Let’s check out what makes this community so colorful!
As Pride Month comes to a close, we wanted to do an article dedicated to all the wonderful artwork that has come out this month to celebrate Pokémon and the LGBT+ community. Pokémon’s fanbase is extremely diverse with people from all walks of life, so it makes sense that the characters and artwork they create also reflect that. We’ll also be linking to the social media of all the artists so please be sure to check them out and support them because they very much deserve it. So without further ado, let’s check all the great artwork! It’s a Pride art extravaganza!
Earthtonequeen
represent! the main trio of STLE w/their respective pride flags#PRIDE2020 #shinkathelasteevee #pokemon #art #drawing pic.twitter.com/FhZYPddg7H
— i am so very tired?? (@earthtonequeen) June 10, 2020
So first up is the artist, Earthtonequeen, the author of Shinka: The Last Eevee. To celebrate Pride Month, they drew the three main characters of their comic, Nick, Josie, and Grace, with their respective pride flags. It’s great to see such diversity in representation in the main cast of the comic, though it goes beyond that too, with many other members of the cast being part of the LGBT+ community as well. We elaborate on that further, as well as the many many other reasons why you should check out Shinka: The Last Eevee, in our Crossroads Comics article from two weeks ago.
Silver pride 2020 by earthtonequeen on DeviantArt
havent done a pride pic in a while
aro/ace/nb please use she/they pronouns for me thanks!
Earthtonequeen is also a queer creator themselves! They identify as non-binary and aroace, which is super cool because with as large of a creator as they are, it makes for great representation in both the art and Pokémon communities. Plus they’re an awesome person in general to boot which just adds to their character.
In addition, while not technically a piece for Pride Month, Earthtonequeen also did the image used for the thumbnail of this article! The choice to use this as the thumbnail was a tad self-indulgent, as its actually a picture of myself and my partner‘s pokesonas! Penpeaches and I are both members of the LGBT+ community so it felt really fitting to use this image as the thumbnail of the article. So thank you once again to Earthtonequeen for letting me use the image as the thumbnail, be sure to check them out.
Nynne
Ponytas for pride! ?️? pic.twitter.com/7NYuraCQpG
— Nynne ?☁️ (@beanynne) June 11, 2020
One thing I love to see every Pride Month is people revamping Pokémon designs with color schemes to reflect various pride flags. It’s fun, creative, and a very pretty process. So with the release of Pokémon Sword and Shield last November, the new Galarian Ponyta provided the perfect canvas for Nynne to create a series of pride ponytas! The so called Pridenytas represent a variety of flags including: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ace, Pansexual, and Genderfluid. It’s great to see some of the lesser represented flags like Genderfluid get some representation as well, especially since many of them have very pretty palettes. Nynne does a lot of excellent work so be sure to check them out when you get the chance because it will be well worth it.
Cloudpool
Stars Above Pride by cloudpool88 on DeviantArt
happy pride!! most of the characters in my pmd story are lgbtq in some way lol
Next up is Cloudpool, author of the now discontinued/set to be rebooted as a fanfiction, PMD: Stars Above, as well as the Black 2 Nuzlocke comic, Reecelocke. As a way to show their Pride Month spirit, Cloudpool drew the entire cast of PMD: Stars Above with their respective pride flags. The cast is incredibly diverse with all sorts of identities and sexualities spread across. They even included a few characters that are straight allies! You can’t see every character included in the image in this embed so be sure to check out the full image on Deviantart and check out Cloudpool as well since they deserve all the love and support they can get, especially on their new nuzlocke comic!
Krisantyne
big gay by Krisantyne on DeviantArt
Didn’t think I’d make any new Pride stuff this year, but then I heard of ‘s PMD Pride collab and it had to be done. :V So here’s my gay bird and my gay turtle (also donning his demiboy flag). Might do more if make good progress on the Nuzlocke page soon, idk.
Another Pride piece from Deviantart comes from artist, Krisantyne. This piece features two characters from her nuzlocke comic, First Summer, a nuzlocke challenge based on a ROM hack. The comic is something I would definitely recommend reading and plan to cover in the future on Crossroads Comics, because Krisantyne storytelling and artwork are both excellent.
It’s also worth mentioning that this is part of a larger project called PMD Pride. It’s a giant collab for members of the Pokémon community to create large pride pieces. It won’t be completed until next month so I won’t spend too much time covering it now, but I will be giving it its own dedicated article later on once it is completed. So if you’re interested in participating be sure to check it out! And be sure to check out Krisantyne while you’re doing that.
