Goca x Pokémon - 1st Gen

A few years ago, I embarked on a project to illustrate all Pokémon in my style, giving them a more whimsical and humorous appearance. For several months, I dedicated my days to create these illustrations. Once completed, I began sharing them on an Instagram account under the username @goca_pokemon, posting one design per day (sometimes three per day). Although that account no longer exists, I managed to showcase over 1000 of my Pokémon designs during its active period. In this post, "Goca x Pokémon - 1st Gen", I'll share with you everything related to these designs.

Yeah, maybe you've noticed that I just confessed to one big lie—it's that I already had almost all the Pokémon designs made before starting @goca_pokemon. Back then, I claimed I was creating them, one each day. I don't know why I did that; I guess it seemed cooler in my head. The truth is, if I were to make them one each day, I probably would have burned out long before reaching 1000 posts. I mean, it would have taken more than two years to draw one Pokémon each day… It's a no for me.

Why did I delete it, you may ask? Well, back then, I had like 4 or 5 (or more, I don't know) different Instagram accounts, each dedicated to a different thing, and I was pretty active in all of them. Until I got saturated and started deleting them. The other accounts are a story for another day, so for now, let me take you through the long Pokémon drawing journey I had.

Everything started because there was a trend on Twitter that involved drawing one Pokémon each day related to a category, like "day 1: draw your favorite fire Pokémon." I liked it (though I drew them all at once and posted one a day), so I decided to draw them all. It took me around 2 months to cover the seven generations that existed at that moment. I created about 15-20 designs each day. It was a quick process; I didn't spend too much time on each drawing (as you can tell from some of them). Around 10 minutes of work for each one. It was really fun; the first design that came out was the one I would use. Pretty pure, if you ask me.

It feels like I'm only writing stuff and not showing much. So you may already know, I usually have one process for making art: I always draw everything first and then digitize it. I have a notebook full of Pokémon drawings, which I now find way cooler than the final digital art. It's my own treasure. I did start only drawing here, that's why the Pokémon selected are kinda random. I think that once I was making the third gen, I did follow the right order.

Then I started to digitize them. The posts on Instagram changed from the first gen to the second one because, while making the last gen, I realized the Goca logos in the background were too much. I changed it for a plain color related to the Pokémon. Here is an example of how the initial background design looked.

It was actually pretty well organized on the feed; I started posting the last Pokémon of the generation, so the starters were on top. And then, if the Pokémon only had 1 evolution, I put them with 2 other Pokémon like that in a vertical arrangement, so they felt together. Before posting, I had to plan how it would all look. Here you go, all the 1st gen designs:

Two Pokémon got a better treatment and I made them 3 versions (because of Instagram feed aesthetics reasons, basically).

Hey, I told you this was a long journey; it hasn't ended here. I played around with these designs for a while. And we're only talking about the first gen (though the others don't have as much content as the first one because it's always the one I first experiment with).

I made some weird compilation images of each gen:

I also did another weird thing; I posted an image with my favorite designs, the most liked on Instagram, the ones with a few likes that I felt were underrated, and the least liked.

Something I find cool is the next image, which consists of just lines using all the colors of the designs of that generation. I used this for the previous images from above and also for this page, gocagames.com. I did post all the designs here too, but ended up deleting it, don't know why.

While I was making some Jellyfishers (my game) stickers, I thought, why not use these designs too. So I made some packs of Pokémon stickers. I remade the designs, so they looked way cleaner. I was planning to sell them on Etsy, but I got lazy. I actually made some packs, I printed them myself, cut them, and packed them. Totally DIY.

Then I wanted to post the designs on Twitter too, but in an appropriate format for the platform. So I did this (saving the ones with new forms for the later gens):

And we have arrived at my favorite thing, a good compilation of all the designs. I actually printed this, and it decorated my room for a while.

And finally, I did plan to restart goca_pokemon with a new layout. It won't happen, but I leave this here because it looks pretty cool.

And that's all for this post and the first gen Goca x Pokémon. It was an interesting journey, and I did get better at drawing while doing it. I made 8 gens, so expect more posts like this with each one of them. I don't think I'll make the 9th gen because I'm not in the mood, but you never know. Maybe someday I want to go back and finish all the Pokédex.