This guy's such a con artist, he's not even selling you an actual Magikarp. Just some weird yellow fish that probably doesn't do anything interesting.

In all honesty, the games make the whole buy-a-Magikarp thing out to be a big scam, but it's a great way to get a Gyarados early on, before you can get the Old Rod. So in actuality, it's a big strategic advantage pretending to be a scam pretending to be an advantage. Wrap your head around that.

 Again, the whole "taking in-game dialogue in an unexpected direction" thing.

Dude never specifically says what Team Rocket is in the news for, so I just came to logical conclusions.

 We're just having all sorts of fun at Museum of the Rockies's Virtual Fossil Fridays! Join us if you can--it's free and great for all ages! It is primarily aimed at kids, but I know I'm not the only adult in attendance. Hosts Ashley and MaggieJo are wonderful people, and overall it's just a chill paleo happy place to be on Friday mornings.

Last week, MaggieJo gave a great presentation on animals that are associated with Halloween (and why they are totally awesome and not spooky), and as she was talking about ravens, I just kept thinking it would be really cool if large theropods like tyrannosaurs had feathery "manes" like ravens do. Fossil skin impressions have shown they generally were not extensively feathered (with some exceptions like Yutyrannus, which lived in colder climates), but large theropods could still have had some feathers for display purposes.

Also, I fully support fluffy dinosaurs. Anybody who thinks things with feathers aren't scary has never dealt with an angry goose.

 When you live in a world where any inanimate object could potentially be a Pokémon, you probably start just seeing Pokémon everywhere.

 What are we on, like Route 3, and you finally realize this, Bug Catcher?

I just think it's kinda funny that this one says this, after previous Bug Catchers kept going on about wanting to find stronger Pokémon instead of training the ones they already have.

But also when you explain the joke, it stops being funny.

 I mean, he says that, but then Bug Catchers in Gen I just kinda use the same species over and over. It's almost like there were only a handful of Bug-type Pokémon back then.

 I just really wanted to draw Red being a derpnugget. Lass says that in the game, so this is obviously the sort of facial expression she was talking about.

Also, I hope nobody minds too much that I haven't posted much besides these comics lately. I've had a lot going on and haven't really had the inclination for drawing or writing, and when you try to force creativity, the results suffer. I've been taking some time to take care of myself, enjoy my family, go on brisk autumn strolls, and still try to get through this other game I've been playing so I can finally start Pokémon Legends: Z-A which sounds amazing from the reviews and I'm so excited to dive back into Kalos aaaaaahhhhhh

Hope everybody has a good November!

 Once again Bug Catcher completely misses the point. It's called Pokémon training for a reason, kid. Nobody's going to come up and hand you a Mewtwo.

Unless you're my niece, in which case I give her rare Pokémon all the time. #hypocrisy

 As the game points out, light-years are a unit of distance, not time. So are parsecs.

Or maybe you're AU from facing Brock?

 I imagine there's stuff in the Pokémon world that people there just take for granted most of the time. Like evolutionary stones. And sentient garbage bags. And impassable ledges.

 There's the right stuff, and then there's Charmander. #sickburn #TeamSquirtle

 If you stop to think about it, it is kinda remarkable that this 10-year-old Pokémon-training newbie somehow manages to defeat every top trainer in a region, most of whom are veteran adults, and become Total Champion of Everything within what seems like a very short timespan.

Gotta love video game wish fulfillment.

I have to give props to the very first season of the anime; despite its overall weirdness, it was actually very realistic in showing Ash not only not winning his first ever Pokémon League competition, but not even placing very high. That's life, kid.

 A running theme in this comic is taking in-game dialogue (in this case, the first line of this comic) in an unexpected direction. Kinda puts a new spin on the conversations you engage in on your Pokémon journey.

 Oh, Bug Catchers.

I characterize them in this comic kind of like the 6-year-old kid down the street who loves Pokémon but can't grasp the mechanics of the games, and keeps pestering you to tell him how to catch a level 100 Charizard in Viridian Forest.

 I highly doubt it's just coincidence that Blue happens to come strolling along right when Red wanders onto Route 22.

Also, I feel like Blue is just about the ultimate in hypocrisy and double standards; he's perfectly content to criticize Red all day long, but proves himself inferior to Red at every turn, and he basically uses his trash talk to try to disguise that fact.

It's kinda nice that later games in the series made the rival characters less ascerbic.

