What an extremely interesting interview! :0 Anything that involves Sugimori amazes me, but learning about some of the creative and thought processes behind making Pokémon is extra amazing.
Each artist working on about ten Pokémon is a lot lower than I had originally thought, but it makes total sense.
It's interesting to see how they think about what each Generation needs - statements such as "Up until now, we designed with the philosophy that, “a mouse-like Pokemon already exists, so let’s make other Pokemon”—but this time they were all new. So, once again we designed a mouse-like Pokemon, a dog-like Pokemon, etc. from scratch." and "At first I told the designers, “You can draw freely; draw things you like.” Gradually, the number of Pokemon was decided, and the instructions became more concrete, such as, “We don’t have enough of this Type, can you try to draw some?” By the end they were directly ordered, “Draw this Pokemon!” were nice to read.
Hearing that the starters and Legendary Pokémon gave them some trouble is understandable at this point. Trying to come up with original and interesting starters and Legendaries must be an incredibly heavy task, as those Pokémon are the ones they put a lot of focus on (in the products, animated series, and of course the games).
I'll comment more on this later, as I have to go to work now. Can't wait to read the rest of the untranslated interview.
Each artist working on about ten Pokémon is a lot lower than I had originally thought, but it makes total sense.
It's interesting to see how they think about what each Generation needs - statements such as "Up until now, we designed with the philosophy that, “a mouse-like Pokemon already exists, so let’s make other Pokemon”—but this time they were all new. So, once again we designed a mouse-like Pokemon, a dog-like Pokemon, etc. from scratch." and "At first I told the designers, “You can draw freely; draw things you like.” Gradually, the number of Pokemon was decided, and the instructions became more concrete, such as, “We don’t have enough of this Type, can you try to draw some?” By the end they were directly ordered, “Draw this Pokemon!” were nice to read.
Hearing that the starters and Legendary Pokémon gave them some trouble is understandable at this point. Trying to come up with original and interesting starters and Legendaries must be an incredibly heavy task, as those Pokémon are the ones they put a lot of focus on (in the products, animated series, and of course the games).
I'll comment more on this later, as I have to go to work now. Can't wait to read the rest of the untranslated interview.
