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Sethera

Sethera's Shiny Pokémon Variants

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After reading the NCM end-of-year thread, I realized just how little I step outside of the Role-Playing section on this site. I used to be more active in other areas on YCM, such as Blogs and Miscellaneous, but I remember that, before I joined YCM, I also used to be pretty into spriting, specifically Pokémon spriting (though I did take requests for other stuff). So, in an effort to be more active in areas outside of Role-Playing, I've decided to renew the old thread I made back on YCM. Basically, while I enjoy many different Pokémon shinies, there are just as many, if not more, that I think could be better. For instance, Gible's shiny is barely discernible from its regular version. So this thread will just be me exploring different possibilities for shiny variants of existing Pokémon.

I was originally going to start from #001 onwards, but then remembered that I really like Bulbasaur's shiny sprite, so that would be a bad one to do. Thus, I've decided to jump around and do whichever ones come to mind, as well as whichever Pokémon people request.

I might expand this thread to include other Pokémon-themed sprite editing I used to do way back when, such as customization, revamping, and "themed" recoloring, but I might stick with just doing the shiny thing. We'll see.

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Edited by Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd

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This is basically a copy-paste of the old thread, so pardon me if this seems repetitive or familiar. Also I was dumb back then and didn't realize that the little mini-sprites didn't have shiny colors as well, so I won't be doing those anymore, but you'll see them in this post.

Something I noticed as I was spriting is that the outlines for the models are very rough and oftentimes just the wrong color, which I figure is an issue stemming from the way it was ripped from the game. It's also interesting to note that markings that look like straight lines from a distance are actually dotted lines, which if recolored to a lighter shade, can look pretty out-of-place. So when I make these, I'm not just recoloring, but also editing the sprite itself.

Also, Mawile and Leafeon came about because at the start of this, even though I knew I wanted to make shiny variants, I wasn't sure where to start. I asked Cow for ideas, and he requested these two. Lilligant was another Cow request, and Hydreigon was a Yui request. The last two were just ones I felt like doing.

#303 Mawile

Spoiler

IpAcDCM.png

Taking a leaf out of that one youtuber's book (or video in this case), I decided to focus on the actual origins of these Pokemon. Mawile's origins come all the way from Japan (surprise surprise) as a futakuchi-onna. A futakuchi-onna is a woman with a face at the back of her hair, which means that the yellow is supposed to be skin/clothing, and the black is supposed to be hair.

So I decided to recolor the yellow to a more "white" skin tone, like a Japanese woman would have if she never went out into the sun or powdered her face. The hair I decided to leave a dark color, because of the fact most Japanese have dark hair, though I did try blond but since I couldn't stop chuckling when I saw that I decided against that. However, I didn't want it to remain the same black, so I made it more of a brown. The eyes I changed from red to blue, and the dress in the mega from plum to a kind of rusty orange which contrasted with the eyes.

 

#470 Leafeon

Spoiler

gGpVAaz.png

Okay, one thing I did not understand about the shiny version of Leafeon, is why is it not fall colors? Game Freak missed such a good opportunity there. Instead, they made Leafeon a bit brighter, and you can barely tell it apart from regular Leafeon. So as somebody who has in fact recolored Leafeon pics for avatars or signatures on forums to be autumn-themed, it wasn't much to take that a step further and recolor an official sprite for that.
 
I made the fur a shade more orange too as I noticed official shiny Leafeon's fur is a bit brighter than the original and not the same hue. Eyes are more orange as well.

 

#548 Petilil and #549 Lilligant

Spoiler

wSXznVD.png

Funnily enough, I wasn't going to go pink for the main body, and in fact that was a placeholder color to identify the various color sections. However, I found that I liked it, and decided to go with it. Not to mention that after looking up water lilies, pink is one of the main colors that show up. Blue is the other one, so I decided to use that for the flower color. It also looked good with the pink, so that was a bonus too.
 
Originally, only Lilligant was requested, but I decided to do Petilil as well since they're in the same evolutionary line and everything. Plus, as I already had the colors for Lilligant, the hard part was over, so I just carried them over to Petilil as well. I understand that sometimes pre-evolutions have different shiny colors than their evolutions, but I liked this color scheme too much to change it. Debated on whether I should recolor the darker green arms/leaves but decided to leave them be. They look a bit bright on this shiny Lilligant, but it still works.

