Chronicle-King's Art Thread

Chronicle-King · Aug 22, 2016

So when I was waking up today I ended up receiving a note to join this forum on DA. Since it was the first note in a long while of this sort, I'd figure I'd may as well join and post an art thread of my own here for all to see.

Below are just some of my recent artwork or simply artwork which have a direct relation to my Pokémon AU named Truth and Ideals, which you can find posted on my Fanfiction.net account of my Archive of Our Own account. Can't link the latter on here due to some of my AO3 work being NSFW, but on FF.net, my username is Chronicle-King there as well if you'd like to look me up. On AO3 you'll instead find me as MightyFan217 if you try and look me up there the old fashioned way.

That out of the way, shall I begin posting some pictures? Let's start with an image I had made for my yearly December Story Poster submission. Ever since 2014, my strive to improve my artwork quality from that point forward had led to me creating a poster for one of my upcoming/WIP original works to showcase how much I had improved up to that point. On December 2015, I had made a poster for Truth and Ideals that sums up everything that is revealed to have occurred up to the 4th Gym Arc:

To summarize Truth and Ideals' premise as an AU is a bit difficult to say the least. The story proper suffered Early Installment Weirdness on at least several levels and only just recently had finished in killing off said Early Installment Weirdness. Truth and Ideals, at the very core, is an AU of Ash Ketchum having been born in Unova alongside his childhood friends Cheren and Bianca. In other words, basically taking the core plot and elements of Pokémon Black and White Versions and having Ash fill in for the player character. Not that even though this is a combination of both the anime and the games with this in mind, some things do not happen in the exact same way one would expect from either or. Indeed, some characterizations had also been altered almost entirely from a previously defined character. Be it to suit the needs of the story and what all I had in mind, or more so the fact this particular AU is designed more as an adaptation of a story rather than just being an AU where mostly everyone would otherwise be in-character to their canon selves.

With that in mind, if you plan on reading the story, be very, VERY warned that my DA Gallery, and some of what I'll be posting here, contains spoilers as to things that happen in the story or otherwise will eventually happen in the story. The above cover artwork for the story proper, while technically uploaded in December before some chapters were uploaded, pretty much spoils story content that go up into the 4th Gym arc of the story itself, although the cover artwork was only designed with major characters who had appeared up to the 3rd gym arc so as a result some other key players are missing in the cover. With this in mind, it is also worth noting that I had specifically used White Version as a template here if it wasn't obvious. Some friends of mine have called the overall AU a Fix Fic of sorts, which in some areas aren't exactly intentional, but in very specific areas this is most definitely the case even if it is an AU.

Regulus is a bit of an interesting character to talk about regarding Truth and Ideals. According to a close friend of mine who is reviewing the story, Truth and Ideals didn't really have its own identity up until the proper introduction of Regulus. Regulus' introduction was actually something not initially part of the initial drafts of the story; the original draft of the story was a much more by the books adaptation of White Version's plot, and only deviated where there was no other choice (Ash having Pikachu) or there were some potential to make anime references with (such as the Team Rocket Grunt cameo in Icirrus City which I'll say no more of just yet...). One of my other friends, who I had went to for writing advice after telling her of the premise of Truth and Ideals, suggested that I should write in Ash's ability to use Aura like in all of two episodes of D/P and Movie 8. As a result of this, and realizing the potential that overall subplot truly had, I decided to cave in and add the element to the story, but to do so, I knew I'd have to write in Ash getting a Lucario somehow. When Regulus is introduced proper, he becomes the second Pokémon from outside of Unova to appear that doesn't relate to the Raichu evolution line, although another Pokémon was implied to appear earlier as well as is confirmed later. As a result of Regulus' introduction, my friend reviewing the story has said his introduction is where the story had began to gain its own identity as a direct result.

Misty was already part of the plan for Truth and Ideals from the start; because of her game counterpart's involvement in B2/W2's content, she would be the girl Ash would end up being shipped with of the main cast (before I decided to take a third option to my only other logical choice in the matter). Misty's introdction wasn't planned to happen until the two year timeskip that leads into B2/W2 proper, but once the 4th Gym arc had begun, and having had an earlier cameo role prior, Misty was officially introduced into the main cast proper. Some of Misty's background and some of her own Pokémon all detail as to things that will happen in the past portions of the AU continuity, because I have plans for AUs of the Gen I and Gen III games that would tie in a lot to Misty's background. Why Gen III as well? Numerous reasons, but FireRed and LeafGreen are the most obvious here.

Mewtwo is a bit of a wild card. Quite serious about that since none of the characters in the story proper know of Mewtwo's actual alignment or overall intentions. Mewtwo's design took a while longer to drawn than it would've otherwise taken; I was waiting until I had played Pokémon Super Mystery Dungeon to get an idea as to what the Looplets looked like, and once I got the basic idea, I would get right to drawing Mewtwo's design. As a bit of a running gag I've had for a while, I've tended to draw Mewtwo with a lot of muscles in my artwork ever since a few years now. Why? Well there's the obvious factor that Mewtwo has no less than Base 110 Attack, which both Mega Evolutions end up increasing oddly enough. Mewtwo's also a bit of a case of having an initial plan for its introduction, only to completely chance it for something else due to realizing quickly that Mewtwo's original introduction plan would've resulted in Ash facing a Pokémon that would've been too powerful for his current team.

