#PocketMonstersFanArt

[generalsnivy]

The land of Kitakami is celebrating a successful apple harvest by holding a festival and, of course, Ogerpon has to join in on the fun as she skips along the apple orchard while holding a balloon and singing a song from her heart, looking as happy as a Spheal rolling down a hill!

If you're wondering where she got the balloon from, she saw it floating in the air at a balloon stall near the apple orchard. Curious, she approached the stall with a look of amazement and wonder in her eyes as she got closer and closer to both the stall and the balloon. There, the human running the balloon stall was handing out a balloon to a child after they purchased one from them when they saw Ogerpon staring at the Applin balloon from the corner of their eye. The balloon was floating high in the air near the stall, blowing around slightly in the wind as the balloon string that's tied to the balloon, keeps it anchored to the ground, preventing it from flying away. After the balloonist finished handing out the balloon to their customer, they went over to Ogerpon and asked her if she liked balloons. Ogerpon responds to the balloonist by jumping up and down happily with a big smile on her face, which indicates to them that she does indeed like balloons very much. Being a nice person, they pull the balloon string attached to the Applin balloon, lowering it down to where Ogerpon could see it better up close, and then offer her the balloon. Her face lights up as brightly as the sun as she happily accepts it and jumps up and down with pure joy. The balloonist then informs her to hold onto it tightly and not let go, otherwise it'll fly away. They then hand over the balloon to Ogerpon and then she goes "Pon Pon, Ogerpon!" as if she is saying "Thank you so much!" as she happily skips along on her merry way with the balloon in hand as the balloonist waves goodbye to her and then returns to work at their stall as a lot of customers begin to line up at the front of the stall.

I finished this drawing 2 days ago, but I just got around to posting it now due to 2 reasons. One) When I finished it, it was getting late, and two) I had some errands to run with Mom the following day, and then we went out later that evening to a local bar.

When it came time to draw Ogerpon, I went to Bulbapedia, as per usual, to download some images of the creature to use as references throughout the entire process. However, Bulbapedia was having problems with their site at the time and I couldn't access their usual image gallery for Ogerpon, or any Pokemon for that matter. So, I had to work with whatever images were available on Ogerpon's front page, which wasn't much. Even so, I was able to work with what I had access to and I love how this turned out! I also wanted to experiment a little bit when it came to the Applin balloon to see how it would look without a black outline, making it look a little more realistic. After sitting on it for a bit, I think it worked out well and it didn't clash with my art style like I originally thought it did when I first drew it. It really started to shine when I drew the environment, making me feel much better about this experiment.

Drawing Ogerpon, herself, wasn't too bad as I broke down each part of her into smaller pieces such as her face, her black-ish hood, the stem on top of her head, her chest, etc, etc. The pose I had for her was envisioned for quite a while, but shortly after I began drawing, I decided to change perspectives and have her face forward towards the camera rather than sideways, like I originally planned. The reason for this change was that I wanted the drawing to focus more on her than the environment she's skipping around in, which turned out a lot better than I expected. I also originally planned to give her a regular, round red balloon, but changed it to an Applin balloon because I thought it'd look cuter, which turned out to be true, in my opinion. As for the apple orchard, it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped as I wanted to keep it in spirit to the one found in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. (At least the branches aren't going out for a nice float here, unlike the ones found in-game.) Regardless, though, it was still fun to put together and make the drawing feel that much more alive and complete. Overall, I had a lot of fun with this drawing and it was quite the challenge to complete as I didn't have access to as many references as I normally would due to technical difficulties on Bulbapedia's end. I haven't had a challenge like this since I drew Koraidon quite a while ago. It was worth the experience, regardless and I had a great time with this one! I am looking forward to drawing Ogerpon again in the future!

[generalsnivy]

A cute, little Espeon, but it's not AI-generated and is instead, drawn by a human being using a digital tablet connected to a laptop computer that can barely run Windows 10 due to how ancient the hardware is under the hood and is able to use Krita to draw this in a couple of days.

