Fan
As in "fan art." I enjoy other people's creations. I usually end up drawing them, too. Although the drawings here are mine -- the image itself is my copyright -- the content is (usually) someone else's. I give credit where it's due. There's no way in Tartarus I can make money off of these. They're all for fun. Keep that in mind.
Here's a few of the crazy pics I've scanned in so far. There are plenty more to go.
Experimentally, I've grouped the thumbnails and the image info/commentary separately. Every thumbnail has a number/letter to the right of it, so if you want to read the info, you can find it under the corresponding number. The order that the thumbnails are in doesn't make much sense, and the numbering system is bound to make at least one person's brain implode. (It's experimental. It should become clear what I'm trying to do as new thumbnails are added in subsequent updates.) Also, they don't all have writeups just yet.
[Don't go to the EVA section if you don't want the mysteries of the Evangelions (and your dinner) spoiled for yourself. It's on a separate page.]
Browse by topic?
Neon
Genesis Evangelion (EVA) [spoilers]
Pokémon
SquareSoft
Miscellany
The first three rows are my interpretations of the Pokémon (and one human) we either know and love or scorn and hate. The last two rows consist of home-brewn Pokémon, which are, natürlich, completely mine and 0% Nintendo's or Gamefreak's. (Although, I must credit several sources for inspiration!)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
25
26
27
28
29
30
32
33
1. [James/Kojiro] Jessie and James are rather pointless characters -- as villains, anyway. Most of their appearances are simply mandatory and pretty much just waste episode time. They have some good showings, though, usually when they're not trying to be bad guys. Whenever they decide to stop following Ash (probably means whenever the show ends), they should get their own show. Quit Team Rocket ... And simultaneously pursue the fashion world, the stage arts, and Pokemon training! You know that's what both of them would rather be doing! Plus, the series could go for an older audience, so a lot of the sick J&J dialogues my buds and I make could actually happen!
Oh
yeah, the drawing itself. The end result of a series of attempts to draw good
ol' James (Kojirou) as a real person. He enters reality
much more readily that Jess does. In case you're wondering, I drew him without
the Team Rocket jacket on; he's got a black shirt on underneath. [Look! Rachel
can't draw noses!] —Oct.10-00
2 & 3. [Charmander/Pikachu] Okay, the Pokémon look a little funny. It was an interesting coloration experiment, though. —Oct.10-00
4. [Sandshrew] It was supposed to be a "realistic" Sandshrew. Looks like an ordinary armadillo to me.
5. [Electromys pikachu] What if Pikachu was a real rodent? Well, you can bet it wouldn't be shooting electricity out of its cheeks (and shocking things that aren't even touching the ground). This little ball-point pen drawing actually looks pretty convincing to me. Doesn't that look like it could be a real rodent? Well, a cavy, maybe. —Oct.10-00
6. [Nidorino] In the video game itself, I haven't found Nidorino to be worth much against other players, and his evolved form Nidoking doesn't fare much better. Still, he's very cool-looking (most of the time, anyway; that Tony evolved into one ugly Nidorino). I also love the fact that the males of the Nidoran group are pink, while the females are blue. Deviations from stereotypes are always nice. (Heck, look at James. He's super-effeminate, he cross-dresses, and he's more-likely-than-not straight. I love it.) —Oct.10-00 + Jun.26-01
7. [Lickitung] A little sketch of the tongue fiend that has a rather nice quality to it, methinks. --Aug.21-01
8.
['Hellgar']
And here we have an unbearably crude and off-model "Hellgar"...
That's just how I chose to Anglicize "Herugâ" (the straight
romaji), as I have no idea what the actual Roman letter spelling is. The name
was changed to "Houndoom" for the English adaptation of Pokemon, but
I think "Hellgar" sounds much more sinister and fitting. —Oct.10-00
+ Jun.26-01
9.
[Mew] It seems to be common lore that Mew is a feline, but
it always looked more kangaroo-ish to me... One thing goes without saying: Mew's
wickedly cute. The first Pokemon movie wasn't all that great, but it wonderfully
conveyed Mew's whimsical, innocuous, ultimately childlike nature. I suppose
its mien is most like a dolphin (Mew's giggling actually sounded
rather delphinic); if they were real, they'd probably be great fun to play with.
