Artist Transforms Pokemon Into "Realistic" Monsters - Update

StewShearerOld

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Artist Transforms Pokemon Into "Realistic" Monsters - Update



Artist RJ Palmer has created a collection of "realistic" art pieces re-imagining your favorite Pokemon as ferocious beasts.

Update: RJ Palmer has responded to our query. According to the artist he began working on Realistic Pokemon nearly two years ago while "doodling a sharkasaurus that eventually turned into Garchomp." He further revealed that each illustration, especially the more recent ones, takes about 30 hours to put together. Hoping to fit in with the holiday season he's currently working on an Abomasnow image that he hopes to have finished sometime in the near future.

Original Story: One of the biggest turn-offs for me when it comes <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/138787-Giant-Pokemon-Fan-Art-Gallery>to Pokemon is just how danged cute everything is. Now don't get me wrong, I'm more than capable of appreciating the occasional slice of adorableness. That said, when your entire series is built around an ever-expanding cast of cute and cuddly "monsters," I'm unfortunately going to hit a breaking point. You can perhaps understand, in turn, why I so deeply enjoyed a gallery of art pieces re-imagining Pokemon as vicious, real world beasts.

The art in question was created by RJ "avarlis" Palmer and includes Pokemon fan favorites such Bulbasaur, Gyarados and Mewtwo. Not surprisingly, Palmer creates his "realistic" versions by looking partially at animals from the real world. With Bulbasaur, for instance, he made a concentrated effort to make sure the end result looked like an actual lizard and less like a frog. "It really bothers me whenever I see a more realistic take on the Bulbasaur line [as frogs]," he stated in the image's description. "He has 'saur' in his name, which means lizard." When he designed his own Bulbasaur he "ran with the lizard idea" and wound up with "a cross between a Horny Toad and a Scutosaurus."

Palmer has already created 28 illustrations for his Realistic Pokemon line. Each picture focuses in on a central <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/pokemon>Pokemon with several including their evolutions and other related creatures. We've reached out to Palmer with further questions to learn about his plan for the series and the process that goes into making each image. While we wait for his response, feel free to let us know what you think of his illustrations and which ones you like best.

[gallery=3573]

Source: DeviantArt


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gigastar

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Only thing i care to comment on here is the Scyther.

How did the giant mantis come out looking more like a velociraptor?
 

Scarim Coral

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I could of sworn his artwork were mention on here ages ago, oh wait! That was the darwin artstyle of Pokemon, none the less those are some impressive images!
 

CaitSeith

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And this is another reason that make me glad Pokemon don't exist in real life...
 

Fiz_The_Toaster

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The Eevees and the Arcanine are the only ones that are pretty good, and the other ones are kinda creepy.

Mewtwo looks like something from a horror movie.
 

Hairless Mammoth

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Oh, Dragonite. What did they do to you, buddy? I also don't like how Arcanine looks feline here. Why is Gengar's line based on bats? Did I miss something from lack of exposure to anything past gen 2?

Good, if nasty looking, collection overall, though. Charizard and Venusaur look like they came right out of a game from the future. I still like the pic floating around the net of realistic Venasaur based on a toad more than this one.
 

Klumpfot

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Nicely done! Although, doesn't the Arcanine look rather too much like a lion?
My favourite was the Dragonite family.
 

V da Mighty Taco

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Most of them aren't bad, but the Gengar line is so far removed from the character that it becomes much more identifiable as a Golbat line than Gengar. Don't know why they felt to turn Gengar into a bat, despite him and his pre-evolutions having absolutely nothing to do with bats. To be honest, picking a Ghost type was probably not a good idea for this at all, considering the whole realism angle this is going for.

Fiz_The_Toaster said:
The Eevees and the Arcanine are the only ones that are pretty good, and the other ones are kinda creepy.

Mewtwo looks like something from a horror movie.
To be fair, Mewtwo is something that would fit right into a horror movie, considering what his is, what he's capable of, and his overall nature. Something creepy fits for an abomination like him.
 

Headsprouter

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gigastar said:
Only thing i care to comment on here is the Scyther.

How did the giant mantis come out looking more like a velociraptor?
Perhaps because the giant mantis looks more like a velociraptor.




These two things are not very physically alike when put next to each other.

