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frankhightower · 2 years

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Thoughts on the 150 pokémon

I recently drew the 150 pokémon in commemoration for reaching 150 followers on twitter… after 11 years. I want to share some of the thoughts I had during the process, some of which I shared on twitter as I was doing it, others which didn’t fit in the character limit. Thought this might be a fun read for some of you. 003: The Bulbasaur line is a lot more turtle-like than I’d previously thought. 004: I hadn’t realized the Charmander line doesn’t have any ears, it has horns. 006: Do you remember that in Gen I, Charizard can’t use fly? So many jokes were lost when they “fixed” that… 007: Although I’m trying to not draw the Pokémon from the Anime, it’s hard to give a Squirtle glasses and not make him look like one of the Squirtle squad, but I figured out a way. 008: I can fully see the argument on Wartortle being based on an axolotl now. 009: Blastoise was the first Pokémon that was hard to draw: it just has so many elements: the shell, the ears, the cannons… I have a lot more respect for Mr. Sugimori now. 012: Remember the fan theory that Butterfree was supposed to be Venomoth and vice-versa? It’s actually a good mnemonic for how to draw them! 016: Pidgey gave me a hard time with, unexpectedly, the dark spots behind its eyes, but it just wouldn’t be Pidgey without them 017: Made the hard decision of making Pidgeotto’s crest be a crown of several feathers rather than just a handful of very long feathers, mostly because I just wasn’t good at drawing feathers. 025: I hadn’t really noticed before that the Pokémon are numbered in groups approximating the areas they appear in the game 028: Any doubt I had Sandslash was based on a hedgehog has been dispelled with this drawing 029: How is Nidoran, literally one of the most generic pokémon, one of the hardest to draw?! 031: Nidoqueen always looks so imposing in the anime, but that's because all the characters are children. Canonically, she's only 4 ft tall! 032: I hadn’t noticed Nidorino’s spots until I had to add more indications that this was a Nidorino 035: I'm glad Detective Pikachu came out, because now it's cannon that Clefairy’s swirl is just fluff. 036: as it turns out, Clefable has REALLY short arms! 039: Jigglypuff’s huge eyes have an incredible potential for exaggerating its expressions. You’d think there was no way you could draw them “too big”, yet I somehow managed. I also discovered how imperfect scaling in Gimp is this way when I tried to use it to fix it. Luckily my expression is “excited” so blurred eyes don’t look wrong. 041: Question: are those two things sticking out the bottom supposed to be Zubat's feet or a forked tail? I never could figure it out! I originally wanted to do another "carrying it away in his talons" drawing but this question made me rethink the whole thing! 042: Golbat is the stuff of nightmares. We know it is able to close its mouth but looks horrible doing it! And how many toes is it supposed to have? Why do its ears shrink when it evolves? 043: Wait a minute, Oddish has no arms! And are those shoes on his feet? 046: one, two three… wait, Paras only has six appendages? If it looks like an arachnid, crawls like an arachnid and has fangs like an arachnid… it’s an insect!? 047: Parasect has a pattern on its mushroom? It’s not just random dots? 048: Venonat’s arms are ridiculously short! Surely it still has elbows and knees, they’re just hidden under its fur… right? It’s always bothered me that Venonat is #048 when Oddish is #043! You exit Mt. Moon having caught Venonat and you think you missed something, so you go back and… there’s nothing there! 049: ah yes the old “what’s under Diglett” joke, which was canonized in the first Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. 050: I have no idea what those noses would translate to in real life 051: I realize now how intentionally ridiculous Meowth's design is: no shoulders, no nose, skinny little legs, semibipedal…no wonder any costume he wears looks silly! (and yes, he was semibipedal even before the anime, I checked) 054: Spent way too long thinking about how feather fingers work on this one 055: What's the deal with Golduck anyway? weird beak, head spikes…toes?! 056: despite desperately not wanting to draw the Pokémon from the anime, it’s hard to think of Mankey behaving as anything other than the iconic one from the anime 059: There was an old rumor that Arcanine was meant to be the legendary fire dog (which eventually became Entei). I can totally see the parallels between Arcanine and Entei now. People often say arcanine is too floofy. I don't have a problem with that, but you know what did affect me? Too stripey! Oh well, at least it's not leopard spots again 060: Polwag is freaking huge, have you noticed? Not tadpole size! 062: I realize now Poliwrath’s "gloves" are webbing 063: Interestingly, I've always thought of Abra as an insectoid pokémon, but the more I read about it as I searched for a good reference picture, the more it became clear it's just a cat! But cats don't have those weird shoulder plates. You know what animal does? Rhinos. That's right: Abra is part rhinoceros! 066: What animal is Machop supposed to be? Bulbapedia implies it’s some sort of frog, but I've come to a stunning conclusion: it's a hippo. Think about it! No toes, smooth skin, big snout... 