So where was I, ah yes orrery's. I've spoken a number of times about the various layouts you could use to help you create more interesting images from the golden ratio to the rule of thirds but sometimes you just want to base your layout on mechanical devices that attempt to represent how the solar system works.
No? Just me then.
It almost didn't work, or rather had one of the Pokemon been different it may have been a totally different picture. Having both snake looking Pokemon to balance each other out turned out to be quite a major aspect of the design.
Similarly my original concept had much more of a mechanical clockwork theme I had intend to have all the characters inside circles with the background full of cogs and other mechanical designs. However when the circles had been dawn out it became apparent that the background was going to end up larger than the characters, and since they were the main focus, that probably wasn't the right way of doing things.
After much thought, something I did notice however was that the circles were about the right size and spaced far enough apart that they could be used to place the head of the Pokemon and the bodies would fit in around them, there wouldn't be any need to have background elements because somewhat magically all the characters filled the space pretty much perfectly.
Not that the circles themselves were particularly easy to draw in the first place. its one of those times you wish you had bigger plates, or a large compass posibly like one you would find on a wooden sailing vessel (theres something of a old school navigation theme running though is project I'm now noticing). In the end I had to settle for a large amount of measuring with a ruler, a looped piece of string and a pencil, for anyone tempted to try this at home the string should preferably not be elasticated it tends to throw the measurements out which in turn means you have to spend more time measuring.
Having the starting circles placed it was then a matter of arranging the characters and as I say they came together rather easily. Possibly this was in part due to the fact that the question 'where should each go?' was answered with 'well similar colours opposite each other obviously' when theres only two yellow objects in the image clearly my brain felt having them next to each other would imbalance the whole piece, since the rest of me agreed the drawing process could begin.
I'm terms of colouring, having recently bought new black colour and remover I promptly managed to use both up again on this project. I especially like the way the lighting effects seem to decrease as they move out from the center, the effects on Steelix also came out particularly well I also feel.
I've drawn Pikachu a large number of times now to the point where I can draw him/her from memory and each time he/she seems to be enjoying themselves quite a lot, by the looks of things this mood seems to infected the rest of the team in this image.
Then again I don't suppose theres much call for grimdark Pokemon
Untill next time, Pikachu (and friends) I choose you (to explore the solar system).