#design thoughts

backside of the paper, aka where i put all of the miscellaneous references.

yes, this entire 2-sided drawing was made out of spite because none of the NPCs dress up, and the player is given the option to wear... a rather ugly Wallpaper Textured Suit. the characters even talk about how the rival not dressing up is a problem... even though some of them are just (or more) as off-theme as the rival anyway.

I get that giving almost all major characters a second outfit for a few scenes is probably not a priority for GameFreak, but alas the suspension of disbelief is just not disbelieving. this is not meant to hate, this is just a fashion nerd voicing a minor nitpick.

will yap a ton about imagined construction and stuff for these outfits because fashion fixation, even though I have no intention of making either.

starting with Canari's outfit. things I noted from her regular outfit are that she seems rather comfortable showing skin and that her design is very asymmetry heavy.

additionally, a nitpick I found with Canari's regular outfit while designing this is that due to her keystone being mounted on the zipper of her tube top, she has to wear that tube top for any Pokémon battle where she intends to use Mega Evolution. as keystones are implied to be rare, I'm assuming that she doesn't have another one, and I just don't want to think about the logistics of if she can take the keystone out. I get that this is a fictional character with one outfit design, but she's got to be experiencing consequences in-universe for attaching her keystone to a piece of clothing that needs to be washed instead of an accessory she can wear all the time.

so, i present to you: dress designed to go around that tube top and her keystone.

because she has the tube top underneath for coverage anyway, I chose to make her dress bodice entirely sheer to maintain the shape of the tube top and keep the shapes somewhat similar to her regular outfit. I'm envisioning it as golden and glittery. The only opaque part is that approximately triangle-shaped patch of lace detailing in the middle of the neckline, which I put there to cover the zipper. the random little zipper in the middle of her fancy dress just felt so weird. anyway, the neckline of the dress bodice is intended to align with the neckline of her tube top so her zipper charm with the keystone can be pulled out to rest on top of the dress bodice. the dress bodice closes on the back somehow. I didn't bother to put thought into that. there's many ways it could work and it doesn't matter which one it is because it's not really visible anyway.

compared to her fitted top, Canari's jacket and pants are very baggy in her regular outfit. as a result, I decided to go for Floof in her sleeves and skirt. they're just layers and layers of yellow ruffles, probably made of tulle or something similar. enough layers to be basically opaque. I used the yellow ruffles for her glove cuffs as well, though I didn't find a way to draw them consistently on a smaller scale. I'm not sure what colour I want the glove body to be, but it's between white or greyblue.

speaking of greyblue. I've decided to limit the greyblue from Canari's regular outfit to her choker and heels, so that the brighter, attention-grabbing electric yellow can be the main colour.

sometime in the design process, I decided that the floof of her dress could also be considered a reference to the electric type pompom oricorio. and considering real world concepts for celebrity red carpet looks, exotic floof bird (as oricorio isn't available in ZA iirc) is probably on the mild side.

as Canari's regular pants are asymmetric, with a lightning bolt on on one leg, I decided to use the ribbon with dots (probably a gold ribbon with white pearl dots) trim motif to make a lightning bolt shape out of wrapped ribbons on one of her legs. I don't envision coloured leggings for this outfit. I do think Sabrina Carpenter style shiny jazz tights would go well with it though. ignore that the lightning bolt is on the opposite side as the one in her regular pants, I wasn't that attentive to references.

and while yes, I know this is for a tournament with Pokémon battling involved, I feel like Canari would treat it as more of a networking opportunity. show up and look memorable. as she's the F Rank promotion match, i think she'd know that she's good but not Jacinthe level good, and therefore doesn't have great chances of winning the tournament as a whole. so yes I decided it would be ok to give her heels. (plus Jacinthe's normal outfit has heels anyway.) Canari also gives me the vibes to be the kind of person who only owns sneakers and other comfy shoes, no formal shoes, so she kinda has to dig around for something to go with her fancy dress. she ends up finding this one pair of heels that probably used to belong to her mom and happens to fits her. (Canari's parents are like, highly implied to be dead, right?)

I switched her pigtails into buns because I thought it looked a bit more cleaned-up and formal.

