Boy, we breezed through Kanto pretty quick, didn't we? And here's the last one. I thought it would be fun to put a bit of a different spin on the Mt. Silver encounter with Red, given Red's history with Oak.

As Chapter 2 came to a close, people asked if I was going to do a Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald chapter. I honestly thought about it, but by the time I was wrapping Chapter 2, I'd become pretty busy with other projects and didn't want to try to squeeze in a semiweekly webcomic on top of everything else. In addition, I no longer had my copies of Sapphire and Emerald, and this was before Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire came out, so I had no way to adventure through Hoenn and collect riff-worthy NPC dialogue.

Plus, I just really didn't want Trainer Wants to Battle! to become one of those things that continues for the sake of continuing and slowly, painfully declines in quality. It's better to finish strong with a project and leave the audience with something they'll always have positive memories of, instead of becoming one of those things that start out great and end terribly and alienate the fanbase, and make it so you can't even properly enjoy the old, good bits anymore because it just reminds you of how badly wrong the whole thing went later on. Entertainment industry, get your act together.

Anyway, if anyone's actually been keeping up with this series, I hope you've enjoyed it! I've entertained the idea of doing more Trainer Wants to Battle! now and again, but I am honestly so swamped with other projects right now that I literally don't have the time or energy for a webcomic. Still, it was a fun journey putting the comics up here on my blog where they'll be available until Google gets shut down (so like never), so more people can enjoy them.

Shadow Play, Chapter 16

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14
Chapter 15 - Chapter 16

Defenders began to come out of the woodworks. Aisheena lobbed fists full of light at her opponents and Lightning Lenny dodged them with his unmatched speed, leading them right into the range of Kourage Korbat’s stupefying sonar. Judge Hog lifted another crate in one hand as though it was a pillow, and tossed it at an Eyrie flying for him, while Blackwing flung energy and wisecracks in equal measure.

Amidst the fracas, Zoltan motioned for the others to join him as he ducked around the corner of the warehouse. He slid his paw through the air as though he was closing a curtain. “Zhat’ll give us a little time to catch our breaths,” he panted. “Are you all right?”

“Just fine,” Hyren said, and Terra and Blynn nodded.

Isengrim crouched down and hugged his family. “Just so you know,” he said, “I never would have given in to Vile. Ever. And I never would have let him hurt you, either.”

“We know,” Terra said, hugging him back. “You’re awesome like that.”

 

The Idaho Museum of Natural History did a Facebook post where they showed off their new trucker hat by putting it on fossil mounts around the museum, and when I saw it, I just had to draw the actual animals modeling the hat. I think my favorite is the Oryctodromeus looking like a little kid wearing a too-big hat.

I don't draw normal paleoart.

 Not sure why anybody thought building a town on Cinnabar Island was a good idea.

I was honestly really sad when I got to Cinnabar in Gen I and found the entire place destroyed except for the Pokémon Center. Although, looking back, I suspect the developers did that because they had to cut some corners on Gen II Kanto to get it to fit onto a Game Boy cart. (I'm still secretly holding out for some ridiculously massive Pokemon game where you can visit all the regions.)

 Including their own development team in most of the Pokemon core series games is such a fun Easter egg that Game Freak throws in. I love when game developers don't take a game entirely seriously.

My latest ridiculously overambitious project: an amigurumi Gigantoraptor with its nest! Since I'm going to be a guest at Fall Fossil Fest this year, I thought it would be fun to put together an amigurumi of one of Idaho's native dinosaurs. I love oviraptorids and this was a great excuse to make an adorable plush of one. Ever since I started doing amigurumi, it's been a goal of mine to design some scientifically accurate dinosaur plushies--nothing against the sort of generic green cartoony dinosaur plush patterns you see elsewhere, but as a pedantic nerd I was craving more.

 This fella was a lot of work, and honestly there are places where it didn't turn out perfect--the neck is too thin and too droopy despite a pipe cleaner insert, so I think for future dinos I'll make the neck thicker and try to stuff more rigidly. The arms/wings are also pretty flimsy, so I think next time I'll make four of each wing and sew them together with stuffing in the middle. It also didn't turn out perfectly symmetrically... but honestly I've been really tired lately and I'm pleasantly surprised it turned out as good as it did. I think the head is absolutely adorable though.

For the wing and tail feathers, I attached, tassel-style, some Lion Brand Homespun, which is a notoriously flimsy yarn made of countless tiny acrylic strands. Terrible for amigurumi... unless you brush it out into some beautiful feathers! I love finding creative ways to use scrap and found yarn.

Honestly I don't think this turned out too bad for a first go! I learned a lot that I can apply to other dino species moving forward. My secret goal is to just create an amigurumi Jurassic Park in my house. Except all the dinos are friendly and well-fed.

If you want to make one of these for yourself (or order one from me!), you can buy the pattern or place an order for a plush in my amigurumi shop!

 Where does all that money from Pay Day come from, anyway?