You can blame a friend of mine for this image. He noticed my love of swimsuits and told me I wouldn't have a furry harem, I'd have a swim team.

...So now I have a swim team, complete with a swimsuit I designed. I admit it's a strange place to debut a character like Platinum, but I think the size difference with her makes this image a bit more interesting.

So, let's check out Team Silver! They're named after the city they represent, Silver Metropolis.

Tina - The smallest member of the team, and one adorable mouse. With her energetic and playful personality, she's like the team's mascot. Tina is a pretty good swimmer. And she's great at cheering on her teammates, especially Amber.

Amber - This overly serious cyborg collie isn't too fond of having so many eyes on her. Being nearly 6 feet tall and having cybernetics makes that a bit difficult. But Tina is pretty good at convincing Amber to get out of her comfort zone. Not the best swimmer, but it's really hard for her to say "no" when Tina gives her those puppy dog eyes. Or would they be mousey eyes?

Iris - This psychic soldier is ready to take on any competition, even a swimming competition. It's hard to tell if Iris or Rainey is the best swimmer on the team. I believe that someday she'll take back the captain slot with her tenacity. (With Iris, one of the key things is balancing how muscular she is versus how feminine her overall body shape is. I don't want her to look like the more recent She-Hulk depictions in the comics. Also, Iris officially has hair now. After last year's Halloween pic, I liked how she looked with hair so much that it's now part of her design.)

Rainey - The captain of the swim team and a water Pokemon. A pretty natural fit, wouldn't you say? Both she and Iris claim to be the best swimmer on the team. Now, she won't be a part of Iris' story, but Rainey can at least be the team captain. Feels like I should say, "it's an older meme sir, but it checks out."

Platinum - Quite possibly the team's ultimate secret weapon...or the easiest way to get disqualified. She towers over the others at 9 feet tall, with Tina being just under 5 feet tall. Platinum is known around the world as one of the most powerful psychics. (Her original design had silver hair. But red hair paired with her silver body was too striking of a combo to not use. In addition to her raw physical strength, Platinum is a powerful psychic as well. Similar to Iris, it's important that Platinum still has feminine qualities, even with a muscular physique. The dragon has a nice balance, but I'm still working on Iris' physique.)

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I had drafted a few versions of the swimming pool but ended up choosing the simplest version for the background. Because the girls were drawn first, it made sense to go with a background that wouldn't distract people from them, much to Amber's chagrin.

I'm pretty happy with the final result of the shading. It works really well with how I ink my drawings. And it seems like it takes less time than previous methods too. Naturally, the drawing still took a good amount of time with the background and 5 characters. But overall, I really enjoy how this image turned out. From the poses to the interactions, to designing their swimsuits, it was a really fun drawing. Honestly, I should do more fun pics like this.

Tina, Amber, Iris, Platinum, and art ©  AtticusKotch
Vaporeon © Nintendo and Gamefreak