Behind the Scenes - Ellianna

So when replacing the Male members of the Hoenn League, I thought it would be fun to include some original characters instead of bringing in characters from other games. Here's a little bit of background info for how I went about designing them!

Ellianna was the first Gym Leader I designed. It was interesting and kinda weird, creating a character from scratch, I really didnt know where to begin. The Name Ellianna isn't really a reference to anything, just a name I was fond of. When I first sat down and started to design her, I wasnt quite sure which leader I was going to have her replace, which in turn makes her look rather generic in comparison to the other leaders, but I still quite like how she turned out.

 I didn't want to change TOO much, so after deciding to have her replace Brawly, I decided right away that she would still be a Fighting-type trainer, and use the same party as Brawly (This helped with balancing as well). I kept up this decision with the other custom gym leaders as well.

As for her design itself, I kind of created it as I went along, seeing as I didnt have anything in particular in mind. I ended up making her legs rather lean, just like most of the Fighter-Class trainers. The rope was kind of thrown on there before I decided to have her replace Brawly, but as it would look weird for her to be holding a dumbbell or something in that position, I chose to keep it.

In making a nude patch, you really dont change the design much, just remove the clothing and draw what would be underneath. However when creating a character from scratch, I learned that my designs looked rather plain without clothing, so I added the scarf and tattoo as a sort of stylish flair. These "Flairs" were easier to make for the other characters as I had a general idea in mind before starting to sprite them.

Anyways that's all for now, I'll talk about my inspiration for the other characters in future posts!