PokÉbestiary
A passion project started in 2008, this informal bestiary is a collection of sketches and ideas surrounding the vague canon of the main series of Pokémon games, serving as a visual design and writing exercise. This project was kick-started out of a love for the series spawned with Pokémon Red Version and a beat-up Game Boy with leaky batteries back in 1996. Fascination with the Pokémon world as a young booger armed with coloured pencils grew to a genuine interest of the "what if they were plausible" side of conceptual design as a maturing artist.
The art and writing created for this project cater to a personal interpretation set in a version of the Pokémon world where the titular creatures are man-made creations of biological engineering built from human DNA, created as replacements for dying or extinct native flora and fauna and sold as ever-obedient (usually) companions. In this setting, the companion and battle culture of Pokémon is leveraged and sold to the public by the corporate monolith, Silph Co., the designer and supplier of the original "Pocket Monster" and its accessories under many names, facades, and shell companies. League battling and Pokémon breeding, sanctioned by Silph Co., is a regulated, choreographed, and heavily commercialised enterprise that contributes to the rise of Pokémon pit fighting, a symptom of social inequalities created by the company's ever-expanding monopoly and encouragement of a culture of excess.
Collected below is a gallery of select visual and written concept work for this very long-spanning interpretive project, featuring both art and partially-curated literary snippets from now-defunct personal online blogs. “PokéDex” entries are written in an encyclopedic spirit - a guide to be given to budding Pokémon specialists beginning their journey in the heavily-regulated, secret-laden, and conspiracy-driven Pokémon world.
ARCEUS:
Created as a marvel of biological engineering, Arceus was a scientific work of art - a self-repairing entity with above-human intelligence and a gentle disposition. However, to keep the creature healthy, it required sterile containment. Arceus' intelligence and sentience begot dissatisfaction and unhappiness with its containment, breeding dreams of escape.
EXEGGUTOR:
Adult Exeggutor are producers, with some species also falling within the consumer population. Other consumer Pokemon species feed upon and rely on them to maintain and sustain their ecosystems. Exeggutor provide shelter, nutrients, as well as food and access to prey to other species. The presence of Exeggutor often denotes and / or produces a very healthy, diverse, and stable ecosystem. In some cases, the Pokemon itself is an ecosystem. Areas populated by the species are often untouched by human hands due in part by the Pokemon's special ability, "Hypnosis", which permits the Pokemon to ward away invaders. Intruders who venture into their ranges are quickly hypnotised and sent back to whence they came or, in cases of encounters with carnivorous Exeggutor, eaten.
HAUNTER
Raising and training Gastly, Haunter, or Gengar Pokemon is oft described as a "trial" by advocates and enthusiasts. Training from the Haunter or Gengar stage is not recommended and often heavily discouraged due to the Pokemon's "rancid" attitude as a predatory species. If a trainer wishes to forge a strong bond of trust and respect, it is best done at the Gastly stage, ideally as young as possible to help curb behavioural issues that will develop as the Pokemon ages and matures into its adult stages. Of all of its known breeds and subspecies, the most readily recognised breed of Haunter, as well as the most numerous, is the Urban Haunt. Urban Haunts take up residence in abandoned buildings and shut off / ignored rooms of occupied homes alongside their younger and elder stages of development, Gastly and Gengar.
MAGMAR:
As an industrial Pokemon, Magmar are a "manufactured" genus, engineered and guided by eugenics to fulfill a specific purpose within a working pipeline. Magmar are common in smelting and manufacturing operations, where they work in high-heat and potentially toxic conditions in tandem with machinery. Like their industrial cousins, Electabuzz and Conkeldurr, they are believed to possess human-like intelligence. Magmar populations are carefully controlled by Silph Co. and are as a genus barred from casual ownership by trainers and collectors. The species is notorious for its propensity to drastically alter its environment to suit itself if able, setting fire to vegetation and buildings to raise the ambient temperature to better align with its comforts.
CONKELDURR:
Conkeldurr and its variants are considered endemic to heavy industry, their development controlled in the service of a working pipeline. As a working species, Conkeldurr has become invaluable in the construction industry for its hardiness and intelligence, with its docility creating a near-idyllic portrait of an easily maintained working force. As an industrial species, standard and industrial Conkeldurr ovi are not available on the open market, their numbers strictly controlled by Silph Co. The selling of eggs procured from wild-captured established populations of escaped workforces, however, falls outside of the monolith's reach for lack of legislation regarding the treatment and classification of adapted wild populations of the Pokemon. Much to Silph's benefit, the species is not especially popular amongst collectors or trainers thanks to its specialised development requirements and human-like appearance.
