KARO NOTES:

This one was a long time coming. Most of this was worked on during the past few days, but three shots are actually from LATE JULY of 2023, when I was easing out of my hiatus. Since I had a good buffer from when the next Pikmin Bit was scheduled... I dug up an OLD idea.

Way back in NOVEMBER 2014, I started work on a dark-humored parody series for Pokémon, which involved a Sandslash, Sableye, Gengar, Meloetta and a Hypno. It was heavily based on my playthrough of Pokémon X. I aimed for an 11-minute interval with the concept, just by myself. I didn't even have the tools I do now-- it was just done on a tablet, and then exporting the drawings frame-by-frame into a video editor.

I could never really solidify the idea or the story, so it kept being pushed back and pushed back until it was scrapped. Matter of fact, the Sandslash, the Sableye and the Gengar would later become the basis of other OCs of mine, now divorced from the Pokémon setting.

I found those old drawings in my back ups, got curious about how I'd streamline the designs now, then liked the redesigns so much, that I made an animation with them. The one new addition was the Smeargle, since I needed someone who could get under the Sandslash's skin enough to make him want to fight.

There's actually three animated shots that didn't make it into the final Bit, as well. One of which I snuck somewhere else recently. I'm still hoping to find some way to use it in the future, since it was my favorite shot from July.

The sounds used for when Gengar moves are snippets from the YouTube video, "suicide mouse: deleted scene". That was one of those music tracks that was horrifying as a kid, but a comfort now. I figured it would be appropriate, since Gengar is a ghost.

I'd LOVE to do more if this does well enough, it feels really nice to finally make these old ideas into something palpable. To sound a little schmaltzy-- it was like fulfilling a promise.