068: Sometimes when drawing characters, I wish they had two sets of arms so they could properly express the emotion I’m trying to convey, but always when I end up getting one that actually does, I have a hard time deciding what the second set of arms is supposed to do. I don’t think the anime ever had that problem / took advantage of that. 069: I always seem to misremember Bellsprout as more detailed 070: Weepingbell is another pokémon that freaks me out, like, is that a tongue or just the inside of its "cheek"? And what's with the little stalk tail? And the name! 071: Also let me add that the whole Bellsprout line is another one that's friggin' huge. We're used to their sizes because they appear so often in the anime but, come on, a flower shouldn't be bigger than a bouquet! 072: Tentacool’s head is scarily human-like in a Megamind-sort of way. I mean, why does it need a nose? Or those gem-like things? Why can’t it just be a jellyfish-octopus? 073: Tentacruel’s canon height is 5 ft (1.6 m) but that scene with the kaiju from the anime is the one that always come to mind when thinking about Tentacruel’s size, which is interesting because Tentacruel is a pretty common Pokémon that has been in a lot more episodes than that. The Episode, I feel, did not deliver on the hype created by showing it in the intro: the amount of kaiju-ing was remarkably unsatisfactory. (Yes, I watched it... that one time it aired on public TV... Turns out it’s supposed to be an environmental message) 074: Geodude is indelibly associated in my mind with his “coming out of the pokéball” animation from Pokémon Stadium 2, which attempts to explain his pokédex pose as flexing his muscles, but to me it always looked like he was saying "you called me out... for this?!" 076: While the anime will show us even the most ferocious Pokémon happy, they rarely show them just being kind 077: I have no idea how Ponyta's fire works. I get that it’s supposed to replace its mane, but then again, I have no idea how horse manes work either. Ponyta's pokédex size is friggin tiny, only 3 ft tall! We see kids riding them in the anime but that doesn't check out at all! 080: Slowbro is another freakishly huge Pokémon (5 – 6 ft / 1.5 – 2 m), especially considering it’s supposed to be “just” a slowpoke (3 ft / 1 m) that got its tail stuck in a Shellder’s mouth 081: Can steel type Pokémon sweat? Anime physics let them get “anxiety” sweat drops, but would they be physically able to produce them? 082: Magneton has to be the pokémon I most severely underestimated the difficulty of. I mean, who cares if each individual magnet is not in perspective? Me! And it's still not right! 083: I usually don't think of Farfetch'd, the wild duck Pokémon, as a duck, isn't that funny? 085: Dodrio's design always bothered me: It's all about the rule of three: 3 heads, 3 tail feathers, 3 front-facing toes (which is weird because Doduo has 4) ...Then why are there only TWO big plume feathers atop each head?! 086: Real seals always have a slight glowyness on their back from having fur so short and oily be so wet. It’s interesting that the anime has never tried to portray that with Seel 088: I’d never thought about it before, but Grimer has no actual feet! If it stands on a grate (or indeed, a tightrope) it would pass right through! 089: I had to pass by Alolan Muk when looking for references and oh my god it's horrifying! WHY do you people want more regional forms?! 090: TV tropes says when you don’t know how an animal would behave, make them behave like a dog or a cat. Is that what the anime does? Is that how Pokémon are supposed to behave? Is that what makes them so endearingly pet-like? 091: Why does Shellder’s face move to its pearl when it evolves into Cloyster? What happens if someone tries to pluck its pearl? Why is its pearl black!? Why are we doing water route Pokémon when we’re still not done with the Safari Zone??? 092: I couldn't figure out what cursed lavalamp-fire-smoke Ghastly is supposed to be giving off, but I’m more than a little disturbed by the realization that … it has wrinkles! … I can’t spell Gastly 095: Onix's rocks have a very specific order, did you know? I always thought they were a string of identical rocks, so identical it didn’t matter if you took one out, but no: specifically 15 rocks, specifically (starting after the head) oval, circle, flat, octagon, hexagon, square, 3 big, 6 small 096: Drawing Pokémon for so long is making me ask stupid questions like “how many toes does a cat have?” 097: People always make fun of Hypno for its nose, but it’s the evolution of a tapir! How can it not have a big nose? It’s the feet that bother me! 098: I figured out what's so hard about bug pokémon: on any other, lines just... end. With anthropods, it's like drawing bones! They curve, they bend back, there's nothing to cover them! 099: I honestly thought the "running" part was going to be the hardest thing to portray here. But no, you know what was? The butt! Kingler’s butt Is not shell-like, it’s roach-like! 100: Voltorb is interesting because it basically exists to be the pokémon world's mimic chest, yet still packs a personality. The anime turned this into the best running gag ever with Team Rocket constantly picking up sleeping Voltorbs from piles of pokéballs all through the Celadon City arc. And it's #100! How cool is that? 103: I previously joked Goldbat is the stuff of nightmares but that pales in comparison to Exeggutor's pokédex: The heads fall off as Exeggutor ages and become Exeggcute?! And they don't grow back?! So each head is potentially hundreds of years old?! 104: The hardest question here was how many fingers does Cubone have? It seems no one knows! 