As part of my reinvented fanfiction I would upload from 2014 onward, and as the plans were finalized in 2015 when I had officially resumed work on Truth and Ideals, I had made plans for the usage of either production foreshadowing or even fanfictions of two separate settings appearing to have interacted with each other during each other's storylines even if one of the stories had yet to premiere proper. Flare, as one could tell from above, is a character who is part of an upcoming Digimon AU, and when she first appears in Truth and Ideals she's an ordinary, non-corrupted Mega Level WarGreymon, but regardless is still brainwashed when she first appears directly. When she appears again as one of the secondary antagonists, she's captured again by Team Plasma and has a device placed on her which increases the effect of the brainwashing inflicted upon her to where it corrupts her default evolution line from Rookie to Mega as a direct result of this device. Her normal evolution line are the Vaccine parallels to the Digimon above; Agumon 2006, Greymon, MetalGreymon Vaccine, and WarGreymon. Her corrupt evolution line is BlackAgumon 2006, BlackGreymon, MetalGreymon Virus, but instead of BlackWarGreymon, I had asked a friend of mine about the subject of using Digimon World 2's ChaosGreymon and had subsequently went with ChaosGreymon for the corrupted Mega form. I can't say much else as to Flare's overall role in the story other than she's normally a protagonist who's being held against her into serving antagonistic roles, especially considering her involvement in the story as her corrupted forms is a huge moment in the story only to emphasis further how Ghetsis is absolutely immoral in this depiction.

Something interesting to note is that Flare's picture above was not drawn in my default artstyle; she is drawn in the more chibified artstyle of her own fanfic AU which uses a more chibified/cutesy artstyle that drastically differs from my normal artwork, especially when it comes to human characters or with specific Digimon who are noted as having specific types of proportions in a more standard issue artstyle one would associate the Digimon franchise as having in common with itself. Also, in case anybody is confused as to why I called Flare's corrupt Mega as ChaosGreymon instead of ChaosBlackWarGreymon, the terminology for the Digimon stuff with the exception of the names of the evolutionary levels are all from the Japanese version of the franchise, including Digimon names, attack names, the names of specific groups, or any names noted from the Japanese version which would effect how exactly Flare's AU would be like compared to the source material of Digimon Story/Digimon World DS. Also, with the exception of ChaosGreymon, the prior three corrupted forms are modified versions of the artwork for her normal forms with MetalGreymon's stripes removed, all three of them having a coil added to the arm, and ChaosGreymon having a new picture flat out due to being posed differently from the original picture used for WarGreymon. Also worth noting is that the Digimon AU's Digimon are noticeably toned down in size unless the Digimon was outright meant to be big for a key reason; MetalGreymon (Virus) above is only around 6'04" at the tip of the head, and ChaosGreymon is drawn out of scale due to the fact the reason behind the different pose from the regular WarGreymon pic is because it was meant to be an alternate pic for WarGreymon just in a different pose.

Ash: Keith from Voltron Legendary Defender has a voice that not only his sound young and youthful, but still one that makes him sound like he's older at the same time. Ash's voice in Truth and Ideals is meant to sound similar to his TPCi English voice; sounding youthful, but otherwise sounding like he's older. In the case of the canon anime the writers keep insisting Ash is 10, but considering Truth and Ideals Ash is 16, that needed to be adjusted for. Plus the obvious fact I kind of like the idea of Ash being voiced by a male voice actor this time around.

Cheren: This one is going to be a bit more unusual since it ties in with Bianca's VA. I ship Lloyd and Colette in Tales of Symphonia whenever I play that game, but the voice actor I most commonly use for Lloyd is the one from the first game's sequel. It fits in a bit better since he sounds older and not as high pitched (or half sounding like he'll just shout "Titans go!" at any moment), and thus the more mature sounding tone of Brian Beacock's voice for Lloyd fits in better with Cheren's character.

Bianca: Heather Hogan relates to the above choice for Cheren for a good reason; the AU proper has Cheren and Bianca shipped with each other, much like how I typically play Tales of Symphonia in a manner to ship Lloyd with Colette as well. Not only that, but Colette's voice not only has a cheerfulness to it that Bianca would definitely have, but she sounds old enough for what her age is intended, plus the fact the actress is perfect for Bianca's more epic moments in Truth and Ideals.

Regulus: Talk about imitation being the sincerest form of flattery with this one. For those who don't know, I had Qrow's introduction in Volume 3 of RWBY on the mind when writing up Regulus' debut chapter in Truth and Ideals, to the point due to that reason alone I imagined Regulus as having the same voice actor in the form of Vic Mignogna. Vic has already had a Pokémon role before with Keldeo in Movie 15, but Regulus' voice has a been of a scratchy, deep and composed voice to him that fits along well with what Qrow sounds like instead.

