Fakémon 004 – Gallifrost and Blizzenix

This is a bit of a confusing 2-for-1 here. This is my first-ever evolution line. I didn’t have a plan for how the project file would work for evolutions, so I made both of them under the same file. I didn’t know at the time that the time lapse included both of them and didn’t realize that fact until after I was fully done with both designs. This isn’t ideal so I later decided that each Fakémon would have its own file going forward. You might also notice a few jumps in the time lapse. That’s because the entire time I was bouncing between the two Fakémon and the video was all over the place. I did the sketches for both, then the lineart, then the coloring, so it switched back and forth constantly. To “fix” this I split the video into clips of each part and rearranged them to match. I did my best to hide them but I’m not a pro editor or anything.

I named the base Fakémon #004 Gallifrost and its evolution Blizzenix. The name Gallifrost comes from Galliformes, part of the quail’s Latin categorization, and frost. The name Blizzenix comes from blizzard and phoenix. These Fakémon are based on the prompt, "A timid flighted creature who becomes fierce when threatened with captivity.“ What’s funny is that it’s based on her parakeet! I took it a different way so it wasn’t so on the nose. As I’m writing this I realized that the first part says it’s flighted but I made a quail that can’t really fly. Oops. Oh well, Pokémon needs more quail representation.

I love birds and winter is my favorite season so I’m really happy with this tiny bird-baby. Its evolution however…

The big bird. This one took me a long time to figure out and complete. I had issues starting with the sketch. I knew the general idea and pose that I wanted but anything other than that was a struggle to figure out. You can tell in this phase that I really didn’t have a solid plan and was basically experimenting.

Once I nailed down the collar’s influence on the design, I was back to struggling with getting all the details together. Finishing it took way too long for my liking. Really and truly it was just a matter of too many details and no accurate color swatches to pick and color from.

Shading was a nightmare. I don’t know why but somehow the colors between layers didn’t quite line up. If I needed to add an additional shading piece, I first had to hunt down what color I used to shade it initially. And that doesn’t take into account that I added details in places I didn’t typically add them. Let’s just say my organization for this part of the project left a lot to be desired. I eventually ended up at that point of “just finish the thing and be done with it,” which given my love of birds is a bit sad for me personally. This was a testing experience for evolution lines though, so at least I have notes on what not to do for future lines.