Also, I am so psyched to play Legends: Z-A, but I'm still trying to finish another game I've been playing over the past few months, and I'm dying trying to stay as far away from Pokémon-related things as possible so as to avoid spoilers. #gamerproblems

 I feel like anyone who insists it was sheer random chance that your Pikachu totally wrecked his Pidgey either doesn't understand Pokémon battles at all or is really, really in denial.

 Yes, I'm sure that particular nickname took a considerable amount of time and effort.

I like giving my Pokémon really nerdy nicknames that usually have to do with science. One of my favorites was in Pokémon Sword, when I named my Arctovish "Ariston", which was the nickname of a notable specimen of Leedsichthys discovered in England in 2001 which was named after a European washing machine model.

Yep, that's how I roll. (dons nerd glasses)*

*I always wear nerd glasses anyway because I'm nearsighted. So just imagine me taking my glasses off, but then putting them back on, real slow and cool-like.

 I just think it's really weird how the guy who teaches you how to catch Pokémon does his little tutorial right in the middle of Viridian City. You know, where there are no wild Pokémon. And how you can repeat the tutorial as often as you want, but it's the same Weedle every time. I feel like this guy's hobby is crafting pretend capture tutorials.

Later games actually have the capture tutorial happen out in tall grass, so it makes more sense.

I had a lot of fun just making him look so ridiculously excited about that "wild" Weedle.

 I get excited by weird things such as Mondays, cottage cheese, and making flowcharts.

In the astronomy community, I hear a lot of stories of laypeople seeing something in the night sky, not knowing what it is, and immediately jumping to the conclusion that it's aliens. Thing is, it's never aliens (as my longsuffering astro buddy Chris Lintott continually reminds us). And there's a lot of other stuff you need to rule out before you can start to think it might be aliens.

Which is why I made this handy flowchart to help you identify what you saw in the night sky! While it may never be aliens, there are a lot of fascinating objects to see in the heavens. Go out and learn more about the stars!

Sad but true story: In 1994, a large earthquake in Los Angeles in the wee hours of the morning left large parts of the city without power. Police and fire stations received frantic phone calls from people claiming that something strange was happening to the sky and wondering if the earthquake caused it.

They were seeing the Milky Way for the first time because of the greatly reduced light pollution.

Let's not have a repeat of this.

As an aside, I grew up in Los Angeles and remember that earthquake quite well. 0/10, would not recommend.

 Let's be real, Oak just really wants to chill at the lab and make other people run his errands.

 Just how old is Professor Oak? His age is never stated in the games. In the fourth movie, which takes place during the Johto saga of the anime, he's 50, and his anime design is nearly identical to his game artwork, so what if we assume he's meant to be 50 in the games as well? Except Gen I takes place two years before Gen II, so Oak would have been 48 in Gen I. (That means he would have been 38 when Blue was born????) 

I think what the games are trying to tell us is that 48 is far too old to be doing anything meaningful with your life anymore, so just go live in a nursing home and save the adventures for the tweens.

 It's always bothered me that Oak's last Pokemon, the one you and your rival didn't pick, just sits on his desk for the rest of the game. Forever. Sad and alone (or possibly in big trouble). And also kinda taunting you about the fact that you'll have to trade with another real live human being if you ever want the other two starters.

 Oh, the earliest generations of Pokémon games, when just one pixelated person could somehow conveniently block an entire road and keep you from progressing.

And there's nothing you can do about it.

 My 7-year-old niece was having a rough day, so I drew this to cheer her up. I feel like her cat Fred would totally be a Litten.

I popped over to the Idaho Museum of Natural History yesterday and did a quick marker sketch. I told you I have a weird obsession with skulls. I wanted to try something a little different from my usual life reconstructions and just kinda meditate on how beautiful bones are. And I don't mean that in a macabre way; living things are such incredible constructions where every part is perfectly tuned to support an organism's role in its ecosystem. I just can't help but appreciate such marvelous engineering.

This is Stegoceras, an adorable little basal pachycephalosaur from the early Late Cretaceous. I didn't realize before now that pachys have a lot of interesting textures on their skull, including lots of rugosity around the snout and front of the cranium with a comparatively smooth dome. They must have looked magnificent in life.

(Also, there are two completely different types of dinosaur named Stegoceras and Stegosaurus, and I need to have a stern chat with whoever's responsible for that.)*

*That's not currently possible considering Stegoceras was described in 1902, and Stegosaurus in 1877. Maybe in the next life.

 Ever notice the weird lack of accommodations for humans in the Pokémon world? (In the games, at least; the anime shows that Pokémon Centers also serve as hotels for trainers.) Pokémon Red/Blue was a pretty innovative RPG in that nothing ever changed the condition of the actual player character; the only well-being you needed to worry about was that of your Pokémon.