[small][small][small][small][small]Also this guy has been around for years now...[/small][/small][/small][/small][/small]

V da Mighty Taco said:
Most of them aren't bad, but the Gengar line is so far removed from the character that it becomes much more identifiable as a Golbat line than Gengar. Don't know why they felt to turn Gengar into a bat, despite him and his pre-evolutions having absolutely nothing to do with bats. To be honest, picking a Ghost type was probably not a good idea for this at all, considering the whole realism angle this is going for.
He's a great artist, maybe he wanted a challenge? I think it's the best possible interpretation he could have made, he's made worse ones in my opinion, such as making Trapinch [http://th08.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/f/2013/120/8/3/_flygon__by_arvalis-d63mpy6.jpg] (below Flygon) a big-headed bearded dragon (couldn't he have just drawn something more similar to the Antlion larva [http://th01.deviantart.net/fs71/PRE/i/2011/002/9/c/antlion_larva_macro_by_larah88-d36aozs.jpg]?) and Vibrava (I don't even know why you'd need guidance- on the left) a Chameleon (that is clearly an insect leg and insect body. Draw a large dragonfly or young antlion with stylized wings!). I thought Flygon was spot on, though. So was Scraggy, another on of my favourites, and everything else in the image.

My favourite [http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2013/349/8/9/_giratina__by_arvalis-d6y203m.jpg]. Giratine is not a Pokemon I like very much, especially not in the non-distortion world form, whatever it's called. But this, I like a lot, because I love bug types, as well as it being a spot-on interpretation of the body parts in my opinion.

Actually, take the Flygon from this [http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/010/5/f/flygon__arvalis_tribute__by_kganart-d5jccfq.jpg] and replace it with Arvalis's Flygon, and it satisfies me, at least.
 

Dr. Crawver

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Wow...these are pretty ancient by internet standards. I think I've known about these for nearly half a year? (except for the eevee ones. They're new to me).

I'm just not getting why these things are classed as news? Especially when they're not even new.
 

Gennadios

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I checked out the pictures, and they were good. Then I became immediately sad that there wasn't one of Gardevoir.
 

vid87

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Deoxys or Tangula would be hilariously terrifying, just a writhing mass of veiny vines and sinew.
 

StewShearerOld

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This was originally an accidental double post. If any mods would like to delete it, I'd be much obliged.
 

StewShearerOld

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StewShearer said:
Headsprouter said:
gigastar said:
Only thing i care to comment on here is the Scyther.

[small][small][small][small][small]Also this guy has been around for years now...[/small][/small][/small][/small][/small]
Yeah, the artist has been producing these for several years at this point. That said, he's still making new ones and my dips into the Escapist archives revealed that we hadn't covered these yet. Seemed like something fun to write up that was worth showing to you guys. :)
 

Li Mu

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V da Mighty Taco said:
Most of them aren't bad, but the Gengar line is so far removed from the character that it becomes much more identifiable as a Golbat line than Gengar. Don't know why they felt to turn Gengar into a bat, despite him and his pre-evolutions having absolutely nothing to do with bats. To be honest, picking a Ghost type was probably not a good idea for this at all, considering the whole realism angle this is going for.

Fiz_The_Toaster said:
The Eevees and the Arcanine are the only ones that are pretty good, and the other ones are kinda creepy.

Mewtwo looks like something from a horror movie.
To be fair, Mewtwo is something that would fit right into a horror movie, considering what his is, what he's capable of, and his overall nature. Something creepy fits for an abomination like him.

I assume he moved the ghosts closer to bats because ghosts aren't real. He was trying to give them a more realistic basis in our reality. Of course, no pokemon are real, but he's clearly trying to give them real life versions.

I'd say that this is far far far better than the disney princess shit. At least this artist has some skill. More like this please and less like the other Deviant Art trash Escapist has been posting.
 

Li Mu

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StewShearer said:
StewShearer said:
Headsprouter said:
gigastar said:
Only thing i care to comment on here is the Scyther.

[small][small][small][small][small]Also this guy has been around for years now...[/small][/small][/small][/small][/small]
Yeah, the artist has been producing these for several years at this point. That said, he's still making new ones and my dips into the Escapist archives revealed that we hadn't covered these yet. Seemed like something fun to write up that was worth showing to you guys. :)
Yup. You did well. There was some interesting artwork here, even if most of the comments don't appreciate it.