Magneton! Pokemon One a Day!

Reblog on Tumblr: bonnyjohn.tumblr.com/post/7500…

The Magnet Pokemon

Electric/Steel Type

Magneton is a Pokemon I really dislike to acknowledge.  Although it’s a lot more acceptable to put a cluster of Magnemite together than a bunch of Diglett, it’s still pretty boring and seems a bit uninspired.  Much of my thought for coming up with today’s illustration was all about redesigning it and making it something that felt like Magneton and it’s trio-based design but also something new and would fit as an evolution.

Today’s work keeps the original’s design with a few twists and is broken down, literally.  A build your own Magneton kit, comes to mind.  My thought process revolved around when techies might get a new gizmo (yeah, I said gizmo) or gadget and break it down to see the innards.  I wanted to do this with Magneton as it’s design is very straightforward and made up of simple repeating shapes and objects.  I had originally went with a direction of redesigning the character to make it look less “lazy” of a design but found it to go nowhere and just to accept that it would make sense for magnetic Pokemon to be attracted to one another.

Unlike three Diglett’s teaming up.    >.>  

I took a few liberties with the design, adding a camera shutter design to it’s “eyes” that would be inserted into the heads via a USB port.  Everything else kinda comes together with behind the scene stuff and magnetism, but overall, it’s not about how this entity might operate, but presenting what makes it go tick on a basic level.  And if you want to get technical, yeah, this thing runs on 4 AA’s!  That’s impossible, you say?  We’re talking about a world that can capture creatures in a tiny capsule…Their technology with batteries is the last thing you should call out! 

I think visually, it’s a fun piece that has a very clean aesthetic with organization as a major component in making it all work.  Magneton’s focus here was all about taking the Pokemon and presenting it as is - I’ve stated before that a large part of my thought process is a battle about taking the originals and presenting who they are as is, “warts and all” in new art styles rather than making them new and my own.  So far, both sides have won the illustration for the day, but today is a mixture of the two.  Magneton is still largly recognizable in today’s work, which features a lightly rendered style that was born from a work that was originally very flat.

That wraps up today’s work!  I hope you enjoy today’s style and approach to Magneton!  Thanks always for reading and viewing my work, and remember, Dugtrio is whack and Magneton is aight at best.  Except when he’s depicted by yours truly.  

-Bonny

+ Pokemon One a Day is a series illustrated and curated by Bonny John in an effort to represent the the first generation of characters from the world wide phenomenon that is known as Pokemon.  The idea is simple - to draw and share one new Pokemon a day (weekends off!) until every Pokemon from the set is completed.  This project is an exploration of fine art styles for learning and leisurely purposes.  

+ Links to my YouTube, FB, Twitter, DeviantART, and Tumblr can be found on my official website