POKEMON: My Original Thumbnails & Mini Size-Chart From 1999!

Yesterday, while going through my archives, I found a sheet of Pokemon thumbnails and a mini size chart I made back in 1999. The Pokemon guide book they gave me had size charts that went several pages (back then they only had 150 Pokemons or so), and it was just easier to make my own quick hand-made size chart of the characters I had to specifically draw at the time. 

All this was done just for me and I only had to send out the final art roughs. Some prelims they may want to see but that was rare back then. Nowadays, the suits like to see every aspect to justify their jobs.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, POKEMON! Today marks the 30th Anniversary!

 

 

Pokemon turns 30 years old today and is still going strong! Here's some old sketches I had kept that were done back when I did some work on it in 1999. I would do sketches as warm-ups and they were drawn on cheap copy paper. Like many of my sketches, I would save the better ones and sell them at conventions that I attended.

 

 

Celebrating Pokémon Day with this small tribute!

July 21, 1999 - That was the day that I started work on a thing called Pokémon for Golden Books. I had no idea what it was. I didn't do an audition for it either. In hindsight, I guess they were in a real big hurry to get some American product out there as it was blowing up. Pokémon was one of the first major licenses that I worked on over 25 years ago! There was only 150 of them as I recall back then. I still have the Pokémon model sheets that they mailed me back in '99! Pre-internet, kids!

I didn't do much for it though (only three projects, but they were fun to do!) as I was soon asked to do an art audition for Scooby-Doo in the fall of '99, and that completely changed my life and career.  

Today is Pokémon Day (2/27/2025) and the Pokémon Company believes it can last another 50 to 100 years. I would have to agree! It's got a solid, entertaining concept and you can go a long way with solid, entertaining concept.

 

POKEMON! My first cartoon license!

I had done work on back on Pokemon back in 1999. It was my first real cartoon license though I had drawn Star Wars and the Green Hornet material in the early and mid 90's, but they were drawn more realistically since the licensed required it. I did an audition test for Pokemon in early spring and got approved, and from that got a good amount of work that year drawing Ash and company and the 150 Pokemon characters (there was only 150 at the time and the following years it went up to 300 characters!).

It was fast and fun work overall. The characters were relatively easy to draw in a timely manner, so much so that if I had a week deadline starting say on a Monday morning, I'd be done it all on by Wednesday morning, which in turn got me more work to pump out. They always stick with reliable artists who can do the job fast and with little or no corrections. This was also a time when I was adament about getting my name on as much stuff as an artist as I could. You need that credit line as a commercial artist to then move ahead and get other work. It certainly helps. I didn't get my name on everything but any books that came out I always got an art credit line in the first printings of the stuff. Second or third printing are sometimes hit or miss.

In September of 1999, I was asked to do an audition test for Scooby-Doo. I was approved in mid-October, and started working on Scooby on November 21 and the rest is history...it will be nine full years of Scooby this November 21st! Zoinks! Scooby's been good to me!

During this time in '99, I was also working at the Franklin Mint in the art department doing conceptual design for statues, sculptures, knives, figures, etc and I remember doing my Pokemon audition during my lunch hour there in my cubicle. I also did my Scooby audition there as well. At the time they didn't give me any real reference for Scooby, or Pokemon either for that matter. I must have had the right sensibilities or something that allowed me to get it really close to what they wanted because they hired me. I beat out quite a few artists to get Scooby. Soon after I was approved, then I would get tons of reference, which I've accumulated over the years. It was great at the time to have these opportunities because the Mint was having money and corporate control issues and they were laying off people left and right. I sensed a change in the place and left before I probably would have been laid off and went back to work in my home studio and worked right through the next two years on Pokemon and Scooby. I was offered even more Pokemon work in 2000 but declined because I was so deep in Scooby work with three big Scooby projects going at one time! 2000 remains my most favorite year of my life creatively and financially. It was Scooby all day, all night!

At any rate, here's some Pokemon sketches from 1999/2000 that I did for stuff. They're just more prelims. I even drew on crappy copy paper or cheap kids sketchpads back then too! The last Pokemon thing I drew was a 60-page "How To Draw Pokemon" book, which never did get published as they pulled it and I got my kill fee for it. I still have the approved rough version of it.

Pokemon died out as a fad in 2000/2001 and the kids had moved onto Digimon. I guess they sensed it too at a corporate level...but look at it now! It's 2008 and Pokemon is back and the kids love it again! I see how much interest there still is for it when I go to speak at schools and do my 'speak and sketch' demos. Enjoy!