I drew my friends as Pokemon cards!

(Be sure to expand this post to see everybody!!) Pokemon is popular in our house -- my older daughter is a Pokemon EXPERT (seriously), and little sister is not far behind. At this point, I think I'm probably one of the most well-informed moms in town, since I've learned a lot through osmosis. And I admit, Pokemon can be SUPER CUTE, which means by now I like them, too. :)

Anyway, Back in December, I got the wacky idea to make Pokemon cards of some of my friends, and give them out as a fun little gift. The real cards all have "attacks" on them, which I thought would be a handy way to include some character traits that I appreciate about each person!

Here are Kelly and Doug! I made Kelly into a sort-of "rainbow rare" because she's a super unique person! (The silver metallic dots are shiny!)  Plus she's fairy type -- they stopped making fairy type, so it's getting harder to find those! Basically she's a one-of-a-kind friend. Awwww!

Doug is electric type because he's very TECHIE. I love drawing the stereotypical "nerd environment" full of wires and black boxes, so I had fun with that. Although, later his family was quick to tell me that he actually has all those wires neatly corralled and contained. It's Doug! I should have realized that! Ha ha!

I'll walk you through my process for these cards, AND you get to see a bunch more cards, after the jump!

So I made my hand drawn cards a bit bigger than standard cards, so I'd have room to draw and write. Each card also has a drawn card back, OBVIOUSLY! First I drew the backs -- Pokepals! I used colored pencil on all the cards, and it was nice to go back to a medium I haven't really used for a while. Since the back is the same on all cards, I scanned in my drawing of the card back, then printed a bunch out on double sided matte photo paper I had lying around.

Then I cut out the card backs, and when flipping one over, I had a blank canvas to draw on!

Here's a process picture showing my reference Pokemon cards, trainer sketch studies, works in progress, and a million colored pencils. :) I sketched each card out in pencil first, and did the line work in fine line pens.

Here are Brenda, Dave, and Emily! Brenda is fire type because she's fire, you know, just on top of life and going out there and being her best! Dave's electric because, I dunno, he's got a little spark to him, he can be a tiny bit feisty, you know? I guess! Ha ha! Sometimes there's not that much meaning to my choices . . . and Emily is another rare fairy type. Plus like a fairy, she's graceful and a bit shy and lovely and hangs out in gardens. <3

Everyone has 300 HP, because I wanted to be fair across the board and give plenty of health. Also, everyone is "Awesome", not "Basic"!! The number for "damage" is actually "friendship" on these cards, because I say so. ;D

Before drawing anything, I referenced Pokemon trainer cards online, and practiced sketching those cute anime faces! Honestly I've historically not been that great at drawing anime faces, and this project helped me a lot! I love how there are SO many styles of eyes and so on, even though the basic face is pretty much the same thing over and over.

My cards turned out very similar, too. I tried to picture everyone and capture that in what I drew. It was really fun!

The obvious type for Allison would be fighting, since she does karate, but I made her water type. She's both calm and relaxed, and flowing and bubbly. Ha ha! Plus I didn't want to make a rust-brown card; I thought she'd like blue. :) I drew her in the "karate environment", LOL!

Here are Sana and Karen! Sana is psychic type because our conversations are on another level! I made Karen grass type because she seems to me to be in tune with nature and sunshine and cooking delicious food and just . . . yeah, I wanted to make a green card, too. ;)

Here's Megan, and I guess I didn't photograph the actual card, but I have the scan. (I scanned each one in before giving the originals away!) She's a fire type not only because she does hot yoga, but again, she's fire, she's with it, she's a woman living her life and helping all of us live ours, too! ^_^ I put her in the yoga studio.

I created these in the order in which I was going to see each person before winter break. I had plans to do more, but . . . well, by the time I had made nine of these cards, I was feeling mostly done with this particular form of creative expression! Sorry if I didn't get to all of you, friends! Maybe I'll pick it up again sometime.

I like this project because the idea hit me like a ton of bricks and I just had to do it!! It definitely threw other projects off track, but I think that's okay. I factored that in and allowed for it. Sometimes you need to listen to your inner creativity and do something random and a little bit weird, just because you want to. Everyone got all excited and loved his or her card, by the way! So that also made me really really really happy. Thanks, guys!!! <3