And then that changed in Pokémon Legends: Arceus when I fell off a cliff and blacked out and lost half my stuff.

 

Ah, ledges. Such an integral part of the Pokémon universe, and definitely not just a convenient way to gate player progress.

This is just the beginning of the running gag of the NPCs being morons with a strange lack of awareness of the world around them.

 During the most recent Virtual Fossil Friday, we somehow got on the subject of Lisa Frank while doodling ichthyosaurs, and, uh, this happened. You're welcome.

I have to admit it was kind of fun blatantly disregarding realistic coloration.

 I'm aware that I'm the only one who thinks these comics are funny. Good thing this is my blog and I can post whatever I want.

As a kid, I didn't really think twice about the idea of Pokémon battles, but as an adult it does seem like a bit of a questionable practice. Like, you receive this weak, young creature who relies on you for its well-being, and the first thing you do is walk out into the wilderness, aggravate some wild creatures into hostility, and literally throw your creature at them and command it to fight?

I think later entries in the core series do a reasonable job of explaining that Pokémon actually enjoy battling and it's an activity that strengthens the bond between Pokémon and trainers. It's probably also a good way to let a Pokémon blow off steam and channel any natural aggressive tendencies in a healthy and productive manner.

But the way Oak explains it in Gen I is kinda sketch.

 One last character design, for Yonwin! He was so fun to write in Earthkeepers and I think he probably had the most compelling character arc. After (spoilers) helping save the world and becoming the second-youngest Graling in history to earn a warrior's title, Yon has grown from a shy, insecure teen hiding in the shadow of his famous aunt, to a confident warrior, now quite famous in his own right, and secure in the fact that he loves both combat and technology. The Apparats made him a fancy high-tech spear and shield, but I imagine when Yonwin competes with other Gralings, he uses old-fashioned equipment to keep things fair.

It's not really mentioned clearly in the books, but Graling warriors train to specialize in two weapons, generally a long-range and short-range, respectively. This gives them more versatility on the battlefield, and also ensures they can keep fighting if something happens to one of their weapons. Fraa's weapons of choice are a long knife and a throwing club.

Gralings sound like terribly violent creatures, but they're physically hardier than humans and can take quite a licking with no lasting repercussions. That may be part of why they find combat fun, and make a point of organizing battles that are inversely proportional in scale to how serious the issue is that the battle will decide.

 I just had so much fun creating a design for Miette for the novel I've been brainstorming that I wanted to create a design for Kieri too. A few years have passed since the events of Earthkeepers, and Kieri has been keeping busy acting as a political liaison between the Apparats and the surface and sky nations--a job she finds she likes because it's basically just about making friends, which is something that comes naturally to her. As a young adult, she's mellowed out a little bit since her rambunctious youth... but she's still Kieri. And she loves having powered armor that allows her to fly.

I'm pretty sure Miette, Kieri, Yonwin, and Zuben will be main characters in this book, since they were just so fun to write in Earthkeepers, and play so well off each other. (I love writing Fraa too, but a larger cast gets hard to juggle, so I think she'll sit this adventure out.) I have no plans for writing further about Rohui or Wilder, who were supposed to be the two main characters of Skydwellers, but honestly turned out extremely dull. You can definitely tell by the end of that book that I was having more fun writing Miette, Kieri, and Fraa. 

Perhaps it's not surprising, considering Skydwellers was my first novel, and when I was writing the first draft, my focus was more "high-concept science fiction with a suitably professional air of emotional detachment" and not "I want to enjoy writing this". There's a lesson in there, I think.

 A bit more playing with markers. This time around I wanted to challenge myself to only use marker and no colored pencil. It was a little tough because I don't have nearly as many marker colors as pencil colors, but I think I made it work. Also, Prismacolor's brush tip markers are a pretty good substitute for Copic. Unfortunately I only have a handful of brush tip colors. I'll need to fix that when the budget allows.

As far as the subject--I've been tossing around ideas for another book in the Azhnarroth series, about Miette, Kieri, Yonwin, and Zuben having adventures in space. In Earthkeepers, I teased the mysterious disappearance of the Flammarion Commonwealth eight thousand years ago... now it's time to solve that mystery. And of course black holes will be involved.

As Miette, Kieri, and Yonwin were named stewards of Great Engine at the end of Earthkeepers, I thought that by a few years later they'd look the part. I imagine the Apparats probably made them some nifty powered armor.

