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Hello, Everyone! I'm fairly new to the Smeargle's Studio so I'm sure a brief introduction about myself would be appreciated. My username is Ticken and I have been part of competitive Pokemon since 2012 and have primarily involved myself in the Monotype / Wifi communities and I'd love to extend that to here as well. Some of my close friends have urged me to post an art thread ever since I started doing vector art about half a year ago so s/os to MoosicalBlueforcemaroon and Decem . the program I use is Photoshop and a majority of my work is from using vectors, pen tool, with one exception when I used my drawing tablet. I still have a lot to work on when it comes to dimension and just drawing in general, but I feel the quality is satisfactory enough to post and maybe contribute to Smogon at some point.
About my stuff: The work I did at the top is my recipe binder's front cover with art of my family's kitchen appliances in the background. I promised my friends I'd post sooner rather than later so I posted the best work I have done so far that represents me than making a more personalized banner. One thing to keep in mind is that most of the work I have done so far are logos for various Monotype team tours.
Last hide I'll add to this post. Here are all the links to the events I have given out art to so far:
Please do not requests in this thread unless I make a post because I do not always have enough time to get multiple things out in a reasonable timeframe since I am kind of a perfectionist. Critiques and feedback are always welcomed! My Discord is Ticken#8967 if anyone wants to contact me about anything :)
Yea, I want to do some stuff using Illustrator, but for now, my paid plan is only Photoshop so I've just stuck that. Thanks Kala and when school work slows down I'd be glad to contribute some stuff to sm!
One year Adobe will have a cheap illustrator and PS package. Instead of the 11$ ps one and to get both u need the 50$ subscription. It's uncool man. Neat stuff tho!
A fellow vector artist! I like the multiple colored strokes on the shield shape and text in your thread header. It sets the border apart from the background of the interior, and emphasizes the importance of the text. I think if you continue experimenting with strokes, stroke weight, and color choice to highlight the more important elements of your logos, it could really improve your work.
Also, have you heard of a program called Affinity Designer? It's a vector editing program that's mostly comparable to Illustrator, and it also has some decent raster editing functions. I haven't used it myself in a few years, but the last time I did, I didn't have much of a problem translating my experience from Illustrator to Affinity. Just an option to consider!
Hello everyone, it's been a little while since I've posted here (school), sorry!
Anyways, I made two that have been posted since then which I feel happy about sharing. I still need to work on my typography but I feel they get the idea across for both projects and will try to work on that on my future projects.
-This is a longrunning event that I've run which includes Seasons 1 and 2 but this season is the first time when I have made the art for it. The idea I had here was to use the idea of Monothreat, where each player uses the same type, and relate it back to the BW2 Type Expert tournament held south of Driftveil. As such, I decided to make a small four player bracket with familiar Gym Leader silhouettes to help emphasize they use the same type and the way the tournament was held. Sadly I was running out of time so I settled with writing the event's name simply but I do like how it turned out.
-Nothing much to say here. After reusing the same banner for Monotype Seasonals, I thought it'd be a great time to spruce it up, which I did for fall, but I was requested to update the summer one too since it went up just a but earlier. Since there are four seasonals for each season, I thought it would be neat to make a unique one for each and use a Sawsbuck that represents each season. I won't show off the fall one yet as that begins in August, however :)
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With MPL, Monotype Premier League, just around the corner, expect another post in the near future when things for that go public! As always, I am interested in hearing any input. Enjoy!
o/ I am back with some MPL stuff. I was inspired to incorporate more gradient overlays because it looks smoother and more realistic, which I prefer. In a couple of months, I should be getting Illustrator but for now, these are all still done on Photoshop.
At first, I wanted to design another banner with Mantyke because that is Monotype's signature Pokemon, however, torkool wanted me to change it up and suggested various pixie Pokemon. I've always been fascinated with stars and such so I thought Jirachi would be a great fit. The stars in the sky use Jirachi's color while the "MPL" colors do not have any notable reference, just something to contrast well against the yellow. I added a tent to make it seem like Jirachi has been waiting for its chance to shine as noted by the words on the orange any Mono players may be able to get :p
I am happy with this although there are a couple of areas I could have improved a little more on, but it is a great test project with using vectors and almost all components using gradients which helped my later project below. I wanted to make this into a gif but the gradients were not co-operating so if anyone has an idea why I'd love to listen/test them for future reference.