For context as to what's going on, it is best summed up by Glacytale_ on Twitter in their own Espeon redraw here:

As for my own interpretation of these events, an "artist" on Twitter started passing off some Pokemon fan art as their own "art" that they took time to create. When they posted fan art of Espeon, it was found out by an actual artist that this fake "artist" used AI (Artificial Intelligence) to generate the fan art of Espeon and they failed to disclose that it was AI-generated. When I dug into the "artist's" Media tab, I saw that they only posted two other drawings at the time that they were called out/caught and after some close examination, they too, were AI-generated. So, to help spread awareness of this fraud of an artist, many actual artists, including myself, have been taking the AI-generated art that this person posted, used it as a reference, and redrew it ourselves to show this person that if one takes the time to learn how to draw properly either digitally or traditionally with a pen, pencils, papers, etc. that they can recreate their AI-generated art properly. It's not that hard to get started on learning how to draw and it's not overly expensive either. The other reason why we were (or still are) doing this, is to call them out for their mistakes and teach them a lesson that using AI to generate are is not ok as it steals from many, many artists to generate their images. Using AI to generate art hurts every single artist, both living and deceased, due to how it was trained, ie; art theft. Worse yet is the fact that as of the making of this post, they are not only continuing to post AI-generated "fan art", but they are practically rubbing it in our faces and seeing our criticism as more of a challenge than proper feedback. (Sounds a lot like a certain Call of Duty developer studio that WARDS our feedback and throws it into a black hole expanding to INFINITY and beyond.)

I intended to finish this drawing sooner, but some things happened in my personal life that really got in my way and have impacted me, emotionally over the past week. Regardless, I wanted to throw my hat into the ring and hop onto this Espeon redraw trend to take my stand to say that I am 100% against AI art generation and the entire system needs to be nuked and restarted from the ground up, using royalty-free and stock images to train it rather than train from all art from all across the internet. Despite the personal issues that I've encountered over the past week, I still had fun putting this together and although it took a while to finish, it was worth it in the end, at least in my opinion.

[generalsnivy]

I'm going to tell my kids that this is the original Dragon Ball.

This was an idea that popped into my head recently and since 2024 is The Year of the Dragon, I wanted to draw a Dragon-type Pokemon that I haven't drawn for a very long time, and that Pokemon is Dragonite. I've only drawn Dragonite twice up to this point and considering that fact, I wanted to gain some additional experience drawing one of my favorite Dragon-type Pokemon.

Let me tell you, drawing Dragonite isn't easy, regardless of which angle or pose you're going for. The most difficult part of drawing this cute, magnificent creature was its face as I tend to have a hard time drawing it correctly. As for the body, that was a challenge in itself as I have never seen a Dragonite depicted like this, or in a similar pose so, I had to mostly play it by ear and draw it in a way that would make the most sense to me. That's what made it that much more challenging, but fun and incredibly satisfying once I finished drawing it. Regardless of the difficulty and complexity of this drawing, I'm very happy with the way this turned out in the end!

Special thanks to @MitoidTheRodz on Twitter for sharing a new reference image for Dragonite from the Pokemon anime! It really helped me out, especially considering the angle I was going for with them, thus, being able to fix up Dragonite's face from the previous WIP I shared a few days ago!

[generalsnivy]

These two Goodras are offering free hugs to anyone and everyone who passes by them on this lovely beach. Would you hug them, even if it means that you're left in a gooey mess afterward? I would.

This was another interesting one to draw as both the regular/Kalosian Goodra and the Hisuian Goodra share a similar anatomy, much like how the Johtonian Typhlosion and the Hisuian Typhlosion do. There are some differences such as the thickness of the horns, the horns' length, the average height for the Goodras in general, the number of gooey dots on the head and "tail" respectively, and the fact that the Hisuian Goodra has a shell it can retract itself into while the Kalosian one doesn't have that. Despite these differences, their main body structure is very similar to one another, making drawing them a little bit easier. That doesn't change the fact that they're still difficult to draw, though. Strangely, I had a hard time drawing their head as when it came to the angle I was going for, things weren't quite lining up for a while. Eventually, I was able to figure it out and then was able to proceed. Once I finished drawing the Kalosian Goodra, I was able to copy and paste the sketch, mirror it, and then make the adjustments necessary to turn the 2nd Goodra into a Hisuian one.

When it came to some of the texture work for certain background elements such as the signs, the sand on the beach, etc., I really love the way it turned out as I was able to utilize some of the different brushing modes in Krita to add some realism to them. My favorite part of this was the ocean as I love making the water sparkle due to the light produced by the sun.

Shading both Goodras was another fun part of this drawing as due to the angle I was going for them, I had to experiment a little bit as to where to place the shading and how it would look drawing them the way I did. I also wanted to add a little bit of a glow to some parts of them due to them being slug dragons and typically, slugs are silky and glow on some spots due to the sunlight.

The final obstacle I had to figure out was how to go about having the Goodras hold their signs. I'm not 100% sure how Goodras can hold objects with their hands without dropping them outright so, I took a more humanoid approach and have their two "fingers" work like a human's fingers and thumbs to hold them. From what I looked up online, I have never seen a Goodra depicted holding an object with their hands, at least not without them using both of them or they use their long horns to hold the object.