 

#633 Deino, #634 Zweilous, and #635 Hydreigon

Spoiler

6SSxXmU.png

Before I actually looked more into Hydreigon, I didn't like its shiny because green and purple really do not look good together, especially when they're both saturated. You'll know what I mean if you've ever looked upon the eyesore that is Barney the dinosaur. However, after looking it up, it's apparently based not only after the Lernaean Hydra, but also after the Yamata no Orochi and the Zmey Gorynych. The last one is the most important, as apparently it's green, the color of shiny Hydreigon. If only the crest and treads weren't a bright purple, it could actually work.
 
However, it'd be the height of laziness to just go with the shiny color and change the crests and treads. I mean, I guess I could do that, but I wanted to be a bit more original than that. I did decide to keep the dark gray fur as is like the original shiny did. It being a dark/dragon type, I was reluctant to change that. Not to mention that I think it's one of the coolest aspects of Hydreigon, its dark coloring. I also decided I'd just keep the same coloring for its pre-evolutions, as it'd be easier and give them a bit of something to connect them together.
 
Anyway, I started thinking more about the other creatures aside from the Slavic dragon. Hydras are often shown as a purple or blue color, which original Hydreigon is like. So the hydra wouldn't work, and the Slavic dragon wouldn't either because of its green hue. However, thinking of the video game Ōkami, in which Orochi is shown as gray and red, I decided to go with that. Not to mention that Ken Sumigori originally intended Hydreigon to be a cyborg dragon with tank aspects. So gray treads would be an allusion to the original design.
 
I experimented with the various reds. One version made it look like a rebellious teenager, another made it look like a tomato. I decided to go with the tomato and darken the colors a bit, just as I lightened them for the treads. This made it more of a rusty red, yet another hint to its mechanical origins.

 

#095 Onix and #208 Steelix

Spoiler

mfWVPoK.png

When thinking about the Pokemon I wanted to do next, I hit upon one of my least favorite shinies. Shiny Onix. When I first saw the episode "The Crystal Onix" I thought that that Onix had been the shiny version of Onix. It was only later, when I looked it up, that I found shiny Onix to actually be an ugly puke green. At least shiny Steelix was better, being a polished gold. Nevertheless, I decided if I had been the person to design shiny Onix, I would've used that beautiful crystal blue.
 
So that's what I did. It starts off as blue crystal, and then turns into the more diamond blue of Steelix. Though I did forget about Mega Steelix, and I have to say that that was probably the hardest one to recolor, mainly because of all the floaty bits and the rainbow spikes, not to mention the weird symbols carved on its side which I eventually decided to recolor as the original blue was far too close to the shiny color and blended in rather than stood out.

 

#443 Gible, #444 Gabite, and #445 Garchomp

Spoiler

jiWPuRL.png

You probably saw this one coming. Garchomp's shiny is notorious for being hard to spot. Alolan Vulpix and its evolution are also difficult. I do like Gible's shiny, but the others are kind of lame. So I decided to go the sand shark route. I actually looked up some pictures of fantasy sand sharks and colordropped from them. Also, I noticed that unlike other shinies I've done, the Gible line's shinies change coloring as they evolve, so I decided to do the same thing. However, I made the change more subtle, keeping the sand theme. Also decided to keep the orange as is, since I thought it went well with the yellows, greens, and browns.
 
I probably had the biggest trouble with Gabite, mainly its belly and hammer stripes. I wanted it to be some form of yellow, but it was either too bright or too faded. This was the best compromise I could come up with, though I'm still not entirely satisfied. Then again, I also wanted the progression from green to yellow, so that shade of yellow is probably the best I can do and still be within that pattern.
 
With the crystal Onix series, I decided to lighten the outline colors, but since the Gible line isn't made of literal crystal, it wouldn't make sense to lighten the outline colors. However, I found they looked a bit too dark for my liking. Apparently though, after looking at various pictures of light-colored Pokemon like Meowth, the outlines are supposed to be dark even if the Pokemon is light itself. While it bothers me a bit, especially on Gible, I decided to keep to that template.

