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So another page of Catch me If You Can. Like said the fight is over... but we're not quite done with chapter 1. Not to much to say about that beyond that, so onto talking about the page itself. Man was this one tricky. Humans have always been one of those grey areas for me. I struggle with them quite a bit. I have gotten much, much better at them in recent years but it definitely still shows because Red is by far the most difficult thing for me to draw. Even more so than Mewtwo, who I've been told is hard to draw too but he's not much of a problem for me. I've said it before and I will say it again, I consider fan works to be an excellent learing device and used that as a perfect opportunity to learn to draw humans better. Anyway the fact Red is tricky for me to draw is a major reason why during the actual fights, Red himself pretty much vanishes from the page (well that and the focus isn't on him but I rarely put him in the background or anything). Most of the time, he only appeared during the fights when he specifically did something like throw a Pokeball. So while I learned to draw people, I would draw Mewtwo who wasn't human but had human like proportions and elements (arms, torso, etc). Well I feel I've gotten to the point where I can draw humans fairly well and now we will be seeing Red and other human characters much more frequently. So long story short, this is the first page that I really wanted to push Red in. We see him in multiple poses and angles and we also get to see some very different facial expressions on him too. Chapter 2 will focus heavily on human characters to push this even further.

Anyway enough about all that, Red's Journal:

Red's Journal: Pokemon Mortality
When I was younger, I used to believe Pokemon were immortal. They seemed to be able to take anything and be just fine. There's even legends about Pokemon like Mew who have existed since the beginning of time. Well along my journey, I discovered this was not true... well not entirely. Pokemon pull energy and life from the elements of nature, and as long as they can do so, they can essentially rejuvenate themselves from anything. Apparently there's two ways that this can be done. The first and the most straight forward is to pull energy from sources directly. For instance Electric types often find themselves hanging around Power plants because they can pull electricity from the plants and sustain themselves with ease. Fire types are usually at Volcanoes, Grass types are usually in forests, etc. It is possible to pull what they need from unrelated sources, like a Fire type can survive living in a snowy wasteland but it's more difficult. They essentially will absorb the energy they find there and there bodies will convert it over into the kind they need, though doing so means it will take energy to convert it so it's not as effective as it would be if they didn't have to do this.
The Second way is the more interesting one, at least it is to me. They are capable of drawing energy from battles. Nearly all Pokemon attacks also have the forces of nature behind them, Surf, Earthquake, Blizzard, Twister, Whirlpool, Hurricane, thunder, etc. Even attacks that don't seem to have elemental forces behind them do. For instance a Pokemon biting you doesn't really do anything but the move bite utilizes dark type energy and is completely different in that regard. When these attacks are used, it 'causes a sudden abundance of energy to be created right where they are. It does cost energy to perform these attacks, but the return they get from it is usually worth it, especially considering in battle, the other guy is doing the same thing so it takes less to create more so to speak. So in kind of a weird way, Pokemon battles actually can prolong a Pokemon's life. Though drawing them from sources has a bigger turn around for them then this method.
It may sound like this can be used to keep a Pokemon alive forever... but it doesn't work like that. It does however extend their lifespan considerably but like anything else, it's a system that can fail and over time it eventually will regardless of what you do. If they are unable to absorb energy or unable to get enough of it, then they will begin to die. The deadliest situation is to have an extended battle and have them faint during it. Typically this means they will get back very little of the energy they used during the fight and it also means that the conversion process will not work until they are revived. So if the energy they absorbed does not match their type, then it will take even longer for them to use it to sustain themselves. Since their lives are directly tied to this, it can be a very dangerous situation, which is why Pokemon battles usually don't take more than ten minutes and often involve switching around to other team members too. Luckily the Pokemon Center can be used to help deal with this because the way the machine in their works is it creates a synthetic version of this that works very similarly to the natural stuff. The Pokeball is also supposed to have a synthetic version of the energy... though I think the Pokeball only has enough to help stabilize them and it alone can't save them. Potions, revives, etc also are engineered with this in mind. Some berries can give a boost of this too. I am happy to say, none of my Pokemon have died, but I have had a few close calls.