Bhalv_draw
Next up is Bhalv_draw, an artist who is behind the designs for the Paolithia Region. This region is inspired by a variety of prehistoric creatures, with a bunch of really cool dinosaur inspired designs. As part of their Pride Month celebration, Bhalv_draw put together pride flags using fakemon of the corresponding flag colors. While I only feature the transgender design here, they actually do a lot more, including gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexuality, and non-binary. It’s a really neat and creative idea that features many of their designs in a way that also celebrates the LGBT+ community. In addition, while it was released during Pride Month, Bhalv_draw also created a Non-binary inspired regional variant for their region.
The Nidoran line is particularly well known for its sexual dimorphism that results in Nidoking and Nidoqueen. But Bhalv_draw decided to change that up with the introducion of the non-binary nidoran line, also known as the Nidoliege line. It even plays a really interesting bit of lore with the nidoran dex entry stating “The Nidoran in Paolithia never developed a need branch off into two separate gender variances. Therefore they are considered to be of Non-binary gender. As such, the region of Paolithia has almost no concept of rigid gender roles and many Paolithians themselves identify as Non-binary”. Its a really interesting and cool concept to take a line that is very well known for its gendered variations and change it up to a design that lacks those entirely. A great way to create representation and a cool design all in one swipe.
Cyra-king
Happy #PRIDE2020 pic.twitter.com/IMOTkjNxLa
— Shad (@Cyra_King1128) June 9, 2020
Next up is Cyra-king! For their Pride Month piece, Cyra-king drew their pokesona, a noivern, with their pride flags. Noivern is a pretty difficult Pokémon to draw but Cyra-king is the master of dragon anatomy and pulls it off flawlessly! And it’s a cute little way to show themselves as a queer creator as a show of support for the LGBT+ community that they are a member of.
Elkken
PRIDE! by Elkken on DeviantArt
howdy!! heres a little pride drawing for this year with the current team!!! i still really like last years pride drawing i did so check it out if u want o.o ALSO !!! PLEASE DONATE OR SPREAD THE WORD ON THE BLACK LIVES MATTER MOVEMENT!
Regular Pokémon are the only queer representation the community has, we’ve got gijinkas too! Elkken brings out first gijinkas to the table by creating a small picture of the cast of their Pokémon Y nuzlocke, Knell, which you may recognize from when we featured them on Crossroads Comics. While it’s relatively small compared to their previous year’s picture, it shows the cast as a happy group, which is a nice change of pace from the darker tone the comic usually has. Plus it has its own unique charm to it that makes you smile when you look at it.
Nyctophillist
While this at first may seem like a piece dedicated to the popular Umbreon x Espeon ship, it’s actually a Pride and BLM piece! While coverage has started to subside, it is important to remember that the Black Lives Matter movement is still going full steam, and Nyctophillist has done their best to remind us of that through an adorable piece of artwork. They’ve also included Trans Rights as well in order to remind us that despite all that is going on with government around the world right now, trans right as still human rights.
Shicom
The trend of pride flag colored Pokémon continues with Shicom’s non-binary Falinks! This post is super cool not only because Falinks is a rad Pokémon and the color palette of the non-binary flag looks great on it, but also it’s animated! Shicom actually does a lot of really cool animations and has done other pride related art this month as well, albeit not Pokémon related. Still I’d recommend checking it out because it’s really cool! My personal favorites are the lesbian mermaid and the forest of pride flags.
Warrior Kitty
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Next up is a piece by Warrior Kitty! Warrior Kitty has done a few of these pieces where they have drawn some of their favorite Pokémon in front of the aroace flags! The results for all of them are really cute. I especially love the shading on this one that makes Breloom really pop out against the background. Breloom isn’t the only one they’ve done. They’ve also done Butterfree, Silvally, Sylveon, and Porygon-Z. Once again all of these have stellar posing and shading that just make them pop against the cool green, grey, and purple background provided by the flags. That isn’t all Warrior Kitty has done for Pride Month though!
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Warrior Kitty also did a variety of icons for them and their friends. The above Raichu is their currently Tumblr icon for Pride Month as Warrior Kitty identifies as aroace. They’ve also done a Swellow in front of a pansexual flag, a Zigzagoon in front of a transgender flag, Limesar’s OC named Alex in front of a demibi flag, and a friend’s OC named Misty in front of a bisexual flag. So with so much great art to look at and enjoy there’s no way you can’t go Warrior Kitty now!
NobleJanobii
It's June 9 so it's time for the yearly redraw of these two. Here's the last two years for reference.#PrideMonth #PRIDE2020 #Redraw #gijinka pic.twitter.com/PjayfVM7IZ
— Janobii – Commissions Open (@noblejanobiiart) June 9, 2020
Of course I’m going to include myself too! I did several pokemon themed pride pieces this month but this is one of my favorites. It has become a tradition at this point to redraw my OCs, Tyson and Alain the Steelix and Togekiss gijinkas, for their anniversary every year. It serves as a marker of my improvement year to year. Plus it’s always fun to see how much my art style has changed! Pretty neat huh?