Edited by Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd

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Okay, so this is the actual new model I've recolored now. I guess I could've done its evolutions too but this was mainly a way for me to gauge if I was able to recolor the Sword/Shield models with all the extra level of detail that goes into them.

Also, I'm still slowly making my way through Pokémon Sword, so no spoilers please! ?

#813 Scorbunny

Spoiler

NeChOeT.png

As you can see, I went off of a full-sized, rough-looking model that was pretty obviously ripped straight from the game without them bothering to smooth out the outline, though I couldn't resist cleaning up a few areas here and there myself. Yui showed me that they have smaller, cleaner versions on other websites so I'll probably make a "small" Scorbunny version later on.

Scorbunny is the starter I decided to go with for Pokémon Sword/Shield, but when I saw its shiny version I was...disappointed. I guess it's neat that the orange turns to yellow instead but it could've been something like a bright blue and I think that would've been cooler. In fact that's almost what I decided to go with when I remembered Lepash, a fakemon Cow came up with for Pokémon: Mind and Soul, an RP he runs. It is entirely black save for the tips of its ears and paws, which are engulfed in flame. Kind of similar to how Scorbunny is styled, except in white. So of course, that meant that I had to make a "Lepash" variant of Scorbunny.

I was also inspired by the Black Rabbit of Inlé, a rabbit that acts as a grim reaper in the mythology of the Watership Down series.

Edited by Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd

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Not sure if you're taking suggestions on ones to tackle but... would love to see your take on Dragonite, I've always thought it looked ugly.

Loving the detail you're putting in btw!

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Thanks! And I am taking suggestions, though depending on how busy or lazy I am, I might not always get to them right away.

I actually don't mind Dragonite's shiny as much, which is a little odd considering my hate for shiny Hydreigon. I think that's probably because the green is a bit more muted on Dragonite though, so it's more tolerable. Honestly, I prefer it to regular Dragonite. I ended up making Dratini and Dragonair for kicks, but I'm pretty happy with how both of them turned out.

I decided to go with Let's Go models this time. I figure I'll just use the latest models that the series has for whichever Pokémon I do, which in this case is Pokémon Let's Go. I might see about recoloring other stuff, like official art or sprites, but for now, I'm sticking with models, just because I figure it's cool to just be able to see what the imaginary shiny would look like in the actual game.

I think I'm getting spoiled though. I don't really want to go back to the older, uglier X/Y or Sun/Moon models now, but I know I'll probably have to for some Pokémon since Let's Go only has Kanto mons and Sword/Shield doesn't have a National Dex.

#147 Dratini, #148 Dragonair, and #149 Dragonite

Spoiler

8UNUE1b.png

I did some research into Dragonite, and this Pokémon is said to be based off of sea serpents, western dragons, fairy dragons, Japanese dragons, Chinese dragons, and Korean dragons. So basically dragons. That didn't give me much to go off of for which colors to use, but I then thought of the main reason I dislike Dragonite, which is just how disconnected it seems from its previous evolutions. If it were its own Pokémon, I'd probably like it more, but as I'm a huge fan of Dragonair's design, Dragonite just seems like one big goofy letdown.

So I felt that making the shiny version some shade of blue would be a good way to tie it back into Dratini and Dragonair. I though about making it a darker, more muted blue, similar to how shiny Dragonite is a bit of a darker green, but I decided to diverge from that since this is supposed to be alternate shiny variations, and not "same exact scheme just slightly more blueish."

I decided to make the previous evolutions too, as I've gotten into the habit of recoloring every single other Pokémon in its evolutionary tree when I make a shiny variant. And since regular Dragonite is yellowish-orange, I decided to go with that color for Dratini and Dragonair. I also just like yellow and orange shinies in general, with Natu, Swablu, and Drifloon being a few examples. As you can see, Dratini is a slightly different hue, but I figured that made sense since regular Dratini and Dragonair aren't exactly the same shade of blue either. While shiny Dragonair has different-colored beads, I figured making the beads match the main body like in regular Dragonair would look better here.

I had the most trouble with Dragonite, namely the wings. I wanted the color of the wings to match Dratini and Dragonair, but I also needed to lighten them a bit to make them look good.

Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with this. I feel it could still be better, but I think I did about as good as I can for now.

Edited by Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd

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