Overall, I had a lot of fun working on this one and it was a learning experience. Plus, gaining additional experience drawing my favorite gooey dragon is always nice.

[generalsnivy]

Here it is! My first drawing of 2024 and what better way to celebrate than to draw some cute aura puppies as they ring in the new year together!

Honestly, drawing these two wasn't too bad, considering what poses I was going for with them, especially Riolu! When I shared some WIPs of this drawing earlier, I was warned early on that Riolu can be very difficult to draw, especially regarding its lower torso and legs. Considering what I was going for with them, I didn't run into too many issues when drawing Riolu. As for Lucario, he took a bit of time to figure out, especially when it came to its snout and its arms. At one point, I forgot to add Lucario's tail to the line art part of the drawing, but I managed to catch myself early enough to add it without any major setbacks. For drawing Lucario's and Riolu's snouts, this Twitter tweet helped me illustrate how snouts are typically drawn on foxes, wolves, dogs, etc. which transitioned over nicely to both Lucario and Riolu with their snouts. After the snouts came Lucario's arms and they were very challenging to figure out as I wanted Riolu to sit on one arm while Lucario was holding something with their other free paw while making it all look as natural as possible, which I think I succeeded in doing so, which makes me feel proud of myself for pulling something like that off. I'm also proud of the way my line art and shading turned out this time around as the added darkness helped with the overall shading process. The line art looks cleaner, in my opinion, and is less shaky as seen in some of my other drawings. Overall, this was a fun challenge and I enjoyed drawing these two very much! I'm looking forward to drawing them again in the future!

[generalsnivy]

It is surprising to see many Pokemon come in all kinds of different shapes and sizes, including those of the same species. Each Pokemon in the world has an average size for their specified species but, every once in a while, there is an outlier where a Pokemon is either born as large as The Jolly Green Giant, (or possibly larger) or as small as a soccer ball/football. (Or even smaller than that.) These are the kinds of Pokemon that need the most love, care, and attention in order for them to live and thrive in this cruel world. This is the case when this teeny tiny Oshawott is born into this world and is being cared for by their trainer who's holding them in the palm of their hands, falling asleep right away. As soon as this Oshawott was born, this trainer knew that they were truly something special and knew that this precious, teeny, tiny, baby needs to be protected at all costs.

After reading up on a tutorial on the basics of drawing human hands posted by Clip Studio Paint's Twitter account, I decided to give it a whirl as I struggle greatly when it comes to drawing human body parts, especially the hands. If the hands look wonky or off, know that I still need a lot more practice drawing human hands. Looking at the final results, they turned out pretty dang well if I do say so myself. (Not perfect, mind you, but better than other hands I've drawn up to this point in time.) Oshawott also turned out great, but when I finished the drawing the first time, I went to bed to go to sleep, and during my sleep, I realized that I messed up on most of the shading as I had the dark shading spots in the opposite parts of Oshawott, which meant that I had to redo ~95% of the shading already done, which was annoying, but thankfully, didn't take too long to redo. (I even added additional shading to make Oshawott stand out even more.) Regardless, the final results were all worth it in the end, even if it took longer than I intended to finish this. It's always worth the experience of trying to draw something new or something that's very challenging to do.

[generalsnivy]

This Kalosian Goodra recently learned that his favorite, beloved grandmother, who was a Hisuian Goodra who was in the hospital due to her age and cancer taking her, slowly, was being moved to Hospis, which filled him with great sadness. To help distract him and cheer him up, even if only a little bit, his friends and family gathered together and encouraged him to help decorate his home for the holidays. It took all day to finish, but everything was looking very festive and it lifted up Goodra's spirit a little. The very last thing they finished decorating was their 7-foot-tall Christmas tree, which was decorated with all kinds of shiny ornaments and they were all wrapped around with red and green Garlin. After everything was all said and done, they gathered around and took a family photo in front of the decorated Christmas tree so that they could share the holiday spirit with Goodra's dying grandmother. Sometime later, he took the picture to Hospis where his grandmother was being kept comfortable, showed it to her, and the two of them chatted for several hours. After a while, he gave his grandmother a big hug, told her how much he loved her, left the photo with her, and then went home.