105: Marowak is never shown in a calm pose …but what are those lines on its stomach? Bulbapedia says they're reptilian… would that make the Kangaskhan theory wrong? I won't believe it! 106: Can we talk about how ridiculous Hitmonlee's design is? He has no mouth to roar with …and what's with those Big Bird legs?? 107: I hadn't realized how bony Hitmochan is until now. He's practically a skeleton with clothes! Also, I spent the whole time here thinking how pokémon clothes work. Does Tyrogue just tug on its trainer one day and say "Master, I'm about to evolve, so I need you to buy me a skirt and shoes" "You don't need boxing gloves?" "What gloves? Those are my hands!" I know Tyrogue is Gen 2 but still! 108: I had a lot of trouble drawing Lickitung’s head because I’m not sur what Lickitung is supposed to be! An otter? A bear? A frog? Some kind of dinosaur? 111: Several things tripped me up about Rhyhorn: The fact that its ears are basically built into its horns, that each plate has spikes, that you can’t see its shoulders, that it looks steel-like… 112: It was fun drawing Rhydon happy, but hard to make him not look like Nidoking. 113: I have unilaterally decided Chansey is an axolotl. Chansey is another pokémon with ridiculously short arms which seem to bend somewhere under its body fat. 114: Tangela is supposed to be a ball of yarn of sorts made up of vines, but in my mind, I’ve always conceived them as tentacles. I don’t know why. Also how is there only one trainer in the entire game that has Tangela? It's a picnicker East of Fuchsia city which I remember vividly because I had to battle her six frigging times! How did we not get “don’t mess with shuckle, er, tangela” jokes in Gen 1? 115: My apologies to Mr. Sugimori, but he really can't draw Kangaroos. Kanghaskhan really looks more like a Rhydon with a pouch 117: Why is Seadra’s mouth triangular? Horsea’s is nice and round! 120: Staryu always freaked me out. As a starfish, Staryu's mouth should be where the gem is, but then watergun comes out of its "arm"? 122: Few people realize Mr. Mime's whole point is "have you noticed how human frog hands look?" 123: Scyther is, for me, the emblematic bug-type Pokémon. 124: Much has been said of Jynx's face, but I want to ask: what's the deal with her ARMS? 127: …what do you mean Pinsir doesn’t have a neck?! 128: Tauros is a weird pokémon, seemingly representing the entire bovine family. It’s a bison but also a buffalo but also a bull but also… 129: There is an episode in the anime where we actually see how to use a Magikarp that only knows Splash in battle: you throw it at your opponent! 131: Lapras is often described as the water transport pokémon. Yet when the anime tried to actually use one for this, we see how hard it is to fit everyone on its shell, what with its spikes and the fact that Lapras just aren’t that big! Misty constantly rides on its tail! 132: It was once widely accepted as Fanon that every Ditto start out unable to Transform their face, like the one in Ditto's Mysterious Mansion. When Duplica (its trainer) showed up in Goldenrod City (Johto) with another Ditto that couldn’t change its size, fans quickly amended this to “every Ditto has some aspect of transforming that it have trouble mastering”. It turns out picking aspects is remarkably hard (Ditto OCs disappeared within a matter of weeks), so Ditto instead became the butt of all the breeding jokes. 135: Electric-type Pokémon that seem to have quills instead of regular fur have always bothered me. Yes, I’m talking about Jolteon. 137: Sugimori also obviously knew nothing about 3D modeling when he designed Porygon: the top half of the side of its face has a notch for the eye! That’s a big no-no, all polygons must be convex and preferably have no more than 4 sides or the renderer will get confused! Porygon’s eye must constantly be clipping through it! Plus, if Porygon was made with 1995 technology, its eyesight must suck since computer vision was horrible at the time! 138: Omanyte has 10 tentacles. Ten! No wonder it almost never gets animated! 139: Why is Omastar the only Pokémon that gets a proper octopus beak? 140: There is actually two designs for Kabuto’s back: one that is beetle-like and the other that has a false face at the top, both trying to interpret the dome fossil. I tried combining them and I’m not sure if the effect works. 142: Aerodactyl has actual fingers! They’re not bat-like! I’d never noticed that! 143: People sometimes forget that Snorlax is quite a capable fighter, quite capable of standing up 146: As a kid, I always thought Motres was supposed to be a heat mirage, but successive generations have revealed that it's just the shape of its feathers! People's favorite piece of useless trivia here is "the legendary birds are name uno dos tres!" but I have a more useful one: Moltres is so-named because it's MOLTING! 147: I couldn't decide if Dratini is supposed to have scales or fur 149: Dragonite is the only Pokémon that is always portrayed smiling or waving. Look Game Freak, we already like Dragonite! You don’t need to make it more likable! 150: Canonically, there is only one Mewtwo, and we got a whole movie dedicated to his personality. I’m not sure, then, if it would react how I’ve shown him. 151: Mew is so distractable, but then again, it literally knows nothing of social norms. I do love how Mew’s design gives you a sense of closure, of peace, just by looking at it.

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