(Is it sad that the part I am happiest with on this is the tape?)
As always, thanks to Moosical for always giving me your input and putting up with my 50 bazillion drafts in our PMs. You make the process a lot more fun especially when there are so many projects around team tour time.
Nothing too noteworthy in terms of the design aside from maybe the black stroke on the letters not touching the volcano or Charizard. That effect is interesting since it looks like the words are part of what they touch since they extend outward in certain areas. Other than that, this is only really Mega Charizard Y and a volcano with some shading and gradients.
The prompt for this logo was merely looking rich. This opportunity to make a Magearna on a dollar bill was too much to pass up so I whipped this up in about 2 days, with most of that time invested on the bill itself. (Thanks to the type font guy for making a dollar bill font for me to use.)
The bill is a 5-dollar bill because when I think of Magearna, I think of an S-mon and 5 is the best number to represent an S. The 34934534 number was my best attempt at spelling "Magearna" by only using numbers available on a calculator. It is a little hard to notice but the Magearna is not only wearing glasses, but it also has a blue jeweled necklace and a purple jeweled ring per Funbot's request. This took me around 500 layers because of all the lines on the bills and checkerboard pattern behind Magearna if anyone was curious.
big fan, what i find most interesting about your stuff is the look that you manage to get. no one thinks of using photoshop to make vector art (quite frankly speaking, I would never do that myself), but doing so gives it a very distinct feel that I don't really get from other logos on the site. i'm not sure whether i completely agree with the style or not, but it is something new and i'm all for it.
(big props for having the resolve to deal with 500 photoshop layers, i'm positive that i cannot do that at my current level of patience)
This is the AGPL banner I made for Catalystic with the only requirement being to incorporate Mega Rayquaza. I don't typically like just putting a Pokemon with the title and call it there so I used some of its notable features instead. This is also the first time I made my own typography! \o/ Mission Accomplished. I still love doing spacey themes and I thought there's no other Pokemon other than Deoxys better for it so I added the spacey background and its symbols from the original games. They wouldn't really fit well on top of one another and Ik banners for forum events typically prefer to be longer rather than taller so I decided to split them apart as you can see. The rest are notable features on Rayquaza himself with the flappy strand thing, the red dots and the coloring of AGPL.
This is the most recent banner I've made and it very well might be my favorite as well. I was unsure what to do for this banner at first but "Ladder" reminded me of the "Snakes and Ladders" board game so I ran with that idea after getting torkool's approval first. I also was inspired by anundeadboy's art, and while this is still not to his level, I think it came out fairly well.
Both "MLT"s are my typography since I cba with doing that for all the rest of the letters. torkool chose a grass theme so I incorporated some vibrant greens and chose Whimsicott, who is the preview shape for the Leaderboard, and decided to add some yellows to mix things up. Lemon and lime esque. The rest is just me filling in the empty space on the front cover and bottom with grassy/standard box components.
Breaking the fourth wall, I made this design ages ago; sometime around May before the Summer banner posted a few posts above. I was inspired by making a logo that uses the Sawsbuck season as a statue. The only gradient on here is the Sawbuck itself for the sunlight while the rest are solid colors so that I don't overcomplicate things and make it messier. The leaves were shaped from one of the leaves on Sawsbuck and then I cut a couple so it had a little more eye appeal. I think this is definitely one of my favorite original designs.
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A more personal note:
A Gift for my Mom's B-day:
I am not really sure what these are but my Mom makes hundreds of these paper things that stack on each other and my Dad and I were too lazy to buy her something so I whipped this up for her in a couple of hours. My family know next to nothing I do digitally so I was happy to make something like this for her and surprise her
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I still have a lot to learn but I am satisfied with how things are coming so far. I am always open to any questions or comments if anyone has anything! Time to work on some more stuffs.