One month passes, and Goodra receives the sad news from his sister that their grandmother finally passed away a few days prior. Unsurprisingly, this devastated him, and he was rightfully enraged because he wasn't told of her passing right away. The reason why she didn't tell him right away was because she too, was saddened by her passing and she needed time to get herself together and figure out the best way to tell her brother, which backfired massively. Goodra's sister then informed him of where their grandmother was buried and he raced off to her gravesite. On his way there, he raced by his friends as they were going about their business as tears were beginning to run down Goodra's face. Concerned, Goodra's friends dropped everything they were doing and followed their friend to the cemetery where his beloved grandmother was supposedly buried. When he found his grandmother's grave, the only thing he could do at that point was to sit down in front of it and begin to cry. Just as he began to sob, his friends showed up behind him and approached him slowly, without saying a word as they could tell what was going on right away. And so, they all gathered around Goodra, offering hugs and comfort as he grieves and mourns the loss of his favorite, beloved grandmother. As he continued to grieve, a ghostly apparatus in the shape of his grandmother appeared in front of him and his friends. The apparatus then gives a message to the grieving Goodra assuring him that everything is going to be okay and encouraging him not to cry. Even though they won't be around anymore, physically, they will always be with them inside their heart. Although the message was received, Goodra continued to mourn and grieve for his grandmother. So, he and his friends stayed together and kept each other company as Goodra's friends continued to comfort him as snow fell on all 4 of them throughout the night. The following morning, after he finally finished crying, he stood up and thanked his friends for being there for him when he needed them most. They then said goodbye to each other and went their separate ways for now, and then Goodra went home, apologized to his sister for taking out his anger on her, made up, and then hugged each other tightly as they went and spent the day together, reminiscing their happiest memories of their grandmother and how she blessed both of their lives with her presence.

This took quite a while to finish not only due to life getting in the way again, but I also revised this several times in my head before I drew what you see before you. Honestly, it took quite some time to figure out how I could best articulate my feelings into this drawing with my current skill set, which is why I didn't draw this right away when certain events occurred in my personal life, which I'll explain right now. Around the end of September, my grandmother, who was the wife of my 2nd late grandfather, who passed away last year, returned to her home after spending some time in the hospital after receiving treatment for some blood clots in her legs. She called me around the beginning of October before Mom and moved to our new home and we caught up with each other. I heard of what was going on with Grandmom from my sister prior to Grandmom calling me and as we were chatting and catching up, I told her that I was thankful that she was still alive after her ordeal and that I loved and missed her. Little did I know, that this would be the very last time I'd ever be able to speak to her again while she was alive as in November, she was back in the hospital again after suffering from a stroke while she was at home. The reason I knew this was due to the information received from my grandmother's daughter, which was then passed onto my sister, and then was finally passed onto my mother and myself simultaneously. My sister kept us updated and informed as we all live in separate states and my sister was the closest to where Grandmom was being kept. A short time later, my sister informs us that our grandmother was being moved to Hospis, which meant only one thing; it was almost time for her to go. While Grandmom was being moved to Hospis, my sister and my grandmother's daughter put up and decorated a Christmas tree in Grandmom's house and then took a picture of it so that they could celebrate one last Christmas with Grandmom before she inedibly passed on. On the evening of November 15th, 2023, my sister called Mom and informed us that our grandmother finally passed away. As I overheard the news from my room, I went over to Mom as she hung up the phone with my sister and asked her if Grandmom passed away. She told me "yes" and I then went over, sat next to her on the couch, leaned my head on her shoulder, and cried. This entire series of events is what inspired this drawing in the first place. The hardest part was figuring out the best way to express my feelings on this drawing. Even when writing/typing up this story, I began to cry a little bit. Needless to say, I loved my grandmother and it was fun talking to her over the phone during the past 10 years I've been living in Maine. I'll always cherish the memories of spending many Christmases with her, my dad, my sister, and my 2nd grandfather throughout the years while I was still living in Maryland.

Some of you may be wondering, why didn't I go to see my grandmother before she passed away and why was my sister the only one keeping my mother and I in the loop? There are a few reasons: 1) My mother and I live in Maine and my grandmother lived in Maryland. 2) My sister lives in Pennsylvania, in a town near the Maryland state line, which means that she lives closest to where Grandmom once lived. And 3) Mom and I just moved into our new home, which was further up in Northern Maine and we didn't have the money to purchase me a 2-way plane ticket between Maine and either Pennsylvania or Maryland. TL;DR: Financial difficulties and poor timing prevented me from seeing Grandmom off on her deathbed.

[generalsnivy]

A Pokemon Trainer and their Quilava are taking a break from their hard training regimen to prepare themselves for the road ahead. So, Quilava's trainer decided to take out and inflate Quilava's favorite ball to play with as the two of them relax and enjoy the sunshine while taking a well-deserved rest. Needless to say, the Quilava's really enjoying themselves and having a lot of fun while their trainer is watching them happily from a short distance.