I kept Canari's body type kinda generic slim and feminine. as a female gaming streamer, she'll have motivation from critics to be conventionally attractive but not to exercise for strength, especially with her shut-in lifestyle. I put similarly little thought into her facial features, just keep it someone close to canon. for some reason the drawing looks like LISA of BLACKPINK to me though, which is just random. it's probably the blunt bangs.

anyway, onto Gwynn.

when it comes to purely physical features, Canari is very feminine, but I chose to make Gwynn a bit more masculine. her face is a bit more square, she's less "hourglass shaped" and she's a bit more muscular. after all, she's Ivor's sister, so she probably has a bit more genetic disposition to building muscle, and while she may be an introverted, withdrawn, and reclusive ghost-type specialist, she needs some strength to keep up with living in the dojo and dealing with Ivor.

however, style-wise, Gwynn is definitely very feminine.

and with her heavy chandelure theming, including the chandelure hat she cannot ditch due to it containing her keystone, I decided to go with a more old-timey European inspired dress. I figure a ghost-type user would prefer more "antique" clothing associated with history and historical figures who're now dead.

somehow, that turned into "ghost of Marie Antoinette". i guess, what better choice of feminine style icon who's now long dead for a character in Poké-France.

a lot of typical takes I see on this concept are for a headless ghost, but I went for the opposite of physical head, ghostly body. so everything neck down is covered by a dark purple bodysuit. I envisioned it as like stocking textured, so a little bit sheer, but because the colour's relatively dark, it'll appear relatively covered.

I also gave her a neck ribbon to cover up the bodysuit's collar. initially I wanted to go for a bow like her regular outfit's necktie, but it looked a bit silly, so I settled on a flat choker necktie.

due to my historical fashion fixation, i have lots to nerd out about with the dress. the silhouette is basically just that of period dresses, except cut a tiny bit shorter to not drag on the ground, both for movement and because Pokémon battles are likely at least a little bit messy. either way, the Queen Marie Antoinette style "robe a la francaise" with the big wide skirt is very feminizing without requiring natural curves. i also drew on knowledge of period clothing for the sleeve shape.

this is where my knowledge of terminology falls short, but the "robe a la francaise" dresses have this big clump of pleats on the back. i can't remember why it's like that but it is, so I kept that in. hence the need for a "back of Gwynn's dress" reference.

I decided to make the overdress primarily white to match the colour blocking to Gwynn's regular outfit. for details, the clasps on the bodice are the same as the small buckle on the hanging side part of her belt. I don't know if I want the thread between the clasps to be purple or black, but it will be one of those.

I actually had some trouble "decorating" the dress because while period dresses tended to have tons of detail, while I felt like the typical ruffles, bows, and flowers might "overload" on detail for both my relatively simple artstyle and Pokémon character designs in general. I ended up choosing a fire motif to reference chandelure's dual typing. this helpfully coloured large swaths of the dress purple and reduced the amount of the blank white areas. I envision the parts in the purple fire sections to be sequined while the white parts are relatively matte, so that they reflect light more and look glowy. (especially in that weirdly dim Hotel Richissime ballroom.)

since the overdress is white, I decided to avoid period white petticoats. it felt like Gwynn needed a bit more edginess or goth vibes, so I went for a cage skirt or exposed petticoat in the middle part of the dress. plus a black cage skirt would work very well with the chandelure theme.

her inner bodice is just a generic corset shape I put together, referencing her hat for the upper portion and being a dark purple panel in the lower portion to balance out the colour blocking. now, in the reference for the underlayer, I put six dots on the bodice where the clasps are on the overdress. period dresses from Marie Antoinette's time were held together by pins, with the overdress pinned to the bodice underneath. but modern people aren't used to wearing clothing with pins in it, so I intend for the clasps to be magnets which could hold the overdress on. (hopefully, I'm not going to debate the logistics, as the overdress can get quite heavy.)

I liked Gwynn's chunky Mary Janes from her regular outfit too much to change them. plus, they fit with the fancy outfit, unlike Canari who's wearing white sneakers in her regular outfit.

also, drawing a cage skirt is annoying, so i didn't really have the motivation to change her shoes.

Gwynn's hair is unchanged because it's too short to style and the chandelure hat would probably get in the way.

I did notice when I finished that Canari and Gwynn have the same necklace type, and tried changing Canari's. but it looked weird, so choker with a lightning bolt it is.

might do a digital redraw/colouring someday. one last headcanon bit before I end this, though:

in this AU where Canari and the other NPCs get fancy outfits, I think it'd be really funny if Canari was a fan of Naveen as a fashion designer. after all, the boutique owner's heard of him, so surely some others have as well. I'd imagine a week or two before the Jacinthe tournament, the other competitors get sent their invites (with the player being the hardest to track down due to how recently they've arrived in Lumiose). Canari remembers this indie upstart fashion designer she noticed a whilez ago and business emails them asking for an emergency commission to make formal dresses for her and G-Volt. Naveen is going through the Stress of searching for commissions to help the rival pay off their debt to the Rust Syndicate and then sees his favourite streamer reaching out to him, with no idea that he's a massive fan of hers, and his mind just overloads. he's going to have so many conflicting thoughts about whether he can charge her more or ask her to pay upfront (she's asking for a very tight deadline, and she has to be somewhat well off with her grandfather's company and her streamer fame) to handle the rival's mafia debt problems, or prioritizing being nice and fair to her. (random, but: as a fashion nerd who's experienced the kpop and mcyt communities/fandoms, I love Naveen so much)