This is my first image for TFP and was posted a couple of weeks ago. I usually try to stick to helping out Monotype focused events/articles and I was inspired by the Autotomize set. Autotomize has been a very popular Monotype Steel set with Metronome to help provide an offensive check against Water, specifically, and I always wondered what Celesteela lost in order to gain its speed. And since you can Autotomize 3 times before you hit max speed, the dress things seemed like the most plausible. -- I wanted to make something a little different from my norm and decided to focus solely on the Pokemon. I also wanted to experiment with no shadows and a different outline color since in the past I would typically just settle on black or no outline at all. I prob could have made it more detailed and fixed a couple of things but I am happy with how it turned out, for the most part.
Kev came up with the handcuff idea for this banner because PMT is based around partners of two who stick together throughout the entire tournament. After that was developed, I did not necessarily know where to go next except I knew I wanted to add some Pokemon in to make it feel like they are linked. I don't think I have seen art based around footprints yet so I thought that'd be a great way to incorporate them. The Fighting symbol was used to denote that this would be Fighting Monothreat, based on the two Pokemon footprints, and then I made a quick "PMT" since the whole name is rather lengthy. -- Again, there are some things I see that could be added but I am happy with it overall.
The Rainbow League, hosted by Aishia, had an interesting concept and the banner from past iterations needed an update. There are many different districts similar to The Hunger Games and the most effective way to update it without getting too fancy was a gif. I kept the map and almost all the districts the same shapes as a request from Aishia. I've been dying to make a gif banner because so many are stationary that it is nice to have something a little different imo. I'd be curious to know if anyone would have approached this differently! Also, I made a logotype thing for her to use wherever she pleases in the event. I'll post that below:
This was inspired to be a simple logo to help me practice with Illustrator with a sheen similar to top badges or shining your badges on DPP. I prob could have spruced this up a little as well but I didn't want to get too fancy with my first logo gif but I am happy to see that the gradient didn't mess up!
This was inspired to be a simple logo to help me practice with Illustrator with a sheen similar to top badges or shining your badges on DPP. I prob could have spruced this up a little as well but I didn't want to get too fancy with my first logo gif but I am happy to see that the gradient didn't mess up!
Where did you animate this? The sheen looks a bit odd when it's big on the r part. Also a small break before looping again, like the shiny badges here do, would make it look better imo. Great work otherwise!
Where did you animate this? The sheen looks a bit odd when it's big on the r part. Also a small break before looping again, like the shiny badges here do, would make it look better imo. Great work otherwise!
This was more-so a test but I did it on Photoshop using the Ellipse Tool and then applying a partially transparent gradient. I then moved it manually to the right a bit which probably added to it looking odd. I also agree a break would work well, thanks for the advice!
This was more-so a test but I did it on Photoshop using the Ellipse Tool and then applying a partially transparent gradient. I then moved it manually to the right a bit which probably added to it looking odd. I also agree a break would work well, thanks for the advice!
I see. When I was making the SPL X teaser vid I did this with a built-in effect in After Effects, which I basically found out about after googling how to make a good shine effect. I did try what you did in yours first basically, but it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to.
It's pretty fast, but it was timed to the music so.
Not my best work but this was my second non-vector drawing that I've finished and was also my first one I did in less than 24 hours as it was a bit more rushed than what I usually agree to do. If you guys remember my MPL V banner, I used Jirachi there and I wanted to continue that a little longer and decided to give it a Shadow Ball because the Gengars won the tour. At first, I wanted to make it a fortune teller's crystal ball type thing but it doesn't tie in as well so I went with plan B which I am not mad about. Also for those who are curious, here's my sketch I used. The only thing I really changed off of it were the eyes after looking through some examples online because mine looked off.
This is another project I rushed to get out because I have midterms this week and I am going out of town for a couple of days. It took me about two days from sketch to finish. Perish Song asked me for it to be made with Megagross and I had an idea to base the words on the arms after they detached, not sure if they do or not, and I tried to give Metagross a somewhat menacing pose. OH and I forgot to mention, this is my 2nd official thing I made on Illustrator, the 1st will come out later once the event drops! I am not sure if there is much left to say so here are my drafts and whatnot:
The sketch had "Eastern", which you can ignore because I did it really badly, because the team had to rejoin the rest of Europe not too long ago so I scraped that and just kept "Europe".