Now for a "short" story on the genesis of the pic itself... For my last year of high school, I went to "special" school (completely voluntarily, by the way) that catered to the special needs of individuals such as myself. By and by, it didn't disappoint... except the art program was a shocking plummet down from the soul-rendingly challenging studio art program I had survived three years of at my old high school. Suffice to say, I was extremely unsettled, bored, and frustrated. Eventually, I somehow wound up painting a crude Psyduck and Slowpoke on the wall of the art room. It was something new, and I was having fun with it. For a while, I dedicated myself to a much larger and far more ambitious Pokemon "fresco", which was, of course, the adorable pink critter you see above. If it looks suspiciously like one of the stills of Mew from the movie, well, it is. My Mew is a straight rip-off of an incredibly endearing image my bud Nikkoth had printed off for me. Obviously, I elaborated on the original considerably. Overall, I'm rather pleased with the results, though the part of the wall where the tail is didn't provide much elbow room (hence its unfinished look). And it didn't photograph too well. Oh well. --Jun.26-01
12. [Wooper doodle] Why in the world does this silly little doodle get its own thumbnail?? Because Wooper's cool and this's the only drawing of it that's scanned at the moment. Plus, I think it's pretty good, as far as silly doodles go. ::} --Jul.21-01
13.
[Nokotchi] Another one of those weird things that I find
bizarrely endearing for no particular reason. The English-adaptation name for
this critter is Dunsparce, but it never made a whole lot of sense to me, so
I still call it Nokotchi for the most part. This is a new Pokemon I "discovered"
on my own; that is, I wasn't at all aware of its existence until I ran across
one while playing Gold on an emulator (in Japanese, of course). I was frightened
at first. I mean, I'm just wandering around in the caves, beating up Ishitsubute
(Geodudes) 
with
my Waninoko (Totodile), generally minding my own business, and all of a sudden
I'm attacked by this weird-looking yellowish I-don't-know-what with little tiny
wing-like things and squinty eyes and a stubby pointed tail. I'm almost positive
I screamed, out loud, "Oh my Gawd, what the he11 is that thing!?"
And the poor Nokotchi faced the wrath of my little crocodilian and was promptly
beaten into submission and enslaved within a Monster Ball (that's what they're
called in the Japanese version). I used her (yes, it was a female!) in
battle afterwards, mostly slamming weaklings into the dirt with her Ikari
(Rage, basically) attack, if only because I had no idea what Nokotchi might
end up learning, and for all I knew then it had the potential to evolve. Er,
anyway, on the drawing... I drew a number of Nokotchi way back then, with only
the little sprite image in Gold as reference, so I developed a ... unique way
of drawing them. I later discovered they're somewhat off-model, compared to
the Gamefreak artwork, but I really don't care -- mine are so much cuter. Heh.
--Jul.22-01
14. [Kingdra] I never did get around to evolving a Seadra into one of these... I have a strange weak spot for Seadra. There's a little figurine of one on my dashboard that I have no intention of removing any time soon. I've never actually attempted to draw Seadra, oddly enough, but it's cool-looking in some outlandish, hilarious way. Probably the main reason it's so endearing is because it says, "Doo Doo!" I'm not kidding. Why the bloody biscuit a seahorse called Seadra would say "Doo Doo!" is beyond my comprehension, but it does, and it's very groovy. [I suspect I'm suffering from temporary lunacy as I write this; pay it no mind.] But this is a drawing of Kingdra, not Seadra, isn't it? Blast. I was somewhat horrified when I saw an image of Kingdra for the first time. It wasn't actually stated in the magazine, but I knew it was a new evolutionary form of Seadra and I was scared. In spite of my slight disgust, I drew Kingdra several times -- I'm masochistic like that (why else would I draw so many harpy beech EVAs?) -- and I've come to accept it. Or maybe this is just a really nice little drawing. (I tend to feel proud when I can draw something cartoonish with any degree of success.) But Seadra's still the top hippocampus, if only because it says "Doo Doo!" and Kingdra (if the third Pokemon movie was any indication) does not. --Jul.22-01
15.
