primary concepts already, so I sketched up this eyesore. For the record, it is a Hallucigenia crossed with a sea pig, with eyes added for good measure. It's there more for "laughs and kicks" and as an excuse to get you guys to learn about Hallucigenia, as I can't compete with the submissions in this thread.
Unlike the sea-born Hallucigenia, this creature makes its home wherever there is sand (Though it did originate in an aquatic enviroment), burrowing into it with only its spikes out, waiting for a careless Pokemon to step (or swim) on it. Its hollow spines carry a potent neurotoxin, hopefully paralyzing or outright killing the poor victim. Afterwards, this guy crawls over its hunt and gulps it down.
Of course, you may have noticed that it has no mouth. This is because I can't draw the sea pig "mouth" I intended it to have. So we'll have to say it doesn't need one. The two tentacles below the eyestalks on both sides release a sticky mixture of digestive enzymes and drain the resulting nutrious liquid, making this creature a sort of mobile pitcher plant.
They can also be found in caves, where, due to lack of soft surfaces to burrow in, they take a predatory approach, attempting to ram their prey with their spikes. This is usually accomplished by hanging to the ceiling with a pair of the sticky tentacles and swinging on intended prey. While they look slow (Which isn't a wanted thing, given current stat spreads) they are, in fact, quite nimble, thanks to no less than 20 appendages all over their bodies.
Which brings me to the next point - they have no fronts or backs, neither do they have any up or downsides. The spikes on their backs can be moved and double as extra limbs, and when turned "upside down" they scurry on them like an insect. The downside to this is that their spikes are quite brittle, and can be broken easily if they fail to quickly immobilize their adversaries. This quirk is a reference to the hypotheses about just how Hallucigenia moved - it is detailed on the Wikipedia article, if you feel like reading about it.
By the way, this is a fossil Pokemon, perhaps an Aerodactyl to Anorith (also Cambrian) and Lileep (not quite Cambrian. ) It would probably be revived from a "Spike Fossil".
On to the moves, it looks like it can learn Encore, Toxic Spikes, Spikes, Knock Off, Wish, Gravity, Trick Room, Magic Coat, Haze and, perhaps most importantly, Recover. I don't see it getting Rapid Spin, Perish Song, Sleep moves, or anything that has to do with a mouth (Sing, Crunch, Elemental Fangs. Except blowjobs. With four sticky, slimy tentacles, it is sure to get you to come before it digests your member while you're still alive! )
While this isn't colored, I imagine it to be almost uniformly sand colored to better disguise it in the desert sands.
I really like Doug's symbiote snake idea. It looks good, and I like the idea of it swimming through sand and helping people in the desert. The only thing I suggest is that there is a small red gem at the end of the tail. Then, I can easily picture this Pokémon using many of the utility moves. Heal Bell from the rattle (using the gem's power), Memento from the gems on the head glowing, Safeguard and Magic Coat with the gems' power combined. Spikes, Toxic Spikes, Rapid Spin, Wish, and Encore were already written about, and Gravity can be used by the gems again. It seems the power would come mostly from the gems, which is an interesting feature for a Pokémon. This design has my vote.
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