Here's a fairly simplistic banner type thing I made for LTPL. When rozes asked if I could do the banner I didn't really know what to do for it but the first thing that came to mind for me was to use the base shape of a pyramid-like when you think of a hierarchy system. I wasn't happy with solid for each side so I decided to give it some more dimension and it ended up looking like a gem oddly enough so I kept that idea up with the typography. The typography is a bit different from what I usually do but having the same letter on both ends convinced me to do a kinda symmetric placement. The shading of the letters looks a bit off to me but I'm not opposed. Lastly, Moosical came up with the idea to add a trophy on top so it didn't look as barren on top. I used a Nest Ball on it to represent the typically weaker, Ik Ubers is in the tour but bare with me, Pokemon in LTPL. Overall, I am satisfied with how this one came out in a couple of days.
I am ecstatic to do this banner as it is for Monotype's only ribbon/trophy tour all year. I wanted to make this one look a little more realistic and give it a background with few strokes. Alolan Muk is sadly not with us in SWSH but was an amazing asset for both Poison and Dark so he was one of the best candidates which Moosical approved of. There isn't really anything unique about the tour aside from the reward so I went with a generic snowy background with some grass, trees, mountains, and a moon. This project took me more time than usual because most of it has some shading, primarily gradients, which I am still working at getting better with. I am not fond of the right mountains but I'm satisfied with everything else. There are some things I can improve on but I learned a lot after doing it!
P.S. the shading on Muk are all unique vector shapes because I forgot at the time I can make any loose shape, cut it with the shape builder tool, and then apply an inner stroke.
Decem asked me for some art for the Monotype recap article so I did this sometime after my midterms. I didn't add many details on the walls but I like the idea of it. The biggest milestone Monotype has had to date is becoming an official tier so I wanted to make that and the suspecting phase the main attractions. Monotype was very balanced throughout most of SM with only a few suspects; the last suspect being on the final X on the calendar. Lastly, I added a whiteboard and a basic door to help fill in some of the blank space. I don't think there is much else to say about this one.
Interesting statistic:
Currently, I have 21 things made for Smogon and a staggering 17 (80.95%) are Mono based :ghost:
I just thought it was worth sharing. Anyway, I hope everyone enjoys these and I'm always happy to hear what you guys think here or on Discord (Ticken#8967)!
It's been quite a bit since my last update D: I'll be transferring to a University in the near future so things may slow down... or they may not. Regardless, I have 3 pieces I am fairly happy with!
This was finished just about 2 months ago right before the New Year. TPP asked me to create something for their circuit and I was happy to help them out. For this Corviknight, I wanted a sharp look and it to look powerful. I was intrigued by the idea of using a color gradient as the background and it "holding" up the circuit banner. This project was fun and didn't take me too long since I was on break. The hardest part for me was just making the legs because it took me a while to get the right perspective for them.
Here's the next Monotype Seasonal banner in my series using a Sawsbuck statue. I was not completely sure what route I wanted to go with in the design but I ended up making random shapes, duplicating them like 15 times and rotating them around to resemble a flower with an intricate pattern. I was going to make regular bees but Moosical reminded me that about Combee so I made a quick faceless Combee and added a bit of honey because why not.
This is my most recently completed piece (finished 3 days ago) and I am happy with how it turned out. Eien requested a simplistic banner with the Draco brothers but I had an idea to tie them in with the machine found in-game and to give the two a little personality. The strangest part is Dracovish up in the air and the idea there was he is just now fusing together from the machine and his mouth is bubbling because he knows he'll be using Fishous Rend 90% of the time. I only ever saw walking Dracovish online when I was researching his design so I wanted to try something a bit different. As for Dracozolt, he cracked the wall while aiming for the machine. Thanks to Hustle Dracozolt misses a fair amount of time and is really strong so I felt it was fitting. I'll leave the rest of the details to everyone to find.
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Again, sorry for the late post and I hope you all enjoy!
I really like the 2020 OU Circuit banner, and it's a big step up from your previous works! You did a great job making it look accurately like Corviknight. The shading is precise, I like the gradients on the inside of its wings, and the extra feathers floating around it are a nice touch. I would, however, recommend you try curving the banner where it says "Circuit". I think that would work well with the curved "2020" text at the top of the logo, and would help frame Corviknight and the gradient behind it even better.
