Greenlit: Pokemon Designs: What’s changed?

[Charlie Brown]

Every Generation you get people saying "Gen X designs suck!!!" so thought it would be good to capitalise on that for SwSh and look at what has changed for Pokemon designs from Kanto to now. Inspired by a post I read once.

Potential topics to cover:
— Process changes (more artists now, Sugimori much less involved)
— Body shape changes: read an interesting post which looked at body proportions in Pokemon in early gens compared to now, which basically found more even weight distribution in earlier designs, whereas newer designs have shorter limbs. Comparing original mons to their Alola/Galar equivalents (particularly ones with largely similar body shape designs eg Vulpix, Ponyta) would be interesting too
— Eyes: Now Pokemon have much rounder eyes compared to the more triangular eyes of early gens. This is both due to pixel requirements (less pixels in sprites in early gens so they were limited in how they could represent eyes — this point is also valid for body shapes and limb size in Gen 1) but also marketability for merch nowadays and trying to stay on trend with 'monster' designs eg Yokai Watch.
— Would also be interesting to do a breakdown of Pokemon by percentage per gen: % of humanoid Pokemon, % of "non-living" eg Voltorb, Vanilluxe, % of animals/birds/insects/fish, % of plants. Would be interesting (I suspect humanoid is increasing...)

 

[gimmepie]

An in-depth look at design would be interesting. +1
Might be worth looking at JoCat's video on the subject for inspiration too.

 

[bobandbill]

— Would also be interesting to do a breakdown of Pokemon by percentage per gen: % of humanoid Pokemon, % of "non-living" eg Voltorb, Vanilluxe, % of animals/birds/insects/fish, % of plants. Would be interesting (I suspect humanoid is increasing...)

Ooh, yes, this sort of analysis would be super to see.

Would be worth exploring the people behind the Pokemon themselves. Not all pokemon are known to have their 'creator' clearly stated, but certainly we could break things down by e.g. "James Turner made these", etc.

 

[Tsutarja]

+1 on this!

You could also perhaps cover what hasn't changed as well, either in this article, or maybe for another article as well. :]

 

[Charlie Brown]

Might be worth looking at JoCat's video on the subject for inspiration too.

Would be worth exploring the people behind the Pokemon themselves. Not all pokemon are known to have their 'creator' clearly stated, but certainly we could break things down by e.g. "James Turner made these", etc.

Good calls! Will prioritise the Dexit article before this one but will get started on this later this month then :)