I decided to remake an older drawing of mine, which I've been meaning to do for a while! For this remake, I wanted to show off how much I've learned and improved since drawing the original back in March of 2022! This was a lot of fun to revisit and redo with my current skill set!

[generalsnivy]

This is my belated Eevee Day drawing that I wanted to finish by yesterday, but I couldn't do so in time. Regardless of timing, this drawing was one of the oldest ideas I had sitting on my list for a very long time and it took me until now to finally put it onto a digital canvas!

For context as to what's going on here, Bruno the Eevee placed a bet with his teammate, TT the Riolu, to see how many apples the two of them could collect for their client by sunset the previous day. Whoever lost the bet would have to dance the entirety of the Nutcracker Suite while wearing a tutu on stage in front of their entire guild the following day. The competition between them was close, but TT won by 1 apple and so, Bruno had to bare the loss and humiliation as he reluctantly took the tutu, got on stage, and began dancing to the Nutcracker Suite, looking completely unamused by these turn of events and everyone, including his teammates, laughed and cheered as he danced throughout the song.

I originally planned to include mostly half of a human holding his arms as he wore the tutu. But, I could not draw the human's hand holding Bruno's paws properly and after a bit of pondering, I decided to scrap the human's inclusion and change the theme to have it take place in the universe of Pokemon Mystery Dungeon (despite me never playing any of the games, I've seen a lot of fan art of the series and managed to get a general idea as to what the spinoff series is about.) Sometimes, thems the breaks and it can also lead to different opportunities to make the original vision even better as one changes their approach and new ideas flood in to compensate for one's lack of skills in a given situation. TL;DR: I need to practice drawing humans much more before I can include them in any serious drawings.

[generalsnivy]

This 3-month-old Lugia only learned how to fly 2 weeks ago and so, while his parents weren't looking, he flew off on his own, seeking fun and adventure. Sometime later, he was flying and enjoying the sights. But then, a Dragapult appeared out of nowhere directly in front of the poor baby Lugia and scared him so much that he began to fall from the sky. The poor thing was so scared that he forgot how to fly and as he was falling from high in the sky, he began to cry and was calling out for his mommy and daddy to save him, but nobody came. Luckily, when he thought that all hope was lost, he landed and bounced on the back of a giant Lugia parade balloon, stopping his fall and saving him from certain doom. After drying his tears, the baby Lugia realized that this "Lugia" was very bouncy and started to bounce up and down on the thing, not knowing exactly what this thing actually was, nor knowing that this "Lugia" was actually a parade balloon made by humans. For those wondering how it is that no humans noticed that a Pokemon was bouncing on this parade balloon and how did it not fly away, the balloon was anchored down to the ground below and the humans were elsewhere, making additional preparations for their upcoming parade, which was happening in a few hours. After bouncing for a while, the baby Lugia got tired, sat down on the balloon and took a nap. Several hours have passed and the human-organized parade has begun. When it came time for the humans to move the Lugia balloon down the parade route, the baby Lugia woke up and noticed that this "Lugia" started to "fly" forward gently so that he wouldn't roll off the balloon. He then heard the sounds of cheering and saw some small, strange objects raining from the sky as he and the Lugia balloon continued to move forward. Not knowing what was going on, he just sat back and took in the view, enjoying the ride while smiling ear to ear while the humans continued to cheer down below, unaware that a baby Lugia was riding on one of their parade balloons. When both the baby Lugia and the Lugia parade balloon reached the end of the parade route, the humans anchored the balloon down once more and went off to finish the festivities elsewhere. As the sun began to set, the baby Lugia thanked the "Lugia" for not only saving his life but for allowing him to bounce on its back and have some fun after falling onto them earlier that day. He then remembered how to fly and flew back home, where his parents had been searching franticly for him all day, but couldn't find him anywhere until just now. After returning home, they scolded him for going off on his own and making them worry themselves sick. The baby Lugia apologized for his misdeeds and then, his parents grabbed and hugged him, thanking Arceus for keeping him safe while he was out and about on his own today.