You're definitely getting better at drawing Pokemon in general, too. Keep at it! As long as university doesn't keep you too busy.
This is my first article that I directed and contributed about half the content for (read it if you are interested!) so I wanted to start off the article strong with some art. Decem had a great idea to base it around a blueprint and I really wanted to include Dragapult and Drakloak for two reasons: 1) Their synergy was the idea behind creating the article and 2) it gives off a parent + playful child relationship that's great to see together. The article goes over ideas about what cores have potential with the new DLC drops next week and later this year so having Dragapult in the sketching phase feels natural imo. I am happy with this overall considering it took me a few days to make, because I wanted to get it out before we started writing, and the process of making it was enjoyable from start to end. I'm still not too keen on Dragapult but that may just be my overcritical eye. One of my favorites regardless!
This is the Pokemon of the month art I did for Dharma's project r1 in around 14 hours total. I didn't know what to do exactly but I wanted to do something that looked cool so I came up with an idea of Gengar using both Sludge Wave and Shadow Ball at the same time. Originally, I wanted the other hand pointing at you but I couldn't get the perspective right and I ended up giving it a Mega Stone per Decem's request and added a Mega Gengar shadow in the background. Again, I am satisfied with how it came out but there are some things 'd probably change now that I am looking back at it a few weeks later.
And finally, here is the art for MPL VI! Moosical and I wanted to keep up the theme of using a pixie under a nighttime starry background and we chose Celebi for this year's whereas last year's was Jirachi. The inspiration was the Glimwood Tangle Forest and its glow in the dark mushrooms and Celebi creating a portal. There's not much else to add apart from that with Celebi reading the book, Hatenna visiting Celebi on top of the mushroom, and Celebi sitting on a grassy field. -- Few notes about the creation: Everything but the stars, grass, and text were made from vectors shapes. The stars and grass were both made using brushes. I tried to combine vector shape shading (Ex: Hatenna) and gradient shading (Ex: mushroom) in this piece and I added blurs to multiple shapes, particularly the portal and the shading behind the circle.
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That's all for this update, I hope everyone who read or gazed enjoyed what I made. Best wishes to everyone in these trying times, take care!
This is this year's banner for MLT. I edited the original one with different colors and I used the Gengar from the above post. I think this banner design is one of my better designs from last year that have held up with my current designs. Decem helped choose the Ghost theme with me and he gave me a great suggestion with the blue flames at the top. I did them a nice light blue to contrast against the background color well and added a few white highlights to help it pop. I probably should have made the "Monotype Ladder" font white to contrast better and repositioned the Gengar sprite / Leaderboard chart but I think this came out well. Monotype likes to keep with these so it's likely that next year will have a different type as well ^^
Russian Translation Project Banner (Idk if it's been posted yet)
This is my most recently finished banner per Alpha's request for the Russian Translation Project. The only specifics were an Ursaring with a fur hat and a star on it in the traditional colors. This banner was inspired by one of my HTML courses where we had to design a web page based on Russian Constructivism or Pop Art so I added a few elements of both; that was my first exposure to Russian designs. I have noticed that many vector artists love to add lots of curves and shading than I have done in the past so I wanted to try that out on this banner and I am happy with the result. I did a mix of shading on this design with both gradients and shapes and they seem to compliment each other well. This one looks pretty straightforward so I won't go into the details here but if you have any questions lmk on Discord!
-- Also this is my first banner where I designed it for both light and dark mode! (Sorry about the Celebi banner dark mode users!)
I have some more projects in mind and on currently underway so stay tuned!
This was a fun one and has a fairly simplistic design. For MPL specifically, torkool and I like the idea of using pixie Pokemon as the mascot for each year and year was Celebi! Aside from Celebi, I was unsure what direction to take it but as MPL is Monotype's most prestigious tour, I thought a celebration of the top 2 teams would be appropriate. I wanted to do something a little more outside the box and I always love doing night themed designs so I wanted to use the Bellagio Hotel as my inspiration with fireworks as the celebration and water shooting up.