More playing with markers and pencils! (Please excuse the poor lighting conditions. I'm still trying to figure out how to take good pictures with my phone. In real life the lighting at my desk looks just fine, but apparently my phone disagrees.)

This is Norbin the quickhatch, Lord Saturos's chamberlain at Castle Ravenscrag in a novel I'm working on. Quickhatches are a species that's kind of a combination of wolverine and rat. They have very strong jaws, and are also extremely tidy and fastidious, which makes them excellent housekeepers. Norbin and Carrie become fast friends, and he looks after her as he would one of his own pups. Also he has a Cockney dialect because it just seemed to fit.

I decided to test out my Prismacolor markers after several years(!) of not really using them, and to my surprise most of them still work great! Back in college, I used to really enjoy working with a combination of Prismacolor markers to lay down some good solid flat color, and then go in with colored pencils for detailing and shading. So I decided to try that again with better art skills. It was a lot of fun, and I'd like to do more if I have the time.

As much as I'd like to get a set of Copic markers, they're a little out of my budget at the moment (definitely not because I'm saving up for Pokemon Legends: Z-A, cough), but honestly I find I'm perfectly happy with my Prisma markers. Yes, they smell (don't worry, I turn on a fan and open a window when I'm using them*), but they have the distinct advantage of being already in my possession. 

Anyway, my subject this time around was Marlowe, the leader of the thieves' guild in the fictional MMORPG Heroes of Avonell in my novel Pixeldust. Marlowe was designed to be the quintessential lovable rogue with questionable ethics, but in a twist of irony, she is the only one of the faction leaders who does not turn against humanity - thanks to the friendship of a couple of player characters - and ends up helping them and the game's "villains" save the day.

*This may present problems in the winter when it's like 20 degrees F outside where I currently live. My favorite thing about winter is that it ends eventually.

I thought it would be fun to share some WIP thumbnails of that previous painting, in case anybody wants to see my progress.

Sketch

Underpainting

Head, neck, and most of the sash finished

Painting mostly finished; just missing the bristles and a few last touches

 This took quite a bit of time and effort, but finally it's done! This is concept art for a novel I've been working on. The Quo Qu are a desert-dwelling species who love numbers and mathematics almost to a point of obsession; a common farewell benediction among them is "May the numbers calculate in your favor". Because of their strong mathematical bent, they are also keen businesscreatures, and their coastal city of Toba is one of the largest commerce hubs in the world. However, their love of watching numbers can sometimes make them a bit conniving and willing to take advantage of others to get the sums to come out just right.

This particular Quo Qu is Jawwad, a prominent businessman in Toba and old friend of some of the protagonists. While always looking to swing a business deal in his favor, deep down he is a kindhearted person who regrets that his kind's avarice has put the Plainsmen in a difficult position, and tries his best to make up for it.

The Quo Qu are derived from an idea I originally had for the Plainsmen back in high school--the idea was that the Plainsmen lacked the cognitive capacity for mathematics, and had a mutually beneficial commensal relationship with the Quo Qu, who lived alongside the Plainsmen, because the Quo Qu did all their math for them, and in return were provided for and protected by the Plainsmen. When I got around to writing this novel, I decided that wasn't really what I wanted for the Plainsmen (they have a rustic and nomadic way of living, but are really highly intelligent), but the Quo Qu worked perfectly as the denizens of Toba. In their original design, the Quo Qu had flat faces and large ears, but since moving to Idaho and becoming the one-woman fan club of the Idaho Museum of Natural History, I just kept picturing the Quo Qu as resembling Oryctodromeus, so I went with it. They were really fun to write.

 Again, I don't understand how Blue can claim he picked the "wrong" Pokémon when he always picks the one that will end up having a type advantage over your starter.* What a dolt.

(Also, if you really are getting tired of these comics**, rest assured that I have not stopped producing new stuff. In fact, I'm almost done with a painting and hope to finish it either today or tomorrow. I've just been dealing with a lot and haven't been getting the best sleep, so creative pursuits are a little low on my list of priorities and I just haven't had a whole lot of energy for that kind of thing most days. I'm working on fixing stuff. Hoping to feel better soon.)

*I'm aware that The Pokémon Company prefers the phrase "first partner Pokémon" over "starter Pokémon" in official materials nowadays. But after 20-odd years of fans calling them "starter Pokémon", it's a hard habit to break.

**If you really are getting tired of these comics, that would imply you actually read my blog, in which case thank you. :)

 I'm not really sure how Blue can claim his Pokémon looks stronger when you both have level 5 derpnuggets with two lousy moves each, that just got handed to you ten seconds ago and you've had zero time to train them. I can only assume he's just as delusional as his grandfather.