[Chikorita & Family] Chikorita is my favorite of the
three GS starter Pokemon. At least, it became my favorite once I saw it in the
anime. It's incredible how they managed to make a green blob with big red eyes,
a little mouth, and a big leaf sticking out of its head so gawsh-darn cute.
My sister thinks that Chikorita is pure evil, and she's probably right. The
first Chikorita encountered in the anime belongs to an ultra-ADHD baseball nerd
nutzoid ("We all love Electabuzz, no other team's the same, The players
charge the fields and electrify the game..."), whose erratic, dense, unyielding
personality was already leaving its mark on the little grass Pokemon. [I found
Casey rather amusing, myself...] Nonetheless, I was positively charmed by the
critter. The one that Ash eventually "acquires" is even cuter... It
starts off as a real beech, which was 
highly
amusing in its own right, but by the end of the episode the thing's absolutely
crazy about him. Either Chikorita is a chick (er... no sort of pun intended
there) or a real fruitcake (I'm inclined to go with the former), because, DANG!,
it's all over Ash every chance it gets. If Pokemon weren't a kid's show, I'd
be afraid Chikorita would express its affection in a far more mean and blatant
manner... er, if ya know what I mean... Ah, nevermind... [(And a completely
random scenario: "The ultimate battle! Chikorita versus.... Misty?!?! Which
will victor in the strife for one young man's heart?"]
Oh,
yeah, the picture itself. Alas, Chikorita has the potential to evolve, and,
as things tends to go, it gets increasingly less cute with each successive evolution.
I'm fond enough of Bayleef, which can look rather endearing if drawn just the
right way, but Meganium's just a big goofy. It's just not as cool as its evolutionary
predecessors. Well, at least it solves the riddle of what the he11 Chikorita
actually is -- a sauropod-oid. I'm quite pleased with how this drawing came
out, but I wish I had simply left the Chikorita in its original pencil instead
of inking it and attempting to color it in, with much non-success.
--Aug.21-01
16. [Scizor (RKC's Take)] No! No! Why, Scyther, why?? Of all Pokemon, I think Scyther's one of the coolest-looking: A huge green bug with sickles for hands and some strikingly (yes, its original name was "Strike", but, I assure you, I'm not punning on purpose!) draconic/dinosaurian qualities. In the original Gamefreak artwork, Scyther did look a tad lame, but the design was tweaked somewhat for the anime -- and, as far as I'm concerned, all of the changes did the insect good. When I saw images of Hassamu/Scizor for the first time, I was frightened. I hoped against hope that it wasn't Scyther's new evolutionary form, that would be far too cruel a fate. Alas, of course it was and I'd just have to get used to the idea. Scizor's design just doesn't hit home with me, though. I'm not quite sure why -- the red color? the lack of an actual jaw? the ungainly clamp-hands? the wasp-like waist? -- but, naturally, to ease my soul I had to attempt a Scyther-ized version of Scizor. I messed up with the ink pen, considerably, but such mistakes tend to be less noticeable when tons of color is introduced. Considering that magic markers tend not to scan in right at all, this JPEG doesn't look too bad. -- Aug.21-01
17.
[Ledyba
says "Biiiii!"] I did this
baby for my Drawing I final, fall semester '00. The final was composed of a
number of mini-projects (we had to pick five to do out of seven, I believe),
to be finished over two separate classes, that would test our prowess in the
skills we had been taught. One of the choices was Unusual Format, and I used
it as a chance to get a picture done for a friend (Meiaa-chan!), being as some
sort of gift was long-overdue and I had the poifect idea for one... So I drew
a cute lil' Ledyba going "Biiiii!" 
on
a piece of vellum, covered those unsightly pencil lines with a malodorous Sharpie,
tediously (but imperfectly nonetheless) cut it out with my heavily-abused Prog
Exacto Knife, and convinced the prof it satisfied the terms "Unusual Format".
After that course was over, I presented it to my bud', for Christmas I think,
and ended up hastily coloring it with acrylics and scanning it before she took
it home and hung it on a string from her ceiling, where it continues to spin
around to this very day. It makes me so happy that my Ledyba has a good home!
::> --Jul.21-01
25.
