User:Galarian Guy/Project Pokémon Gallery: Planning Document
Phase I: Catagorising the images
"Championship" Artwork
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This is Championships Art of #0025 Pikachu, released for the Pokémon Japan Championship Series 2024, illustrated by Artist if known. | 
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"Sugimori" Artwork
For what is commonly referred to by the Wiki as the "Sugimori art" or "official art", the category will be changed to categorise the art as "Official Game Art".
The word "the" should also be removed, since more than one of this type of artwork can exist, making the artwork sound less singular.
The use of the term "official art" should be changed to "Official Game Art" as per the 2011 style guide. An argument could also be made that it should be "Official (Video) Game Art" as this is how the style guide titles this artwork.
The term "released in" should also be changed to "released for", as the artwork itself may not even appear in the game.
The artist, which may not even be Ken Sugimori, should be added as an optional entry at the end of the template. This way, if the artist is not known, this section can be left blank. it should also say "illustrated by ____" to reflect how the artist is credited in the TCG.
Current
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This is the official art by Ken Sugimori of #001 Bulbasaur, released in Pokémon Red and Green. | 
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New
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This is Official Game Art of #001 Bulbasaur, released for Pokémon Red and Green, illustrated by Ken Sugimori. |
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"Dream" Artwork
For what is commonly referred to by the Wiki as the "Channel artwork", "Dream artwork" or "Global Link artwork", the category will be changed to categorise the art as "Corporate Art".
The word "the" should also be removed, since more than one of this type of artwork can exist, making the artwork sound less singular.
These templates don't need to be game specific as the artwork is not tied to any one set of games. Instead, they should state they were created for TPC and TPCi.
The images should depict the first and last Pokémon in the National Dex in this art style, with their most recent colour scheme.
Similarly the the Game Art, a variable for who illustrated them could be added in case it is ever revealed who made these images, however it doesn't seem necessary at this time.
It is also worth considering having the the Pokémon Dolls branch off from this as it is also referred to as "Corporate Art" and the link in this template denotes the species.
Current
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This is the Pokémon Global Link artwork of #001 Bulbasaur, released in Pokémon Black and White. | 
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New
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This is Corporate Art of #001 Bulbasaur, released for The Pokémon Company and The Pokémon Company International. | 
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Dream World images
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This artwork of Bulbasaur is used as an asset in Dream World. | 
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"Anime" artwork
For what is commonly referred to by the Wiki as the "Anime artwork", the category will be changed to categorise the art as "Animation Art".
The word "the" should also be removed, since more than one of this type of artwork can exist, making the artwork sound less singular.
The term "released in" should also be changed to "released for", as the artwork itself rarely even appears in the series and acts as a concept for the character/Pokémon depicted.
If an artist is known, it should have an "illustrated by ____" section to the end.
Current
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This is an official artwork of #??? Bulbasaur released in the original series of the animated series. |
New
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This is Animation Art of #??? Bulbasaur released for the original series of the animated series. |
Phase II: Fixing the image crop
I think this part speaks for itself. Rather than applying a crop manually to every template that uses an image, the image itself could just be cropped. The image should still be square however.
 
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Phase III: Adding the gallery section
Currently, the "Sprites" section of pages are both incredibly long and not well maintained. This is largely because there's a template system in place which encourages reusing the same images repeatedly, having a new line every generation and relying on manually cropping every image within the template. Because of this, it has meant that it's been out of the question to even consider showcasing any other artwork in this section.
My proposal is to turn the "Sprites" section into a "Gallery" section more akin to what is found on trainers or items pages.
All Gender Differences, Regional Variants, Mega Evolution and Gigantamax forms should be included here. As for alternate forms, they should be included unless they have their own page that they can be on. Examples of this being Spikey-Eared Pichu, Cosplay Pikachu, Partner Pikachu, Cosplay Pikachu, etc.
Terminology
I know how important terminology is to Bulbapedia and I would like to use language to describe the images in a way everyone understands. That is why breaking up the gallery into subsections would work really well. These means no more referring to models as sprites.
Artwork
The "Artwork" section is where phase one will have come in handy. It includes what should by this point be called the Game Art, the Corporate Art and the Anime Art. How much of each is to be decided, however new art for a game and anime is a definite.
Spin-Off Game Art should be decided on including, however please consider how long Pokémon like Pikachu which will have a considerable amount more than most Pokémon. It's also worth keeping in mind the Spin-Off Game Art that already appears on the page.
Renders
Renders also will be mixed in with the above "Artwork" section. These are what is currently referred to as "HOME Artwork", which should change to "HOME renders", as well as other promotional images for games, such as PLZA Dragonite or BDSP Chimchar, as examples. A discussion should be had if the term renders or prerenders feels more appropriate.
Sprites
Sprites are the 2D pixel art featured in battle or on the PokéDex screen in all handheld games pre-generation 6. These are usually broken into 2 types, front sprites and back sprites. My suggestion is to break these up as if we look at generation 1 alone, we can see that usually all the back sprites are the same, while all the front sprites are different.