As I created it, I thought it looked pretty cool on the sides without actually defining the building completely so I ditched the water idea and I think it turned out well? Figuring out the gradients of the building was the most time-consuming part so it looked cohesive, the letters did not disappear, and it was still easily recognizable. Stars were done with brushes as per usual and the fireworks were done with the distort and transform feature. This design exposed both the Distort and Transform feature and the width tool to me as I never used them before.
Also feel free to read the article! I contributed to various parts, personal exposure aside.
Here is the art I made for the Mono Isle of Armor review article. Originally I was not going to do this one because I was busy and I did not know what to do but while it was being GP'd I was struck with inspiration and I ended up having a blast with the design. For those who do not know, Monotype's mascot Pokemon is Mantyke and I thought it would be cute to have some Mantykes cosplaying as two of the most influential Pokemon we got from that DLC release. It also happened to be released around Halloween time, that was not planned at all, so it was a lucky coincidence :sweat_smile:. There is not too much to highlight when it comes to the process of making them because it is only vector shapes, a gradient, and some blurs.
If anyone wants to see my sketching or Decem 's favorite part, they are down below in the hide tag!
Sketches:
Sorry about this one being sideways ^^. I am just too lazy to edit it atm :grimacing:
Similar to the one above, I was struck with inspiration for this one a bit close to the due date. Thanks to Seo. for talking with me about the design and giving me feedback on it! The design is inspired by Zracknel's Grand Slam banner where it is a shield with large text. I put my own spin on it and I wanted to keep the color palette pretty neutral and blue focused so it and the snow pop out. I always wanted to make a banner as a gif but I never could effectively before and creating a gif makes the gradients so all wacky. Luckily the gradients are behaving themselves and I took Kalalokki's suggestion to use After Effects. I do not know how often I will use that because I have very limited experience, it looks scary, and my computer lagged for a good hour while saving and shutting it down. Regardless, I think it came out well and this is one of my few banners where I focused more on the text than the other stuff. In hindsight I would shade Aegislash, edit the clash to be more convincing, and address the border because it looks unfinished on the edges. Overall for this being my fire art banner gif, I am happy with the result.
Sorry for the extended responses, I just felt like talking today it seems. As always, thanks to my Mono friends for giving me feedback and putting up with my PM spams. Happy holidays everyone!
I came to the conclusion that me giving you some feedback was genuinely long overdo.
While I had definitely been keeping up with your art gallery here with each new update, I never really knew what to say, thinking that I might just end up recycling comments I had already left in the art galleries of Smogon artists that I consider my friends and, in one case, even more than a friend.
I'm by no means an artist myself, let a lone an art connoisseur.
I can hence only ever express what I like about people's individual art styles and skills, not so much why.
As an outsider, I don't feel like I can give any useful constructive cricitism or advice in terms of techniques.
Making banners, especially the animated gif ones, are undeniably your forté par excellence.
The Rainbow League banners, as well as the recent Monotype Winter Premier one, are definitely some of my favorite works from your répertoire.
We, as a community, can definitely consider ourselves lucky to have someone like you that decorates some of our core threads with these banners.
As an outsider, I can't even begin to imagine how long it takes to make some of these (especially with this level of quality). Well done.
I'm usually a man of many tongues and words, but I wanted to keep it concise this time around. It's a virtue after all, isn't it?
I won't give write-ups for each because I don't think there is much to say about them (and I made most of these months ago) but if anyone is curious about one of these lmk on Discord! Here are some older works before I went on my couple month hiatus and my most recent MWP III article art:
Quick logo for my Aunt's fantasy football team as her birthday present
A quick note: The bottom part here is pixelated because whenever she comes over we like to play some games of picross and I though that would be a cool design idea to include for here as a personal touch.
The design here may also not be completely understood so I can add some notes here as well. First off congrats to the Centiskorchers for upsetting the tour! I don't usually draw the mascot of the winning team because I am slow + lazy but I felt the urge to and I wanted to make a Mantyke-themed trophy so we can use it in future MWP article art for a similar theme. The trophy is meant to be covered in a thin layer of ice because MWP is Monotype's winter tournament and the water dripping down is from Centiskorch melting the ice. Hopefully that clears up any confusion with the ideas I had for this one!
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