Astrala, a Dragon/Psychic Pokemon. (There just aren't enough
Dragon-types. The number's up to four with Water/Dragon Kingdra. There are four
Ghost-types now, too.) I think it's pretty cute. I took me a long time to come
up with "Astrala" -- you can guess where I got that from, eh?
—Oct.10-00
26. Quetzala is the evolution of little Astrala. Okay, yeah, it looks a little like FFVIII's Quetzalcoatl. Hey, the names even sound kinda similar! Heh heh ... um ... er... But, then, Mewtwo looks a little like Furîzâ from DragonballZ, doesn't it? [That came out of nowhere, didn't it?] —Oct.10-00
27. [Remorei] Remorei isn't just a Gyarados-wannabe -- it's the evolved form of Sniggle, an electric eel Pokemon. Sniggle's evolution is even more shocking (hah-hah-hah) than the original. I was rather annoyed when I tried naming this guy, because "Seadra" kept on popping in my head, but the "doo-doo-ing" seahorse had it first. If the obscure etymology is eluding you, "Remorei" is a combo of "remora" and "moray." Somewhat predictably, Remorei's an electric + water type (an alignment assigned before I learned of Chinchou and Lanturn from G.S.). —Oct.10-00 + Jul.18-01
28.
[Galagong] The evolution of my home-brewn Pokemon
Galager, who, in turn, evolves from Galago. [More on them when I get the bloody
scans edited and up.] Its design is derived primarily from its predecessors,
but somehow vague allusions to Electabuzz managed to sneak in. I later realized
that, on an entirely subconscious level, Galagong's physique had been roughly
influenced by the bizarre pseudo-Moogle-
thing
that Cait Sith rides in Final Fantasy VII. Honestly, it wasn't on purpose...!
-- Aug.21-01
29+30. [Snacuum] Snacuum is my favorite of the home-brewn Pokemon. It started out as an anteater sort of thing, but then my brother said that it reminded him of the vacuum monster from "Yellow Submarine." So, Snacuum ("snack" + "vacuum") was born, the walking vacuum bag that sucks more than <insert inappropriate reference here>. Snacuum was originally just supposed to eat a lot -- everything in sight, like an ostrich or a goat, except it sucks everything up. But, inevitably, the "suck" part gave Snacuum a more infamous double-duty. Needless to say, if Snacuum were a real Pokemon, it would be very popular among male trainers. [Snacuum would be a great Pokemon for James to get, if only to see Jessie's reaction.] —Oct.10-00
32. [Skuzz] Skuzz isn't my original idea. One who shall simply be known as Brandon came up with the original deranged concept. I just drew the blasted thing. Reminds me a little of a character from that old "Toxic Crusaders" cartoon (the one with the really big nose). [Or am I the only one who remembers that show...?] —Oct.10-00
33. [Pyrard] This critter started out as a pre-evolution of Boober/Magmar, but, as soon as I learned that there already was one in G.S. (i.e., 'Boobi'/Magby), that idea fizzled. However, I liked my proto-Magmar enough that I took the "fire duck" idea a little further and, ta-da, the fire/water-type Pokemon Pyrard was born. I suppose its conceptual origins in Magmar are still fairly evident, but methinks, design-wise, Pyrard certainly holds its own. Brownie points for whoever can determine its etymology! —Jun.26-01
These are the only ones scanned right now. There's plenty more where they came from, though, including a SquareSoft mural I painted with two buddies (Meiâ, Nikkoth, you know who you are!). I don't have a nice panoramic shot of the thing, so the isolated bits and pieces I have photos of will have to do. The first two rows of thumbnails are preparatory drawings for the mural.
42. [Kirin/Kylin] The kirin is the Japanese equivalent of the unicorn, more or less. One particular kirin featured in SquareSoft's game "SaGa Frontier", and its name was ... Kirin (corrupted into "Kylin" in the English version). Kirin was a cool, albeit unimportant, character, and the critters are so cool-looking anyway I just had to put it in the mural! I had much difficulty finding visual material, however; thorough online searches turned up no useful images whatsoever. (I would love to have the concept artwork for Kirin...) My only reference would be Kirin's in-game sprite incarnation -- very meager, considering the sprites in SGF aren't much to look at. I fired up the game and played hastily through Blue's quest until I could visit 'Kylin's Paradise' and challenge the Master of Space Magic for the Gift. In the ensuing battle, I stared at the massive glob of pixels that was supposed to be the great dragon-horse and interpreted it as best I could.
