The two of us running this blog, as well as everyone at Bulbagarden as a whole, would like to offer our condolences to the family and fans of Akira Toriyama-sensei, whose death on March 1, 2024, was announced earlier tonight. He was 68 years of age.
As many of you may know, Toriyama-sensei was the creator of the extremely influential Dragon Ball anime and manga franchise, which meant an incredible amount to not only many of our staff here, but to a wide variety of fans across the world -- including influencing those who've worked on Pokémon media in the past, possibly even Ken Sugimori, the father of the first 151 Pokémon, himself.
Rest in peace, Toriyama-sensei, and thank you for all you've done. Your hard work will be sure to live on forever.
ご冥福をお祈りいたします、鳥山先生。
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What pieces of media are your biggest creature design inspirations?
ooh how fun! let's see...
Pokemon Crystal (Ken Sugimori)
(src: Bulbapedia)
I had a Pokemon Crystal strategy guide with all 251 Pokemon in it that I studied religiously when it came to making monsters of my own. I love Ken Sugimori's illustrations so much - the dappled paint makes it so soft, gives everything the feeling of being struck by light dancing down from foliage above. The subtle implied detailing with line strokes and shadow allows the imagination to run wild. They, truly, feel like creatures to have adventures with. And of course, Pokemon is a juggernaut of an RPG, facilitating those childhood fantasies, and then there's a TV show showing them playing and shouting their name and fighting... No wonder so many people got hooked on it!
Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 (Akira Toriyama)
(src: Dragon's Den)
Since they're designed as enemies foremost, Dragon Quest's monsters can get a lot kookier & scarier than Pokemon can. And Toriyama gives his monster designs so much charm and personality! You feel like he always has fun coming up with them, and it makes every Dragon Quest game more delightful for having them be your foes (and sometimes friends). Also, all the English names are puns and portmanteaus and other fun word things!
After Armageddon Gaiden (artist unknown - dev is PandoraBox)
(src: Bogleech, who also wrote a wonderful article on these critters: https://bogleech.com/halloween/hall18-aagolem)
Uniquely grotesque beasts from a deeply obscure Japanese RPG named After Armageddon Gaiden, the second in a duology about player-controlled demons fighting alien invaders. Some of the designs get quite gory or disturbing, fair warning. But in a cool way!! The sheer strangeness of these designs are something to behold!... And they have the best names ever, like "Barabumblebo"...
YU-GI-OH early card art (Kazuki Takahashi)
(src: Yugioh fandom page)
Yu-Gi-Oh's early monster designs are something I think about a lot. I don't know what that says about me, but I do know they're unbelievably cool, a blend of genuinely scary Egyptian-flavored horror and wacky, tropey, cartoony fantasy. The fact that these ridiculous designs are frequently art for a card that's completely worthless in terms of winning duels, combined with their randomly specific descriptions about how unbelievably powerful they are, gives them a certain mystique. It's as if the creature you see depicted truly exists as a part of some greater fantasy world...
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
(src: me, many moons ago)
Seeing properly scary monsters inside a strange virtual world in Ocarina of Time was quite the experience for my young self. For example, I had nightmares about the Stalchildren who used to burst, endlessly, from the ground of the strangely empty Hyrule Field. But that also made it feel like such an adventure! The thrill added to the experience. And even many of the game's races are quite monsterlike; Gorons, Zora, Deku, and so forth. This had me imagine turning a "bad" creature into a friend, a concept I cherish to this day... hence Love-Love here.
Well that's that! Thanks for asking, this was fun to write : )
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Beasts of Kanto!
This month’s sticker sheet for the Seaguns Sticker Society over on Patreon! Join today to get one for yourself!
Really happy with how I was able to emulate marker on paper for these. Took me back to coloring in those old Pokémon coloring books as a kid. I also wanted to go back to Sugimori’s older designs for the mons. Something about the older Pokémon artwork just has such charm that’s missing these days.
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Professor Elm's Training Method -- Ken Sugimori
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Artwork by Ken Sugimori for the Team Rocket Rubber Playmat released on April 2019, as part of the "Sky Legend" TCG release in Pokémon Center stores in Japan.
The official image included the outline for the zones. I made a cleaned-up version with a little bit of AI and a whole lot of Photoshop.
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