And so it ends. . . for now.

In Conclusion

It has been a great experience doing this countdown, and besides some weaker offerings here and there, I think it was very successful. I was able to accomplish my goal of completing a color illustration everyday for 151 days in a row. I lost a lot of sleep, but I think it was worth it.

I think my drawing skill have improved a little, but mostly my tolerance for stress has increased. I feel like I'm better able to budget time and stick to a schedule. I'm hoping to translate that to other personal projects, so watch out for those very soon. (I've been feeling terribly unproductive ever since I finished)

I'm going to be concluding this blog but watch my deviantArt account for more artwork, and keep an eye on my new blog Game Over Eater for my next major personal project.

Thanks again to all the wonderful people who've been following!

But what about the game!

Oh yeah. So the whole point of this has been to celebrate the release of Pokemon Omega Ruby and Alpha Saphire, so I figured that I should give my thoughts on the game itself.

To be honest, I'm not very far into the game. I've only got 3 badges right now, and I'll tell you why: Dex Nav.  This new feature is insane! I'm spending so much time scouring every route, not just for every Pokemon, but for versions of each Pokemon with all the special attacks they might have. (So many Skitties!)

I feel in the back of my mind that I shouldn't be doing this, because it's just going to make the game even easier (Taillow with Boomburst?!?), but I'm trying to really role-play this game and behave like I would if I were really there. I'm trying to experience it one step at a time instead of thinking about all the epic stuff I know is coming at the end (both in the story and in the post-game).

My only complaint about the game is the same old one you always hear: It's too easy. It doesn't hand hold you as much as XY, but I've still be breezing through all these gyms even with type disadvantaged Pokemon. I know to leave Exp. Share off this time, but it still seems unbalanced.
I don't know much about the post game (no spoilers), but hopefully there's something challenging there.

Again, thanks for reading, and have fun!

1 day left!
And so we reach the day we've all been waiting for. It's been tough, but rewarding. I would love to talk about all the things I've learned and where my weaknesses still lie, but I'll save it for a journal post on my deviantArt page: enigmaberry.deviantart.com
Now I'm going to a midnight release!

2 days left!
Mewtwo is interesting. We all perceived him as so cool and bad ass, even though he's kind of silly looking. It all comes down to attitude. He has those intense eyes, and his giant hips gives him a posture that makes him look very confident. Lucario has the same thing.

3 days left!
Not as good as yesterday, but could still be a potential start of a decent painting. If I revise this one I'm going to re think the coloring strategy on Dragonite. I started doing details too soon and it just came out kind of muddy.

Dragonite's design is a bizarre departure from the other two. There's some design elements in common in the face shape, but other than that, he looks like he from a whole other genre of game.
Not to mention the color change.

4 Days left!
This one is much better than yesterday's. It needs more rendering, but it's a good start to a painting.

Dragonair is a very elegant evolution of Dratini. Each design element becomes just a little more elaborate.

5 days left!
This is what happens when you start a painting without any research or reference. I'm going to try a similar scene with Dragonair tomorrow and we'll see if I can do better.

6 days left!
This one is definitely better than yesterday. Still not stellar, but definitely better.
It's strange that Moltres is so similar to Ho-o, especially since they clearly had Ho-oh conceived of pretty early for it to be in the first episode of the anime. I would say I prefer Ho-oh because its design  is a bit more sophisticated and it has a better back story. The Kanto birds never got a lot of lore in the games. That second movie doesn't count.

7 days left!
Last week! I think this is a little better than yesterday, but not much.

Zapdos' wings are very strange, and I never noticed his grey thigh tufts. I wonder why they didn't just go with black for those.

8 days left!
The drawing is somewhat weaker on this one, but the main issue I'm seeing now is that the figure doesn't stand out from the BG enough.

I think Articuno was my favorite of the legendary birds. I think it was just because I like the concept of ice-type Pokemon, and Articuno was the coolest and the best ice-type in Gen 1. There were plenty of other cool fire and electric Pokemon.

9 days left!
Finally another funny one. The color is unimpressive though. This would work better if I redid the color and put in a simple storybook style background. Revision phase is coming up soon!
I'm surprised Snorlax comes this late in the Pokedex, I know it's technically very rare in the game, but it's between the fossils and the legendaries. That seems strange.

10 days left!
Even though he's a scary rock dragon, Aerodactly is kind of goofy looking. Rock/Flying is interesting typing. I always wondered if all the fossil Pokemon's rock typing is actually a by product of the fossilization/revival process and doesn't represent their original biology.
I thought  this one looked good with just the flat color, but I think I might go in and shade it if I do a revision.

11 days left!
I remember really liking Kabutops as a kid. I've never really used him much in the game but he has cool sword hands just like Syther.
This one turned out pretty bad. The drawing was good, but I really dislike the inking. When I do revisions I think I'll just re-ink and color this one.

12 days left!
Kabuto is interesting in how uninteresting it is. It's such a basic shape, and doesn't have any sense of intelligence or personality in it's eyes. It's still cool and kind of cute though.
This drawing is full of little mistakes, but I'm going to call it good enough for the night.

13 days left!
This one is more like a color comp than a proper painting. I might come back to this one and just keep going on it.
It's interesting to me that Omastar really isn't that different from Omanyte, especially when you compare Kabuto and Kabutops. At first glance you could mistake one for the other. Definitely one of the subtler changes.

Now, this seems like the most appropriate chance to talk Twitch Plays Pokemon. This might seem like hyperbole but I think:

Twitch Plays Pokemon is the most interesting and important thing that has ever happened.

It needs to be studied extensively by anthropologists because it's a microcosm of all of human history. A bunch of random nonsense happens, and our human brains impose a post-hoc narrative upon it. We create religions to explain and give meaning to events, we divide into factions and turn on each other, and we constantly ride the swinging pendulum between wanting society to impose a collective will (democracy) and wanting have individual freedom and let the chips fall where they may (Anarchy). Bloody Sunday was WWI and getting Zapdos was WWII.