I
based this drawing on my straight-from-the-game sketches. Not surprisingly,
Kirin's a bit off-model, but, artistically, I'm quite pleased with it. Kirin
is actually supposed to have a green, back-curving horn, and 
the
"poofy" on the tail is supposed to be the same color as the mane (a
much more pastel-ish red that I made it, but oh well). The Kirin in the mural
itself looks kind of rushed and dorky (forgive my tampering, Nikkoth...), but
at least it has the horn (and a red poofy). --Jul.09-01
52. [Sephiroth] I am so sick of Sephiroth. The reasons for that are direly complicated and have little to do with the polygon-man himself. This drawing materialized shortly before I entered my current state of loathing. This is another one of those attempted "realistic" portraits, and, admittedly, most of it came out quite nicely. However, my human noses have long refused to be drawn properly, and Sephiroth's here is no exception. Oh well. --Jul.09-01
Not much here yet ... Some Gigerian aliens that materialized during classes of Japanese and English... A demented peek into my early adolescence... A nostalgic trip back into the 80's... Stuff like that. ::)
60
61
62
65
66
67
65. ["Look out, Sonic!"] A crude but strangely amusing drawing from seventh grade, if memory serves. [It definitely seems characteristic of my output at the time... Wait, what's the point of saying that if I'm the only one who knows what my other drawings from 7th Grade were about? Errr...] Well, it's easy to tell by comparing Sonic's predicament here (and that of his unfortunately sidekick) with the situations into which I put the characters I currently draw how much less psychologically corrupt and deranged I am nowadays. [<<sneeze>> "bul-schnitt"] --Feb.09.2002
66.
[Gojira -- not] I was never a fan of the original Gojira films, so
why the heck do I know trivia like the derivation of the brute's name? ["GORIRA"
(gorilla) + "kujira" (whale)] Who knows. For a non-fan like
me, the American corruption of Gojira (for the life of me I can't remember those
two guys' names -- er, Emmerich? something starting with a D? something??)
was distracting enough -- ooo! it's a radiactive iguana that looks a lot like
a giant theropod except that the hallux is on the wrong side of the foot!! Heh.
::} I was actually working on this drawing in the movie theater before Godzilla
started, whatever year that movie came out, and I remember getting into a conversation
with some kid who commented on my drawing. It was nice, enjoying friendly conversation
with some random kid at the movies. He expressed interest in seeing more of
my drawings after the reels stopped, so I was going to give him my webpage address,
but, evidently, his mom didn't like that idea. She was in a real hurry
to get him out of there, which kind of disspirited me for a little while (::sniffle::),
but I guess I can't blame her too much... One has to be cautious in this
frelled-up world we live in, especially of eccentric teenage girls being uncharacteristically
outgoing 
with
total strangers. It's strange, though -- I've seemed to elicit the response
"perhaps a little unusual, but in every bit a good way" from my elders
more than "very unusual and definitely suspicious, stay the he11
away from my son!". Guess some people don't know a good subadult when they
see one... --Feb.09.2002.
67. [Nightmare] I'll be very surprised if anyone knows where this beastie's from -- without reading this blather or anything. When I was psychologically-volatile little sprout (ah, the days before swallowable-neurochemical-equilibrium-restorers -- and puberty >ahem<), the strange little world that I seemed to believe was the entire world was all about My Little Ponies. I followed the franchise to nearly its very end (whenever that was), and, at least earlier on, I watched the cartoon. Momma, in her pre-working days, taped them faithfully for me. "My Little Pony", I can remember, was part of this half-hour-or-so block of cartoons whose sole purpose, as I now know, was to market various 80's toys, so MLP took turns with the likes of "Moondreamers", "Glow Worms", and "Potato Head Kids" sharing that time slot. The latter two franchises I never paid much mind, but I did acquire a couple of items from the "Moondreamers" line. (Nothing like the 200+ MLPs, on last count, that are sitting in the attic now.)