I had this idea sitting on my list of ideas for a while due to Mom and I moving to our new home and not having time to draw anything new. I originally wanted to draw this before drawing the prior one featuring a Servine and Serperior after they bought a new home, but I did the other drawing first so that I could have it serve as an update of why I haven't drawn anything new in over 3 months. (TL;DR, life happened and I had higher priorities over drawing.) Talking about this drawing, I was originally going for a different angle when it came to the Lugia parade balloon, but I couldn't make it work, so I took a slightly different approach and simplified it a bit. Regardless, I really loved how this entire drawing turned out; from the baby Lugia to the Lugia parade balloon, it was a lot of fun to draw one of my favorite legendary Pokemon! I especially loved how I handled the shading and highlights on the Lugia parade balloon as they were the most fun part of the entire drawing process. After the background was drawn, I wanted to add something more to it to give a more celebratory vibe, like what one would see in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in the form of confetti. When it came to drawing the confetti, I wasn't sure if I should've put it on the top layer above everything, or in the background layer behind the baby Lugia and the Lugia parade balloon, so I went with the latter as it looked better that way, in my opinion. Plus, I didn't want to take away any attention from the details and shading work from either the baby Lugia or the Lugia parade balloon. Overall, this was a fun drawing to do and it was a learning experience for drawing Lugia in general.

I used one of @friday_ferdy's Lugia drawings on Twitter as a reference for figuring out how to go about giving the baby Lugia its facial expression. Here is the drawing I referenced.

[generalsnivy]

This snake family just acquired a home that they were desperately looking for as the rent for their old home was so astronomically high, that they couldn't afford to stay there and also pay for necessities such as food, water, cleaning supplies, etc. Ladies and gents; you're looking at a Serperior mother with her Servine son as they are now proud homeowners of this lovely 2-bedroom, 1-bath house, located in a nice, quiet neighborhood, where most businesses are local and they're only about 20 minutes away from the nearest major town, so if they need something from a major big brand store, it won't take an eternity to complete a round trip. Let's have a round of applause and congratulations to this wonderful, happy family!

This drawing is also going to serve as an update as to where I've been as it's been ~3 months since I drew anything new and a lot has happened during that time. Back in July of this year, the property we were living at for the past 10 years was bought out by another realtor company and we feared that our rent was going to increase as it has already done so at the beginning of this year by ~$250. After the acquisition, we received a letter from the new realtor company that our rent wasn't going up (right away. More on this in a little bit.) which was a huge relief. However, around mid-August, we received another letter from them informing us that the rent would be going up once more, starting in October 2023, by another ~$300! That's 2 rent increases for this year, which is really, really bad! For those wondering if companies can do that since in several states, there's a law that exists that makes it so there's a cap on how much rent can be raised per year. Sadly, Maine is not one of those states that has this law so, realtors can raise the rent as much as they want, whenever they want, so long as they inform their tenants at least 30 days in advance in writing. As a result of this new rent increase, we would not be able to afford the new rent amount as Mom and I live on monthly paychecks, which are used to pay for expenses such as bills, food, necessities, clothes, cleaning supplies, unexpected expenses, etc. So, we had to spend the last 2 months packing up our home while also searching for a new one that's not only within our price range of what we can afford for a monthly rent payment but also had to include heat as heating is very expensive here in Maine and it is required in order to survive Maine's harsh, hard winters. It also had to have enough storage to store as many of our belongings as possible, and it also had to have washer and dryer hookups. Towards the end of September, we were able to find a place that met most requirements for a much cheaper price. However, the place is a lot smaller than our old home and when we moved in, we had to get rid of/donate a lot of things as we don't have the room for them, which sucked as we had a lot of nice things that we had to give away. Despite that, Mom and I are thankful that we not only managed to find a place before October that included heat, plus most other amenities, including electricity which is a huge bonus as not a lot of places include electricity in the rent. We're also thankful that we have a roof over our heads so we're not out on the streets, which I was fearing was going to happen as there weren't too many places for rent that were within our price range and included what we needed. We managed to unpack most of the house, but there's still quite a bit of unpacking left to do, especially in Mom's room as her room is much smaller than mine. (I had to take the bigger bedroom due to my bed and furniture being so large.) Overall, the past 3 months have been the most stressful and scariest of my life as I was filled with fear, anxiety on top of what anxiety I had already, and uncertainty due to these events. We are slowly settling into our new home and thankfully, we're living in a nice, quiet neighborhood that isn't in the boonies and we're only an hour away from a major town, which is nice. I should be able to get back into drawing like I normally do, but who knows what life will throw at us next? Only one way to find out.

[generalsnivy]

Your Snivy wants to go swimming at the swimming pool just below this hill! Will you join them?

This was another fun one to work on as there were a couple of challenges to figure out as I drew this one! First, was drawing Snivy. While normally, this isn't too difficult as I've drawn them several times now. The challenge, this time, was drawing them while having them face a good bit forward, towards the screen, but not so far forward that they're facing the screen directly, which was a doozy, especially for their head. I used one of Twitter user, @/reclusi0n's Snivys as a reference to help best figure out how to go about drawing Snivy's head at this angle. (Just remove the slash in the username.) To be specific, it is the non-shiny Snivy from this tweet here.

