pkmnprofessorspruce - Tumblr blog

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

A but more highlighted design of cuckoo pokemon.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Double trainer battle!

So... You know, there was a children movie "adventures of Electronic", about robot who escaped from laboratory and his human friend who looked just like him. Plus there was some shinenigans with evil dude who wanted to kidnap this robot for profit and his loyal biker-sidekick with cool musical number and so on, heros learn their lessons, bad guys are defeated you get the idea

So yeah, that's just Electronic and Syroezhkin.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Ballet gym leader!

Basically, russian then soviet then russian (probably) school of ballet was a kind of big deal. Not so much now and, tbh, I'm not really a theater bun myself so I am familiar with it only in very vague terms. But still, I had to put someone in saint petersburg stand-in, and ballet seems legit.

Referenced this outfit, just made a shirt a couple of cm longer.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

And this one is psychic

I took some questionable lessons from pkmn and based it on living legend Kashpirovsky who during 90-s led tv-program with mass hypnosis and charging water that was left before TV with healing energy.

Also he is still trying to be a spiritual healer for people with actual illnesses (starting from 2020) so honestly he didn't get any better.

Another part of inspiration is toy lineup: two rolly-pollies and one matryoshka because they're sus and for kid it's pretty magical concept.

And tbh I have no memories with middle one, but I kinda always hated the face on first one (very standard design) and I discovered the fact that wood can break on prolonged contact with water with the biggest matryoshka in set exactly like the last one.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Grass/Steel pokemon!

This one is just coltsfoot, in russian it's known as "mom-and-stepmother" (мать-и-мачеха) due to how its leafs are different: lower part is crass, higher part is soft. It's also a medical plant.

I wanted to go into duality of the plant a bit, and so made it change from "mom" part in pre-evolution to the steel-grass "stepmother" part in evolved form. Ferns on its stem also helped.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Also here's how list of things to turn into pkmn looks like. I wrote it down in a day and then return to it every work day a choose one.

I could do it at home but I like being paid for making fakemons.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Another gym leader!

Local metalhead leader who also very much digs classical music and often makes covers. These years in musical school were not spent in vain. Also there were metalheads in USSR so that's prettyuch historically accurate (just don't mention that they were on the rise during 80-s when smell of freedom was very much there).

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Hi, I'm back with fakemon! Sorry for weird spacing

Basically here I walked the way of associations between plant, bird and mythical creature.

Plant and bird are actually pretty simple: there are several plants that historically were called "cuckoo's tears", one of which are everblooming iris. So in first two stages I combined them and bird-like appearance, with emphasis not on cuckoo's habit of leaving their eggs on other's birds nests but on blooming part of everblooming iris combined with more folk meaning of cuckoo: it is said that if you go into the forest and ask it how many years you have left, it will tell you by counting them with their voice. Hands, what can be called a costume and a human face are part of association part:

Sirin, bird of sorrow (on the left, original by Viktor Vasnetson, "Birds of Joy and Sorrow", 1896). Tbh I suck at figuring out which of three birds do what but looks like where Alkonost and Sirin are more of a general heavenly birds and often change places in popular culture, Gamayun would be foreshadowing of death of a ruler (here's another painting by Viktor Vasnetsov)

There's, like, a lot of weird stuff so I chose to go with Vasnetsov interpretation because it's the one I'm most familiar with: Alkonost is chill, Sirin is not, Gamayun is wise and also you're fucked.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Now that's a bit better

Rival!

A bit of a wreck, "smart but not really trying" guy with a lot of family problems. He has a character arc and this is all you have to know.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

On the other hand, ponytail was a bit too much. In general from what I've seen in children movies, hooligans do tend to rock hair longer then "appropriate*, but not long enough for a full blown ponytail and so hair just do their stuff. I won't be able to find exact examples though because I can't remember any name =_=

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Rival!

A bit of a wreck, "smart but not really trying" guy with a lot of family problems. He has a character arc and this is all you have to know.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Aaaand professor Spruse (or Valentina Ivanovna) herself

Ngl, i just wanted to have a character who is closer to actual professors and teachers I knew. Both because of body type and vibes. I can make another thin girl, but... Nah. Also I'm thinking of aging her up quite a bit.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Main characters!

I think of them as brother and sister, possibly twins. They wear what is basically a uniform (based on pioneer one), but I drew it from memory so by reflex gave them a tie instead of proper neck thing. Also I'll probably make sleeves into just short ones (as in summer uniform).

I think they're about 14 or so years old and by story sketch they just got into summer camp that specifically concentrates on pokemon and encourages research on what is already known to most adults but new for children (otherwise pokedex doesn't make much sense in most of the games imo).

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Bitternmon! Based on eurasian bittern who lives in swamps, has weird ass neck and screams like hell.

I think to make it into two or three stage evolution, in which this one is second. If I'll manage, I'll try to make first stage based on bittern but with short neck and third based on great cormorant. Maybe with addition of perfect brows from other species.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

First gym leader I could think of.

In short, she is ripped straight out of one of my favorite childhood I guess you can call it franchise about girl from the future, Alice Selezneva who lives in a Moscow of XXII century. Her parents are astrobiologists, father is often looking for new animals from around the space for the space zoo he's working in, mother is very deep into the field research of the living galaxy so we meet her only one of twice in the books. Also there is time travel (with the whole time travel historical institute), space pirates, robots and machine for mind reading because of course it is.

I just... Kinda liked that Alice was specifically noted to look like a boy in earlier books, with short hair and overall more traditionally boyish attitude. And she basically stayed this way, even when her friendly astronaut Kim turned into tradwife by the author.

So yeah, she's close to my heart and hell if I won't throw a space zoo into the region.

[pkmnprofessorspruce]

Some very basic sketch of raindeer pokemon line. I will probably have to work on stylization much more (otherwise it'll just be gen 1 pkmn), but the basic vibe is smol round and a bit awkward boi turning into the fella who is responsible for the lives of both people and Pokemon alike.

Also deers are just cool in general.