new places new places new places

me, earlier: I'm going to suffer over this most elaborate panel ever that I put at the very end of this page
me, later: suffers
me: :0

Okay but I still really like how all the environments here turned out, even if I didn't have it in me to render them in more detail, and dry grass surprisingly is 100 times harder to paint than green grass asjfgdlkas
It's so nice to make actual progress on the journey, I get to design all these places and I'm having a blast! It's also been ages since I did one of those maps to get a sense of where we are in the region, and it wasn't that terrible. Sticking with the style used in Pg. 22, which fortunately isn't very detailed, so it's no problem that I didn't know exactly yet what the next areas would look like. :'D

• I'm glad more of Sara's real personality is coming through now that she isn't weighed down by the Big Secret anymore. Now Sara, Pilot and Terry can unleash their scrappy bastard energy together


• Jaeru Plains just looks like a normal grass Route with normal trees in-game, but the name inspired me to do something different. :V


• And this is .... actually..... the route where the Shorts Cult is in-game, I really don't know how I mixed that up, but maybe it's for the better that they don't have Arcanine-level powerful Pokémon in-story. Yes the trainers start to have a lot of really interesting Pokémon around here!


• I can't believe the Nathan's Tail is Full of Secrets and Also He's a Hoarder thing from the April Fool's comic is canon now. I blame everyone for not stopping me, but I also didn't tell anyone about this beforehand, so you didn't really have a chance. Well, you just find the Itemfinder lying on the ground there, and I apparently thought that was funny enough to warrant a big appearance like this.


• Fun fact: I spent a long time finding out what Pilot's favourite berry is according to his nature. Berry flavours are just as complicated as I remembered them and there are also differences between Gen 3 and 4. But! I'm absolutely sure Pinap Berries are his favourite!


• Benny and Ira are having A Moment over the sky! Ira grew up in a cave and Benny is from a patch of grass enclosed by that cave, so they haven't seen much of the sky so far in their lives.


• Team Rocket's warehouse appears for the first time, but not the last time. Things will be going down here much later.... eyes emoji


• Finally an exciting catch. ;v; I really love Donna's name. Firstly, it's a nice name, and secondly it's a pun on Donner, the German word for thunder. ;D


• Botan City is a city close to nature, on the edge of the big and scary Haunted Forest. Another interesting feature is the Train Station, even though you can't ride a train there in the game. I gave them a cool railroad bridge here. Not pictured is the lake in the south of the city. Maybe later. There's also a Game Corner run by the family of the 6th Gym Leader which can only be accessed later with Surf.

Next time: Anyone remember Sam the Rival? It's been 3000 years, but he will be there. ;u;

The backgrounds really are exceptional on this page! I especially love the mountains.

As a backlogged reader: I really hope a bunch of shit flies out everywhere from Nathan's tail when he evolves >u<