Artist's commentary
Type Collab: Mega Garchomp
My contribution for GottaDrawEmAll's "Dragon Dance! collab!
I got Mega Garchomp which was pretty exciting because I think all around Garchomp is a pretty nice design and a neat concept. But Garchomp and Mega Garchomp aren't the same. If you are thinking "this is turning into another Pokémon design bashing" then you're absolutely right. Mega Garchomp is the "falls flat on its face while juggling eggs in stairs" of Mega designs. It's not even over the top enough to be, well, over the top. It is very bland and all it has more is spikes. Has anyone else looked at the hand scythes? Has anyone figured out how they're supposed to work? Because I haven't. There is no sensical explanation to how they could possibly function properly.
So it was a challenge. I have actually been wanting to try my hand at redesigning Mega Garchomp so I welcomed this one with open arms. Functional, human arms. Not some edgy scythes that are facing the wrong direction. While Garchomp has shark-like qualities in its design I chose not to make Garchomp even a tiny bit part shark for two reasons: it would've complicated the design too much and there were tons of dinosaurs available that have traits that can create that shark flair. Some of the dinos I lookes at vere Concavenator and majungasaurus. There was also one more that was my main reference for the head which is a case of its own. I sadly lost the name so, yeah.
The scythe arms are probably the only thing that kind of require some explanation. Just some giant, massive blades were a no go because it's structurally not very good nor fitting to the rest of the design. Flappy whale flippers also didn't sound appealing and having kinda done that in the past I wanted to try something else. So I thought, Garchomp can still have its arms structured as arms, but instead of just slapping some tiny t-rex arms on it I looked at Dromaeosauridae and their feathery arms. Instead of feathers I decided to go with, not quite what I would say membrane, but membrane like stuff with shapr jagged edges. Feathers would've clashed too much with the rugged feel Garchomp has so hard membrane seemed like a good idea.
Overall I'm really happy with how this one turned out, both as a design and as an artwork. It was very much fun to work on it and I think I learned a lot about many things. I'm especially satisfied with my work on values in this one, which I feel I have been struggling with. But I feel it's getting better so that's good!
Anyway, I hope you like it!
Media Wacom Cintiq 13HD | Photoshop CS6
Time taken -
Pokemon © Nintendo Game Freak
Art © ShadeofShinon