The next challenge for me was drawing Snivy's inner tube. I wanted to make it so they're holding it at a slightly downward tilt. The reason this was so challenging was due to how I wanted to about showing the underside of the inner tube at this desired angle. In the end, despite the difficulties figuring it out, it turned out excellently and I love the final results!

Overall, this was another fun challenge as I experimented with drawing Snivy at a different angle than I typically draw them and I also experimented with a couple of different brushing modes to better handle shading, especially for Snivy's eyes! Even though the background wasn't the main focus of this drawing, this allowed me to practice a little bit more with perspectives and distant objects as well! The swimming pool may not have turned out the way I wanted it, but it still looks good, in my opinion! This was another area where I experimented a bit as I tried out a couple of different brushes to better illustrate the water's texture and the pool's depth! Regardless, this was worth the experience gained and it'll be useful for future endeavors!

[generalsnivy]

They say that Pokemon are attracted by round, colorful objects, especially ones that float in the air and look fun to bounce on. This naughty, little Treecko is no exception. He saw this giant sphere floating high in the sky in a nearby city right by the forest where he lives. Fascinated by this huge, round, blue sphere, he made his way into the city, following this round object as if it was a shining star in the night sky, leading him to a nearby car dealership, which is run by humans. (It's difficult to miss due to how huge and colorful this balloon is.) Once he got to where the balloon was tied down, he hid in a nearby bush and waited for his chance to take this giant balloon for a little joyride. When no one was looking, he untied the balloon from the ground, grabbed onto the string, and the two of them began to quickly ascend high into the sky, being blown out of the city in a matter of minutes by some wind. After leaving the city, Treecko climbed the string to reach the top of the balloon to get a good look at the view as they continue to fly through the sky. With a satisfied smirk on his face, he laid down on his back and tail on top of the balloon and began to relax as he and the balloon flew high above the nearby forest, enjoying the ride without a care in the world.

If you are wondering how I managed to draw this while my desktop is not working at the moment, I used my old, chunky, school laptop, which can barely run Windows 10 as is due to how old the hardware is. Regardless of my current hardships, I still managed to pull this off somehow and I'm very happy with the way this turned out. This was a nice, fun, little distraction that I needed to help me relieve some stress in a healthy way. God, I hope I can get my computer fixed again soon.

[generalsnivy]

It's a beautiful, sunny day and this Typhlosion family was trying to figure out how they could take advantage of this gorgeous day and entertain their two children. After pondering for a bit, Daddy Typhlosion came up with the idea that they should spend this day at the beach. Momma Hisuian Typhlosion agreed and then informed the kids that they were all going to spend the day at the beach. Cyndaquil and his older Quilava brother were excited and ran to grab a couple of things for their trip, which were, a little inner tube, some water wings, a pair of swimming goggles, and a life jacket, just to be on the safe side. Daddy Typhlosion also brought a big Pawmot beach ball for the kids to play with once they finished swimming in the ocean and were ready to get out of the water. Needless to say, it was a fun day under the sun for everyone and everyone had a blast swimming in the ocean, relaxing under the sun's rays in the soft, white sand, and playing with the beach ball by passing it around to one another and bouncing it around. Thankfully, the ball never fell into the ocean, which otherwise would've been swept away by the ocean's currents, which would've made both Cyndaquil and Quilava sad.

It's not often that you see fire-type Pokemon go to the beach for a swim, but when it does happen, It's a rare sight. Even if they cannot swim, technically speaking, it doesn't mean that they can't learn how, even if it's just for fun.

This was another fun one to work on as I gained more experience drawing the Cyndaquil evolutionary line. Drawing both the Johtonian and the Hisuian Typhlosions was a big pain in the behind due to drawing them facing to the side as there are hardly any official pieces of artwork for either of them in this position that I could use for reference. After a little bit of pondering, I decided to use the Typhlosion I had in Pokemon Violet as a stand-in and take an in-game screenshot of what I needed. One thing worth noting about taking pictures of your Pokemon in Scarlet and Violet is that they are notorious for not cooperating when it comes to taking photos as they either get the zoomies and circle around the player or decide to take a nap. Thankfully, my Typhlosion was cooperative just long enough for me to get the picture I needed, which, believe it or not, only took me about a minute as he stood there, staring into space, before deciding to take a nap shortly after taking the picture. Once I got what I needed, I used said picture as a reference to get a better idea of how I could go about drawing both Typhlosions in that position. Another thing worth mentioning is that both Johtonian and Hisuian Typhlosions share their basic anatomy, the only difference being, canonically, is their height as Hisuian Typhlosion is a couple of inches shorter than the Johtonian one. Plus, the patterns on the Hisuian one's head and chest area are a little bit different but share the same structural integrity for their skull.

