Artist's commentary
Crown of Leaves
Sawsbuck for "Draw Every Pokemon".
I'm so glad to have this finally done. Thank you for everyone who was in that long livestream keeping me motivated to work on this picture.
I really like Sawsbuck, well, I like deer in general but I think the whole idea of a seasonal Pokemon is really neat. And inspiring, too.
Here's a short biological explanation about Sawsbuck's typing and how Sawsbuck sprouts vegetation.
It is uncertain how Sawsbuck became part-normal-part-grass. It can be assumed that Sawsbuck and Deerling didn't have their Grass typing at first and were pure normal types. There are several hypothesis that could explain the gaining of grass typing, one of them being drastic changes in the Pokemon's natural habitat or Sawsbuck adapting to its environment a lot better than most Pokemon.
It is also possible that some sort of parasite took over Sawsbuck and changed it into a part grass type. Over time the parasite started living in a symbiosis with Sawsbuck and later became a part of Sawsbuck so that it is no longer correct to speak about two symbiotic forms of life. The evolution of Sawsbuck as a grass-normal type can be compared to a virus that takes over a body but the body develops an immunity to the virus and eventually all the negative effects are gone, leaving only the good ones. Much like Pokerus does.
Either way Sawsbuck gained plant like qualities like the ability of absorbing sunlight and nutrients like plants do. This has also changed Sawsbuck's physiology. Sawsbuck's appearance changes according to the four seasons. In summer Sawsbuck's fur is much more softer and healthy looking while in winter Sawsbuck's fur is rough and resembles dead grass. The most bizarre characteristic about Sawsbuck are it's prongs that are almost like tree branches. The older the Sawsbuck is, the bigger it's branch-prongs are. With the sunlight and the nutrients Sawsbuck can absorb, it grows branches that have leaves, just like actual trees. The leaves vary according to Sawsbuck's natural habitat - in south the leaves are big while in north they are smaller and it's believed there might be a special sub-species of Sawsbuck that sprouts needles instead of leaves. Sawsbuck is also able to photosynthesize with the leaves in summer. The leaves will die in autumn and sprout again in spring. Sawsbuck's dual typing makes it possible for Sawsbuck to be active and healthy even when it's not able to photosynthesize. However, Sawsbuck's grass type moves are much stronger in summer than in winter.
I tried a new technique in colouring this. First I did the grayscale painting and then laid the colours. I have still a lot to learn about that technique but it was refreshing.
I hope you like it!
Media Photoshop CS2 | Wacom Intuos4 M
Time taken ~10 hours
Sawsbuck c Nintendo Gamefreak
Art c *ShadeofShinon