And that's a fine stand to go with. Yet somehow you miss what I was getting at from the beginning.
Again, go to the first reply I used. That the fanart doesn't really "get" the design. That's what I was going for. My gripe isn't its "value" but how it connects with the material as a fanart.
No matter how much well drawn something is, if it merely only looks at something at its shallow view, the person didn't understand the whole thing. It's why I'm dismissive of those art regardless of how well drawn they are.
I didn't miss anything. My whole argument against that was "that's not the point". The fact that you keep repeating the argument of how "the person didn't understand the design" means
you're missing my point. And you're absolutely knocking the value/merit of this fanart by implying it's not informed the the original work. Then you say "why make one in the first place" if it's not to YOUR standard, and then compare it to Sonic OCs.
I mean, if I were a teacher and asked something for an essay, and you wrote this really, really good paragraph but ultimately misses the question/theme of the essay, should I still grade you well because you put in so much effort and great work?
This is not a formal assignment. If the goal was "draw fanart of a Pokemon that properly incorporates its lore/motif" then it would fail at that. But my point that I keep repeating that you keep missing is
that's not the goal of this fanart. That doesn't
need to be the goal of every fanart.
The goal of it is to simply work off of the visual design while veering off from the confines of its lore, so that any observer can enjoy a different/creative take on the Pokemon. That's just as valid of a goal as making a piece that goes for lore consistency.
Here's a much more apt academic comparison that describes what
you're doing. There's an assignment to write an essay on a book. It can be any kind of essay. A student turns in an Informative essay and you give him a bad grade because its not persuasive. This is why I think it's weird to knock this piece for something its not
even trying to be, and what it
is trying to be is just as valid as the other thing.
Also I find that statement about "how well it incorporates elements from its original design" and "essence" while at the same time goes on on how "it doesn't matter" really baffling. You can't just say "it incorporates elements of Dunsparce" while then saying that "it doesn't matter that it's not based on the tsuchinoko".
And this is one of the most baffling parts to me about your side of this whole thing. How can you look at those drawings and imply it's not incorporating elements from its original design? The similarities are right in your face, or at least I assume it would be that obvious for everyone. So I'll describe it so you know exactly what I mean. I find it self explanatory, I just think you're overthinking it. From Dunsparce to the next evolution, it's keeps essentially the same base look except his wings are bigger, and the tail on Dunspace grows and props itself up. The color scheme is exactly the same, the eyes are the same. A lot of it is the same, because its just building on Dunsparce's visual design.
I'm not going to go into full detail, but hopefully that lays out why I think implying that it isn't incorporating elements from its original design is ridiculous. And no,
it doesn't matter what Dunsparce is based off of. As you can clearly see form the fanart, it's explicitly working off of Dunsparce's aesthetic design while veering off from its official lore. Because that's the
point of the piece, and that's just as valid of a goal as trying to draw an evolution that attempts to stay consistent to its lore.
Also, this is me speaking, but "good" design is pushing it.
And this is me speaking. Looks better than a lot of official designs if you ask me. A lot of official designs aren't good, many being well below good.