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Description
So another page of Catch me If You Can. Like said the fight is over... but we're not quite done with chapter 1. Not to much to say about that beyond that, so onto talking about the page itself. Man was this one tricky. Humans have always been one of those grey areas for me. I struggle with them quite a bit. I have gotten much, much better at them in recent years but it definitely still shows because Red is by far the most difficult thing for me to draw. Even more so than Mewtwo, who I've been told is hard to draw too but he's not much of a problem for me. I've said it before and I will say it again, I consider fan works to be an excellent learing device and used that as a perfect opportunity to learn to draw humans better. Anyway the fact Red is tricky for me to draw is a major reason why during the actual fights, Red himself pretty much vanishes from the page (well that and the focus isn't on him but I rarely put him in the background or anything). Most of the time, he only appeared during the fights when he specifically did something like throw a Pokeball. So while I learned to draw people, I would draw Mewtwo who wasn't human but had human like proportions and elements (arms, torso, etc). Well I feel I've gotten to the point where I can draw humans fairly well and now we will be seeing Red and other human characters much more frequently. So long story short, this is the first page that I really wanted to push Red in. We see him in multiple poses and angles and we also get to see some very different facial expressions on him too. Chapter 2 will focus heavily on human characters to push this even further.

Anyway enough about all that, Red's Journal:

Red's Journal: Pokemon Mortality
When I was younger, I used to believe Pokemon were immortal. They seemed to be able to take anything and be just fine. There's even legends about Pokemon like Mew who have existed since the beginning of time. Well along my journey, I discovered this was not true... well not entirely. Pokemon pull energy and life from the elements of nature, and as long as they can do so, they can essentially rejuvenate themselves from anything. Apparently there's two ways that this can be done. The first and the most straight forward is to pull energy from sources directly. For instance Electric types often find themselves hanging around Power plants because they can pull electricity from the plants and sustain themselves with ease. Fire types are usually at Volcanoes, Grass types are usually in forests, etc. It is possible to pull what they need from unrelated sources, like a Fire type can survive living in a snowy wasteland but it's more difficult. They essentially will absorb the energy they find there and there bodies will convert it over into the kind they need, though doing so means it will take energy to convert it so it's not as effective as it would be if they didn't have to do this.
The Second way is the more interesting one, at least it is to me. They are capable of drawing energy from battles. Nearly all Pokemon attacks also have the forces of nature behind them, Surf, Earthquake, Blizzard, Twister, Whirlpool, Hurricane, thunder, etc. Even attacks that don't seem to have elemental forces behind them do. For instance a Pokemon biting you doesn't really do anything but the move bite utilizes dark type energy and is completely different in that regard. When these attacks are used, it 'causes a sudden abundance of energy to be created right where they are. It does cost energy to perform these attacks, but the return they get from it is usually worth it, especially considering in battle, the other guy is doing the same thing so it takes less to create more so to speak. So in kind of a weird way, Pokemon battles actually can prolong a Pokemon's life. Though drawing them from sources has a bigger turn around for them then this method.
It may sound like this can be used to keep a Pokemon alive forever... but it doesn't work like that. It does however extend their lifespan considerably but like anything else, it's a system that can fail and over time it eventually will regardless of what you do. If they are unable to absorb energy or unable to get enough of it, then they will begin to die. The deadliest situation is to have an extended battle and have them faint during it. Typically this means they will get back very little of the energy they used during the fight and it also means that the conversion process will not work until they are revived. So if the energy they absorbed does not match their type, then it will take even longer for them to use it to sustain themselves. Since their lives are directly tied to this, it can be a very dangerous situation, which is why Pokemon battles usually don't take more than ten minutes and often involve switching around to other team members too. Luckily the Pokemon Center can be used to help deal with this because the way the machine in their works is it creates a synthetic version of this that works very similarly to the natural stuff. The Pokeball is also supposed to have a synthetic version of the energy... though I think the Pokeball only has enough to help stabilize them and it alone can't save them. Potions, revives, etc also are engineered with this in mind. Some berries can give a boost of this too. I am happy to say, none of my Pokemon have died, but I have had a few close calls.

Next part: , Previous part: , First part: