Written by Sukhbir Cheema
With the next instalment in the well received Pokemon franchise is set to hit game stores on November 18, this year, it appears the Poke-virus has already infected some fans.
The Pokemon series is famous for its cute and at times pretty cool creatures who undergo trans-formative evolution – typically in three stages.
Following that spirit, Malaysian architect and artist Munif Abdul Malek, has been churning out his own Pokemon evolutions.
Munif has created evolution line for famous characters such as Doraemon, Elmo, Roadrunner, Mickey Mouse and even Najib!
“Honestly speaking, I lost track after the first 300 or so Pokemons. But my love for the original series never left,” the 29-year-old says to Eksentrika via Facebook.
Starting out this project more than a week ago during Inktober, Munif explains that the idea came to him through a random thought.
“I just had a random thought about how comic book movies these days like to take the gritty approach when bringing a character on to the big screen. I thought “What about characters that are so cartoonish, it would be ridiculous to gritti-fy them? How would I approach the redesigning process of said character? Something like Doraemon maybe?””
Ever ready to put his thought to paper, Munif began crafting out his design, starting out with Doraemon first.
Now 11 artworks on, Munif typically comes up with a few drafts for the character designs on a single paper.
He explains that when he looks at his work as a whole, it seems as though each version morphs into the other.
This, he says, is a prominent feature in the Pokemon franchise’s famous Pokedex – a hand-held digital Pokemon encyclopedia of sorts.
After making public of his Doraemon piece, Munif began receiving suggestions from various people – mostly his Facebook friends – on which popular culture icon or cartoon/game character to evolve.
“I would then merge an icon and a Pokemon roughly compatible in both scheme and proportions to begin designing a whole new entity.”
Using Artline drawing pen, Munif began his work, regularly switching between the 0.1, 0.3 and 0.6 sized nibs. Once he has drawn the characters traditionally, he scans and colors them on Adobe Photoshop.
On average, it takes Munif about two-solid-hours from draft to finish.
Right now, Munif says he has been obsessed with this project of his, revealing that he has been having a ball constructing and deconstructing the iconic characters.
“Constructing and deconstructing iconic characters challenges me in a very fun way. The satisfaction I get when pulling one off is precisely the reason I’ll keep doing this for a while more.”
Though he has unofficially named his evolved characters or even their typings, he plans on giving them official names and types once he compiles everything in the future.
Most Pokemaniacs would point out the fact that there are some Pokemon which require specific items to evolve.
For example, Pikachu requires a Thunder Stone to evolve to Raichu. It cannot evolve via the standard level-up method.
Munif says his future pieces would include such evolutionary forms.
Even Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak did not escape his drawing pen!
Drawing the scandal beleaguered politician as a pile of money – Jibbillion – which then evolves to Jibby, Munif takes a poke shot at the recent slash on cooking oil subsidies and increase in petrol price by drawing the lawmaker’s final evolution covered fully in petrol – naming it Petrojib.
The only thing that remains constant in all three forms is the songkok, spectacle and tie.
When quizzed what type of Pokemon would Najib be, Munif quips; “Poison. Hands down.”
To keep up to date with Munif’s quirky Pokemon evolution, follow the artist on Instagram. Enjoyed this story? Check this out!
This artist morphs Pokemon into Kaijin – names them Po-Kaijin
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