For my Animation for the Illustrator class, we were tasked with designing a three part Pokémon evolutionary line. To prepare, we watched the first Pokémon movie, Pokémon: The First Movie - Mewtwo Strikes Back. Technically, there are three segments to this movie: Pikachu's Vacation (which was added later and appears unrelated to the main plot), Origin of Mewtwo (which was also added later), and Mewtwo Strikes Back (the main part). We only saw the latter two portions of the movie, and we also watched it in the English dub.
The Movie
From what I can glean from the Wikipedia page, the dub alters the dialogue and themes significantly. There is an anti-violence message in the dub that struck me as bizarrely hypocritical, and I am glad to learn that it is unique to the dub. There was a portion of the movie where Ash kept saying things like, "Violence is bad! Pokémon shouldn't fight!" This is a crazy thing to say for someone who captures Pokémon and forces them to fight each other. I did enjoy the Origin of Mewtwo portion, which, despite the dubbing making me cringe into my seat, had nice animation. The backgrounds were particularly pretty.
The Design
We had the choice of creating a dual-type pokemon or a monotype pokemon, however we had to roll a die to randomize which type (or types) we would be designing. I rolled ground type and fighting type, which people were telling me are the most boring types. I sort of agree, but at least it wasn't too hard to settle on an idea—because I didn't have many.
I wanted each stage of my evolution to be based on a different kind of tree, and I wanted all three stages to be based on frogs. The second and third stage are also loosely based on knights. The first is a maple tree tadpole, the second is a cherry blossom tree frog, and the third is a willow tree toad. The first and last names are self explanatory, and the middle name is a combination of the words cherry and βάτραχος, the Greek for frog.
One of the critiques I received was that they don't look like a cohesive evolutionary line. I see that now. While I was designing them, I was trying my hardest to make sure they were dissimilar enough, because we were warned against making them look like they were only aging. I think using similar colors would have worked better, because Cherakos definitely stands out the most in the lineup.
I almost never draw animals or creatures, so this was outside my comfort zone. I also wanted to mimic the Pokemon art style, though I'm not sure how successful I was. It's always fun to try something outside of what you typically make, and I really enjoyed this process.
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