This took me a while to do. Because of my busy work schedule, I was lucky enough to color in one character at a time. It takes a lot of time to color in something with a Wacom tablet/pen and a small screen. But in the end, I was proud of how these came out. Each was drawn on large Bristol boards, inked with sharpies and brush pens, than colored in Photoshop.

I wanted to draw the 2007 version of Pokemon for a while ( my “drugged up” style as many put it ). My roommate got the new Pokemon Pearl for the DS and played it nonstop. In my collection, I only had the Yellow version and the Gold version for the old-school game boy, so I thought it was time to upgrade. I recently purchased the Pearl version along with a used version of Pokemon Colosseum along with the Guide book to Pearl and Diamond. So yeah, I got all the research material I needed to draw these characters ( Yeah, I said RESEARCH. Expensive, but worth it ). Heh. Even though I got the pearl version, I did not find myself drawing the recently new starter Pokemon, but stuck with the old school ones: Pikachu, Bubasaur, Charmander and Squirtle. These characters are more connected to the Pokemon history than the new 250 others.


Let me list the twisted changes I did to each character:

Pikachu: Pikachu somewhat remains the same, but I decided to give him more of an animalistic look to him. I decided to give him fur, a bit fluffy and sticking up a little due to his electric gift. He also does have a more “intimidating” look to him.

Bulbasaur: A very dramatic change from the old-school look. He still has the bulb upon his back, but I also gave him more of a nature quality to him, such as leaves growing from his back, large flower peddles and thorn vines. His body changed a little as well. He has more of a “dinosaur” feeling to his figure.

Charmander: Maybe everyone’s personal favorite character. I looked over Charmander’s old form carefully and I slowly turned him more into a lizard than “football figure”. In almost all the cartoons and in the game, he is a fighting Pokekmon, so I wanted to give him more of a leaner body structure along with some muscle and claws. His yellow belly runs over the center of his body instead of his torso. In the end, I cant help the feeling like he looks like a super hero from one of the DC or Marvel comics, just in lizard form…

Squirtle: Squirtle was somewhat easy to do. His old form was unique so I wanted him to somewhat remain the same. The only changes I gave him was web feet and toes, a much large tail, more of a turtle-ish muzzle and small frail-horns upon the center of his skull. I wanted to make him look more reptilian.

MewTwo: This I the first time that I drew Mewtwo, and personally, I think I failed. I did not really change much about him except making him taller and skinnier. The only physical change on him is the Pai May/ Catfish whiskers. I guess I wanted him to look more “mature” and wise, but dangerous. His skin does seem to look like it is made of rubber, eh?

Kuraichu: This is MY Pokemon that I created, based off thee famous Pikachu. This is Pikachu’s dark side, or more of a cloning experiment that went wrong. I somewhat got this idea from the first Pokemon movie with MewTwo and Mew. Kuraichu has the combination of dark matter and electricity, making him a not-so-nice-fluff-ball Pokemon. Compared to all, he turned out better than the others.

I also made each character into a Wallpaper background, each with their own stand. If anyone wants one of any character or a larger size of the posters, just email/note/IM me and I will send it to you via email.

Ookami Kemono

Artwork © 2007 Alex Cockburn
Kuraichu © 2007 Alex Cockburn
Pokemon © Nintendo
Pikachu/ Bulbasuar/ Charmander/ Squirtle/ MewTwo © Nintendo