Chedda King

Title: Chedda King
Target: Alolan Rattata (Simple, 35+)

Colored pencils, pastels and crayon on Oslo paper.

 

This lays unclaimed no more!

 

There is Raticate and Alolan Raticate. Definitely one of the more, erm, interesting type combinations, only resisting dark and is immune to ghosts, takes 4x damage to fighters and weak to bugs and otherwise takes neutral damage from everything else. It should be interesting to use. Well Alolan Rattata is simple so let's see if you catch this mustached bugger.

First Impression:

At first impression it was kind of a fun concept. Alolan Raticates are used by chefs in Alola to determine whether or not the food is good enough to eat and here you have the king of all Raticates on his throne of cheese. It is both a bit cliche and fun, but it works, especailly for something of this rank as it does bring some more amiability to an otherwise discarded pokemon. The scene, however, does manage to pull off his dark typing's vain and dark nature as you gave him a very prideful look as stands on his massive reserve of cheese, which judging by his size helps himself to frequently.

Pokemon Likeness:

Well I can that your fat rat is pretty much spot on. I might have some issue with the exaggerated facial features, like his cheeks being a little too poofy (I mean it could be from indulging all that delicious cheese under him). His eyes are a bit large as well, but they clearly illustrate his pride or greed. I do see that you have added the stripe of gray hair like the Grimsley in Sun and Moon, which is interesting because the salt and pepper look is seen as a traditional signal of age--and with it wealth, which he is clearly standing on. I also see that you have taken the time to add his claws! Good! I've seen in some of your work that you've stylized the hands to avoid the fingers, but raticate's claws add to his nasty appeal.

Technique:

Like with your Beedrill drawing, I think your use of color and even texture is good and I do see that some attempts were made at shading. I do see that you're also starting to use a variety of pencil pressures to color in the shading as evidenced by some of the cheese chunks in the closest foreground, but kind of loses it as we move over in to the main subject. I think the more detailed parts such as the jewel on the scepter and his crown, while carefully drawn (the crown more so). I think your jewel on the scepter could have been drawn more carefully as the geometry looks improvised, nevertheless I still read it as a large diamond.

The lighting in this drawing is a bit awkward. On Raticate himself there appears to be top-down lighting, but on the cheese chunks in the foreground there really isn't any clear light source. There are also inconsistent line work among the cheese like one little wheel is solid black around the others with yellow outlines. It definitely makes the space that your royal raticate is standing on a bit rushed. I understand that Raticate is a simple mon, and you are allowed to abstract the objects when you have a lot to draw, but I think that you could have spent some more time on them.

That being said, your raticate is taking a rather simple pose. I think his scepter is a bit chunky is cut off stangely at the bottom and his forehead fur isn't delineated from the crown. My mind begins to make the mental separation between the two objects because of the spike of black hair, but then when my eye glances over the crown, it melds together. I see that you have tried to fix that by having raticate's gray fur be slightly darker than metal on the crown, but it might be too subtle of a difference to have a serious impact. I like that you didn't use a bold, black outline, but a slightly darker gray (or perhaps a gold color instead!) could help delineate the two objects. I really would have loved to see the crown in shadow, as it is drawn well but is flattened by the lack of rendering.

Top-down shading generally is an unflattering angle to draw because for every smaller, less wide object under a larger, wider object, means that the smaller one will be in complete shadow, in particular the cheese under his feet, belly, and his cloak would all in shadow, which kind of distances me away from the scene a little.

Conclusion:
The drawing is a fun concept but it is a bit rushed. I do admit that this is more than simplest rank, but I am a little cautious of emphatically awarding you a rattata due to the overall flatness. However, all things considered, you did draw raticate well within a scene, and communicated several interesting things about your prideful (and probably greedy) rat. Alolan Rattata captured. 35/35

As an OOC: I really think I have been watching too much parks and rec as I keep reading this as I write in the voice of Ron Swanson.

 

Thanks julio! Claiming muh alolan rattata!