Rattatas in love

October 30th, 2007
Photoshop and drawingtablet

Aaawww... Rattata's in love!
Well, you probably already knew how I like to draw Rattata: extra furry and extra cute.
I drew a male and a female, (let's just call them Nami and Jaws again), and I drew the male with slightly darker fur than the female. I've also altered their body proportions a bit. Rattata is actually supposed to have a slightly bigger head, compared to the rest of the body. Normally you'd make the head larger, to make Pokémon look cuter, but I don't like the chibifying effect this can give. Personally, I think this current picture is much cuter than a chibi could ever look. But that's just my personal opinion.
This is also the first picture for which I used Photoshop brushes to add the background textures. As you may, or may not know, I just upgraded to Photoshop 9.0 (I used to have 5.0) and the newer version literary has hundreds of added functions. For instance, it has tons of different brushes to use. I used a sponge-like brush to paint texture on the rock and a very convenient brush shaped like grass to... well, paint the grass.
While I was drawing the background (in record-time, I might add), I couldn't help but feel as if I was cheating somehow. Up until now I had to draw all these things myself, without the help of fancy digital tools. I was actually rather proud of that too. I still don't use these fancy new brushes for my comics, but maybe I should. I once said that the Photoshop-function used to add a sun was simply a tool, and that there was no reason not to use it.
I guess the same holds true for these nifty brushes.