I did watch the cartoon a bit, too, and there's still a slowly-degrading videotape of it lying around. One thing from that show traumatized me enough as a child that it's been lingering, on and off, in my mind all these years, and that's the Nightmare. It was a multi-parter about the two young protagonists, Bitsie and Blinkie (sp?) who, as some sort of punishment, had to take care of a menagerie of celestial critters, which included a stubborn 'star horse' (looked suspiciously like a MLP, tho ::> ) named Andromeda. In the process of making life difficult for B&B, the whinnying beast got herself sucked into 'Monstrous Middle' (ooo! intimidating!). Now, at the same time, the antagonists had been torturing one of the Moondreamers' current 'cases', a hippophobic lad, and accidently took him along when they returned home to, duh-duh, Monstrous Middle. So Andromeda's wandering around this nightmarish place like a happy-go-lucky idiot, while the lad's scared out of his mind -- but, after he inevitably bumped into lil' Andromeda, he became more concerned with finding a random stick and chasing the poor critter with it than anything else. Bad idea, though -- that's about the same time that the surroundings finally took their effect on Andromeda and she transformed into a, buh-buh-bahh, Nightmare!!
Now, you can imagine how traumatic this would be for a Kindergartener (or something). An annoying, cute MLP-like thing suddenly snorting out smoke and growing about ten times its normal size while sprouting black fins and spikes and wings and nasty dentition and all -- not to mention the glowing red eyes! ::shiver:: -- and then proceeding to chase after the three young protagonists whilst spewing fire and creepy-creepy music's playing in the background. Then the camera freezes in on her freakish murder-on-the-mind visage and the words "To Be Continued..." leave the show's young audience in dreadful suspense... The second part predictably resolves everything in a fairly cliched manner... Naturally, whatever's-his-name gets into a predicament where big bad Blackie-Andromeda is the only way he can save Bitsie and Blinkie from evil Queen Scowleen (sp?) and escape from Monstrous Middle. Andromeda's a lot scarier than the horsies back home, but the kid overcomes all odds and tames the Beast by the end of the episode's short formulaic musical number. Save the Moondreamer chicks, thwart the villains, get out of M.M., drop the I'm-not-afraid-of-horses-anymore kid back home, and get back to wherever the heck the Moondreamer peeps live in a flash -- whereupon Andromeda loses the wings, shrinks, and becomes her suspiciously-MLP-like old self again. B&B, of course, know the right way to take care of animals now, and Andromeda is, of course, much less stubborn. Go fig.
And, most "of course" of all, it takes me three paragraphs of banter to get to the point... ::} Sometimes I get in this mood where I need a 'nostalgic fix', so I usually end up popping some really old tapes into the VCR and having a good time, in spite of how stupid whatever I'm watching really is. This happened a while ago (early 2001, I'm guessing) with "Moondreamers" -- but, specifically, I was curious to see how non-scary the Nightmare would be now that I was a self-assured virtual adult who more than likely wouldn't find big black fire-breathing horse-things with glowing red eyes to be particularly fear-provoking. And I didn't (though I couldn't blame my younger self for being freaked out) -- in fact, I was actually impressed, to a degree, with Blackie-Andromeda's design. I mean, in a show populated by cutesy pastel-colored antagonists and mucousy-icky baddies (save for the Sleep Creeps, but they were all pastel-ish instead), the Nightmare was bad-a$$ cool. And I finally noticed some vague similarities, at least in the 'nut', with Chinese Dragons (long or lung?), most notable of which are Andromeda's long trailing 'whiskers'. Well, she was a groovy horsie, so I tortured that poor old VHS cassette with the almighty PAUSE button and made a few sketches. This one is the only one that looks like anything much, probably because I bothered shading it. I probably imposed a few subtle design changes on her, but they just make her more, er, 'suave'-looking. Or something. [And I really have to good idea who would own to copyrights to the Nightmare -- what I pasted onto the GIF is but a guess.] --Feb.10-2002
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The
Raptorian Sector -- The Gallery: Fan, version 1.13. [Feb.10-02]
All original content © 1996-2003 Rachel K. Clark
Pokémon (and various associated names) © Nintendo & Gamefreak.
Final Fantasy, SaGa Frontier, and associated names © SquareSoft.
"Alien" © 20th Century Fox. Etc., etc.
All Rights Reserved.