Other than the Typhlosions being difficult to draw, as per usual, Cyndaquil and Quilava weren't too bad in comparison. It took a bit of time to figure out the best way to draw them walking, especially for Quilava as I wanted to draw them walking on their hind legs, much like a Typhlosion can. I had a lot of fun drawing their swimming gear as well, which are; Cyndaquil's inner tube and Quilava's water wings, life jacket, and swimming goggles. I originally planned on giving Quilava a snorkel with his goggles, but after sketching it out, it didn't look right to me, so I opted out of that plan and just stuck with what I had on him. Drawing Cyndaquil's inner tube was a lot of fun as I experimented with having a transparent top half of the floaty and a solid pattern on the bottom half, underneath the transparent part of the ring. The color choices for the inner tube and inner tube skirt are a reference to Quaquaval's feathers on their body as well as the tips of their wings and tail.

Overall, this was a fun little project and the experience gained was worth the hassle of nailing both Johtonian and Hisuian Typhlosion's anatomy. It was also worth practicing drawing perspectives when it came to the environment. (I still need a lot more practice when it comes to this, but even so.) Plus, I always enjoy drawing inflatables such as pool toys and balloons.

[generalsnivy]

Venesa The Snivy and Undyne the Oshawott have known each other since they were first born into the world. In fact, they were born so close to each other that they share the same birthday, but only within a few hours of each other. Since their first meeting, they have been inseparable, and they do everything together, never leaving each other's side other than for privacy reasons or, if either one of them wants some alone time. When the time came for them to begin their Pokemon journies with their Trainers, they were fortunate enough that their Trainers were traveling together as a lesbian couple and chose both Snivy and Oshawott as their respective starter Pokemon so that they can all stay together as one happy family.

At one point in their journey, the lesbian couple stopped at a Pokepark to relax, unwind, and rest up for the road ahead. During this time, Undyne and Venesa sat down on a bench in front of the central fountain, and Undyne confesses her love to Venesa. Venesa, having the same feelings for Undyne, confesses her love to Undyne as well, and they swore to love and protect each other, no matter what.

After leaving the Pokepark, they kept true to their oaths and continued their Pokemon journey together, making new friends along the way, and doing their best to not only keep each other safe but keep their Trainers safe as well from anyone who would dare do them harm, whether that be a human or a Pokemon, it doesn't matter. They will love and protect each other, always.

I wanted to draw something for Pride Month this year, much like how I did so last year! No matter who you are, stay true to yourself and stay safe! No matter what anyone says, you are valid! You are wanted! You are loved! And, you have every right to exist as yourself!

For those interested, this is what I drew last year when I was still using a mouse, rather than a proper drawing tablet: https://twitter.com/GeneralSnivy/status/1535046809134956544

[generalsnivy]

I got inspired to draw this after seeing one of the (Almost) Daily Oshawott tweets by @/FrostyAlmonds (aka, AL (With an L) on Twitter) and I wanted to draw something like that, but go further and put my own spin on it. Plus, practice drawing Oshawott in various positions and different facial expressions for most of them. Here's the tweet that inspired this drawing.

As mentioned previously, I wanted to get in more practice drawing Oshawott, drawing them in various poses, and giving them different facial expressions. After drawing the first one, drawing the rest didn't take as long due to the fact that I was able to copy and paste various parts of their body and redraw certain parts as needed. This, of course, was done during the sketching phase of the drawing as doing it during the line art phase would've been disastrous due to the fact that the line art is a paint layer, and transforming it would greatly reduce its overall quality. (For those wondering, I don't know how to use Vector layers to draw things in Krita.)

As for the background, I wanted to practice drawing more of a perspective landscape as I haven't drawn something like this in a while. I could've gone with a sky background, filled with fluffy clouds + the sun, and be done with it, but I wanted to attempt something more and I like the way this turned out. As for the pine trees, I remember seeing a tutorial on drawing trees somewhere (Although, I can't remember where, exactly) and tried to recall the part of it where I had to break it down into its simplest shapes, and then work from there. I also messed around with one of the default grass patch brushes in Krita to add details to the trees and it worked surprisingly well, thanks to the different blending modes such as Multiply, Screen, Burn, etc.

Overall, this took several days to finish and it was a fun project! The experience gained for everything was well worth it and it'll be useful for future drawings!

Balloon bounce referenced