This was not the only Pokémon pride piece I did. I also did a few pieces for my various comics and ask blogs as well. This is for my comic and ask blog, Lucky’s Travels, featuring Rose the Charmeleon and Violet the Purrloin. I don’t draw them nearly enoug hso it was fun to put this together for them. Especially since it was great pose practice for me. I actually also did another piece featuring characters from Lucky’s Travels, Bonnie and Morrigan, a couple of wives that are the mothers of one of the main characters.
I also did a Pride piece for my other ask blog, Ask Team Lightbringers. This was a much simpler piece but since one of the two main characters, Armani the Yamask, is non-binary, it felt only right to give them a pride piece for the month. Plus Armani overall is just really fun to draw and the more times I get to draw them, the better.
Miss Misty
Happy Pride! by melaLiz
Happy pride month from May and Liz! Team Pirates blog: https://teampirates.tumblr.com/
We love seeing an adorable lesbian couple and especially the stars of an ask blog! These two lovely ladies are May and Liz from Team Pirates, an ask blog that just opened for asks! Miss Misty did a wonderful job with this piece as the lovely pirate ladies look very cute together. And we definitely need more cute characters and couples in the ask blog community!
KaidaCreator
Next up is KaidaCreator, author of PMD: Restoring the Balance. You might recognize this comic from when we covered it on Crossroads Comics a while back. However, the comic has since been rebooted so you can bet we intend to re-review in the future once it has gotten far enough long. In the mean time though, let’s talk about this particular piece! This Pride piece was actually one half of an art trade (the second half of which we’ll be showing below). This Drifloon is named Pastel and is an OC of Volcanic. Pastel is part of a PMD fanfiction that Volcanic writes called Crystalline Eventide which you should definitely give a read when you have the chance.
Volcanic
Here’s the other half of that art trade! For her half of the trade, Volcanic drew KaidaCreator‘s Pokésona! They’re holding a Asexual Panromantic flag which is a really cute combination. On top of the adorable winking tongue out pose going on here, it’s all in all just a really adorable piece that Volcanic did super well on! This isn’t the only Pokémon Pride piece Volcanic has done though!
Volcanic also drew a birthday present for Precious-Lemons. This Sandile features both some rocking pride shades as well as a non-binary styled bandanna. It’s a really colorful and cute combo especially since they pop out really well against the beige/brown of Sandile’s main color scheme. Plus the fact that it was a gift makes it even more wholesome!
That’s not all though! Volcanic also drew their own pokesona, Sundae the Shiny Flaafy, for pride month as well! This picture features Sundae looking at a rainbow while wearing a pansexual armband. The pansexual flag actually pairs very nicely with Flaafy’s overall color scheme, because the pinks used here are choice. Plus the inclusion of the rainbow makes the composition quite lovely. All in all, Volcanic has done a wonderful job with all these pieces and it just serves to remind you that you should really support her in all her efforts.
DrawingLeo
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Last but certainly not least is DrawingLeo. They have done several pieces for Pride Month as well so let’s break down each one starting with the one above! The piece above is for DrawingLeo‘s PMD blog, Team Discovery, featuring Kadir the Riolu and Daniel the Bulbasaur. DrawingLeo has done several pictures for them in the past including a really cute Valentine’s Day pic. The icon is also very aesthetically pleasing because the bisexual and gay flags have their colors muted a bit so Kadir and Daniel’s faces don’t get washed out. It’s just overall a very nice and pleasing picture to look at it.
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That isn’t the only pride piece DrawingLeo did for Team Discovery though! Here’s another piece focused on Daniel! Here he’s holding his pride flag with a big cute smile on his face. Even better it’s lineless which adds its own level of charm to the whole thing. It reminds me of a stuffed animal almost which for me just makes it even cuter. Plus it really exemplifies just how pleasing Daniel’s design is with all those greens. Just all in all a very nice piece.
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Last up is DrawingLeo‘s pokesona, Levi the Eevee. Here is this picture, Levi is holding the transgender flag, but DrawingLeo has also drawn Levi with the demiboy flag. Both are great pieces. Levi’s overall aesthetic is great because I love the muted browns used for their coat, but also the size of the flags relative to Levi is fantastic. Show that pride, Levi! Show it!
Of course this isn’t all the Pokémon related pride art to come out this month but I hope you guys enjoyed the great display of all the fantastic art made for Pride this month. And remember, pride goes well beyond just one month, so while we may be celebrating this month, don’t forget to show your love for the LGBT+ community every month. Until next time, write, draw, play, and share.