Actually, a running joke in this comic is that Blue is totally incompetent and doesn't understand the first thing about battling. It's an interesting experience being a franchise veteran setting out on a Pokémon journey where you know battling like the back of your hand, but the rival/friend NPCs are like "did you know Pokémon have types?!?!?!"

 Thought I'd take a break from uploading Pokémon comics that no one but me seems to think are funny and share a few WIP photos of that Oryctodromeus illustration.

Just the line art. At this point I was feeling paranoid that I'd somehow ruin the picture with color, so I wanted to preserve the black-and-white version just in case my colored pencil attempts turned out horribly.

    

Thankfully my fears were unfounded (I think), but I took another picture when I was nearly done, because I was really worried that something might happen to the illustration. Paper is a terrifyingly fragile material.

I definitely don't spend an inordinate amount of time worrying about things.

 Here's a seminal moment in Oak's character development (although whether that's a good thing is... up for debate). I always found it weird that he tells you he only has three Pokémon left and doesn't explain what happened to the other ones. Like, did he release most of his Pokémon when he stopped being a Trainer? Or maybe they were trying to imply that Oak regularly gives his former Pokémon away to new Trainers (and as this was before Pokémon breeding was a thing, eventually he'd run out of Pokémon)?*

Whatever the case, I'm sure it wasn't... this.

I really enjoyed making Oak's expression progressively more psychotic.

I recently showed these comics to my 10-year-old niece and barely got a chuckle out of her. I'm starting to suspect I'm the only one who understands my sense of humor. I'm not really surprised.

*If this is the case, it's weird that he only has three level 5 Pokémon left, and this also implies that he's given away like, a level 100 Gyarados to a newbie trainer at some point? Why is it that he conveniently only has three extremely weak Pokémon left by the time you roll up to his lab?**

**The real explanation for all of this is that this is just a video game and I am putting way more thought into in-universe logistics than the development team intended.

 Oak tells me he used to be a "serious" trainer and I'm just like "then what are you now".

I had a lot of fun giving him absurdly thick eyebrows in this series.

 There's no real joke in this one except "Oak goes unhinged again". Maybe this series is less about a preteen's coming-of-age journey and more about a middle-aged man's descent into insanity. Man, what is wrong with me.

But really, the first panel is word-for-word his dialogue in Red/Blue. I don't know why he laughs in the middle of it. I don't understand what's so hilarious about showing starter Pokémon to a new trainer. I can only conclude that Oak is a few Poffins short of a platter.

 The threat level on Route 1 is... questionable, to say the least.

Also, I had a lot of fun making the Pokémon in this comic look extra derpy.

 This is what I've been working on for the past few days!

Last Virtual Fossil Friday we had an excellent presentation by L.J. Krumenacker (who I have spoken to at multiple Fall Fossil Fests at the Idaho Museum of Natural History) about the ever-lovable Oryctodromeus (Idaho's state dinosaur and a precious little dooper of an ornithopod). One of the most remarkable things about oryctos is that they were definitive burrowers, so host MaggieJo mentioned how cute it would be if they were basically saurian prairie dogs. And so I just had to draw that.

The colored pencil work is kinda rough; I haven't really worked with colored pencil in a while. But I picked up some tips from a couple of excellent colored pencil books, so I feel like I at least know what I'm doing slightly more than before.

Also featuring a guest appearance by Idaho's giant oviraptorosaur, which so far is only known from its eggs. Exciting stuff coming out of the Wayan Formation these days!

 One thing that amuses me about fictional settings with more advanced technology than the era in which the fiction was created is how they almost always get the direction of technological progress completely wrong. Mid-20th-century sci-fi confidently predicted that we'd be living on the Moon with our jetpacks and robot butlers by now--but they never expected the Internet or 3D printing or cringe-y generative AI. (Although, the first Pokémon games came out right on the cusp of widespread cell phone development, so in Gen II the PokéGear is a rather prescient smartphone analogue.)

Also I just realized that Red's hat design changes in these earliest comics. Not sure why. I guess I was still easing into the aesthetic of the series and hadn't quite settled on a design for Red that would be something I wouldn't mind drawing literally hundreds of times.

You might also notice that in this series, one side of Red's jacket collar is perpetually turned up. That's an inside joke; for some reason that tends to happen to me when I wear collared tops. No idea why.

Yeah, I really find myself questioning a lot of things Oak says in this game.