Listen, I don't pick favorites, you guys; sheesh. quit being silly; I wouldn't pick a favorite among the Eeveelutions. That being said... gun to my head...
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I'd probably pick Flareon because I feel like nobody picks Flareon as their #1 favorite and I'm a big underdog guy! Um, but Sylveon has a lot going on right with their design, the ribbons add a lot of appeal to the designs. It's very appropriate for such a feelings based pokemon to have an extra pairs of wavy, unintimidating limbs. I really like them!
Really like how this one turned out. Maybe that makes me sound like a broken clock cuz I feel like I've said that a lot about my recent stuff, I guess that's a good sign, lol. It didn't really turn out looking like what I initially envisioned when I started, but I'm not complaining, it did help to have that initial idea.
Thoughts I had in the process of making this:
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Tentative design idea: I think I want Sylveon to be bounding joyfully forward. The ribbons, hmm, the one's on the ear maybe are going to be in an open position while the neck ribbons flow a little more freeform; like Suicune's butt ribbons (are they supposed to be tails?). I think the body should be positioned more forwards, with the body taking up less space to make room for the ribbons. I guess it's not the end of the world if the ribbons breach the 48x48 box, but I think it's very charming how many of the gen 1 sprites are just bursting to get out of their boxes. Unlike the other Eeveelutions whose mouths can be often obscured, Sylveon is unambiguously joyful.
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I guess from a ecological perspective, that joyful expression might be part of their hunting practice of disarming prey; though like with real creatures it likely serves a social purpose as well. I'd like to imagine there are at least two worlds contained in main series pokemon: one where Sylveon can be an apex predator and another where pokemon are silly little guys. I guess this dichotomy is true in real life in some ways.
/// Bit of a warning: this section gets a bit venty. ///
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Like, a few years ago now, I started following everybody Twitter's formula reccommended to me with a eeveelution profile pic, particularly Sylveon was one that was most often reccommended. I had before that recently dropped out of college because of a bad roommate and other social difficulties; and then the pandemic started and my vague societal optimism crumbled even more; I dropped out of college (again, hhhhhhhhh, but don't worry I graduated once between three institutions, boring degree tho); uhm, other delusional thing I was possessed by that I'm not gonna talk about here. My preexisting social difficulties just got so much worse as a result and they weren't good for so many reasons beforehand either.
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Anyway, I can't quite remember my exact reasoning for following all these eeveelution accounts, I think maybe cuz I've prior surrounded myself with a lot of negative voices that I felt very disconnected to at that vulnerable moment that I just semiconsciously set out to surround myself with funny talkin' cats on the internet :3. Maybe some weird sense of envy, idk.
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Oh, this is just a couple poorly written paragraphs that don't really explain everything, I have a library of thoughts and feelings though that I can't really think of how to say and probably would be too much info anyhow. I guess I'll save the soliloquy for a therapist (absolutely working up the nerve repeating this).
/// vent-ish writing over ///
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The head is currently about the same size as the other ones I've drawn, but I'm having so much trouble fitting in all their facial features. I think I ought to just make it a little bit bigger... no... might be able to clutch it out and I want all that space for other things.
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Omg, one of the images that comes up on image search links to a blogspot with the only article being "Top 5 Reasons Sylveon is NOT Trans." Like, I think it depends on the Sylveon? Also, my uncle used to work on arcade cabinets so he knows Shigeru Miyamoto personally and he said that when he asked, Miyamoto-san told him Sylveon is "hella trans" and "stop asking such stupid questions, dude."
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The head looks pretty good now, I might tweak it a bit later; I also might make some adjustments to the head. I'm not sure about the eyes; they look accurate, but I feel like something doesn't feel right regardless.
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I think I could take the body I drew for Espeon, squash and adjust it a bit so it looks more angled to how I want it, and it just might work.
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Oh yeah, it works. I don't think I'm gonna have to give the body as harsh of an angle as I thought I was gonna, there's plenty of room to get the tail and ears and ribbons and legs all in there I think. I'll probably do the tail next as it's relatively easy and it'll help me to stop forgetting the pose of the legs somehow, idk how that works but it will :) I kinda like the angle I originally imagined though, but that's not how this drawing is trending so far. Another time, perhaps.
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I don't really like how the espeon-based body looks anymore, so I think I'm gonna start from scratch.
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Sometimes I forget these notes and thoughts I write aren't live until the finished art is live and I imagine the entire scope of reactions. Realistically there's like 10~20 tops unique likes between here and tumblr and maybe a comment or two; maybe. Nevertheless, I'll simulate comment sections of online people and personalities; family members; whatever original character of mine I've been focused on lately; random people in my hometown; vague archetypes of people that don't really exist. Idk the mental healthiness of thinking like that or to what degree "'normal' people" do that. I guess I'm not too concerned.
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Nvm, I just needed to adjust the body a bit more and now it's angle looks much better. There are also thousands of pictures of bunnies in the approximate pose I want.
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The body is done, they look good! Maybe they've got a head a bit too big for the body; hffffff, I don't know how I didn't see this coming before I finished the body! It's fine, it's cool, it's good even; let's move on to the feelers.
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Ok, I've outlined where the ribbons go. I think it does distract from how big the head is, I'm happy about that. Might be a bit hard to get the coloring right; I've got a couple ideas:
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I was gonna write them down, but I already got it lol.