Sirius: Now then time to talk about Dad Ketchum here with this one. His VA being that of Shiro's own is a bit of a reference to a joke I'm seeing every once in a while on DA about Shiro being nicknamed "Space Dad" when it comes to Legendary Defender fanart featuring him. Most certainly helping is the fact Shiro does indeed have a voice which suits his age and authority in the actual team proper, and it also kind of helps that Sirius has moments where he can be kind of a dork as well.

Altair: I already knew one thing was dead certain; I was going to have KaiserNeko on here somewhere at the very least. Altair, being the successor to Regulus' role in the story, starts off as an egg when he appears before hatching around the same chapter he's introduced officially. Altair is currently still young and thus a Riolu as a result, but when he matures and evolves into Lucario, he sounds an awful lot like KaiserNeko's take on Future Trunks from Dragon Ball Z Abridged, considering the fact that even when fully evolved into Lucario, he's still very young when compared to Regulus who is at least two decades older than his own son.

N: The king of dorks among the Pokémon antagonists somehow ends up with the most epic sounding voice to his credit. I don't exactly know why I had chosen Steve Blum of all people for N's voice, but considering Steve Blum has a larger range than what was initially thought, I figured Steve Blum had the perfect range qualified to give N this sense of majesty while at the same time still coming across as naive and blind to Ghetsis' true intents for Team Plasma. N, for reference, is about the same age as Ash here, but considering Steve Blum's range in Digimon Tamers' dub, he's more than qualified for the role.

Reshiram and Zekrom: Considering my end goal for both Dragon Legendary Pokémon involving Kyurem, the only person I knew who could pull off the voices and the roles necessary was their voice actor they had shared in the canon anime dub. Marc Thompson can easily pull off the more serene, soothing voice of Reshiram, all the while also being able to voice the deep, intimidating Zekrom all the same. Not much else I can truly say here, but considering the fact Truth and Ideals has different dialogue and speaking manners for both of them than what the anime would normally have, I know Marc enough as an actor to be capable of playing the more serious roles that both Dragons get involved in during their interactions with N and Ash respectively, mainly highlighting the former's tendency at Brutal Honesty towards N at times, and the latter's inspiration towards Ash's further cause as a Pokémon Trainer as a whole.

N's Zoroark: The picture might be confusing, but N's Zoroark has a human form which he changes into due to the fact Zoroark's illusion ability can easily allow him to do so, especially so considering there has also been a case of Zoroark speaking in the games as part of an Easter Egg in B2/W2 when you get TM Snarl. Zoroark's voice is overall deep and intimidating in sound, but has a bit more variety to his emotions similar to Rodin's own range. Plus there's the fact that N's Zoroark is often rather menacing in some areas if given the dialogue to work with, which I know that Rodin most definitely comes across in a secret bonus you can do on both Bayonetta games...

Ghetsis: Having not heard Ghetsis' voice in the anime definitely played a huge part in this choice. An even bigger part in this role overall is how exactly Ghetsis raised his Hydreigon which only adds further parallels to Drago Bludvist. Plus there's most importantly the fact that Ghetsis is flat out intended as a Complete Monster villain in Truth and Ideals, and the scariest part is that I know for certain that Djimon Hounsou has a range capable of getting Ghetsis to have his dialogue much like in the games where he can easily manipulate people while sounding completely harmless in some parts, and then sounding like a madman in other areas. Drago doesn't have much of the former, but if you listen to his lines you can most definitely tell the voice used for him is most definitely capable of displaying a more calmer, less growly range to it.

Mewtwo: Feels kind of odd that two Team Four Star members are part of this, but much like Steve Blum for N, General-Ivan for Mewtwo is especially to assist in giving Mewtwo a sense of majesty to its voice. Plus the fact General-Ivan displays Cooler's masked form voice as sounding very much like how both Mega Mewtwo X and Mega Mewtwo Y would also sound in this AU which most definitely helps. As for other reasons General-Ivan was chosen, his role as Cooler showcased a lot of intelligence to him, especially with what type of dialogue had and his overall role in both appearances were like ended up having him avoid the faults Freeza made in comparison. Considering Mewtwo's an intelligent Psychic Type Pokémon, General-Ivan most definitely fits the bill.

Flare: Technically Flare has no reason to be on this list other than the fact she made her official debut in this story before her actual story had even had a chance to begin. And yes, I said she; this character is female despite the fact her forms are one of the more male orientated designs out there. As how her voice is supposed to sound, whenever she's not brainwashed, she has this clarity and politeness to her tone that showcases her usual benevolent nature. When she's brainwashed, though, her voice can easily pull off a hostile vibe to it in any scene necessary. Hellena Taylor was chosen because Bayonetta is fully capable of sounding both elegant and dangerous in tone remarkably well.