Meet The 3D Artist Bringing Pokemon To Life

Dave Ashby is a Twitch streamer and freelancer animator that likes to make augmented reality videos showing how Pokemon would look in real life.

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Category : Pokemon

Did you know that Drifloon, the balloon Pokemon, likes to steal kids? Its Pokedex entry from HeartGold and SoulSilver states “It is whispered that any child who mistakes Drifloon for a balloon and holds on to it could wind up missing.” On his Twitch stream last week, Dave Ashby, aka DaveLiquidlizard, decided to bring a Drifloon to life. In a short video of kids playing in a park, Ashby animated a Drifloon grabbing a small boy with its stringy arms and carrying it away. Ashby loves making Pokemon animations like this. “I like to make fun of the fact that they’re putting things in the lore of the actual series that you’d never see,” Ashby says. “Blowing out the tail flame of a Charmander will kill it, and I showed that.”

Dave Ashby is a Twitch streamer and freelancer animator that likes to make augmented reality videos. His most popular animations imagine how Pokemon would look and act in real life – sort of like an advanced version of Pokemon GO’s built-in AR feature. Of course, Ashby’s animations are all hand-crafted for each video, so there’s a lot more he can do with them. “I like when someone interacts with the Pokemon,” he says. “Because that’s what you don’t get from an AR app. In Pokemon Go, it would just be doing its standard walk or attack animation in a spot, but if you can pass something in front of it, have it land on your shoulder, or react to the fact that you’re stroking it, that’s what sells it.”

Ashby’s Instragram page is full of short Pokemon AR videos. One of the most popular videos features a Leafeon doing yoga poses with its trainer. Another shows a family of Ducklett swimming in a pod with real ducks. His work often shows Pokemon living in their natural environments – like a moss-covered Onyx camouflaged next to a rock – but they can also show Ashby’s sense of humor, like a child-knapping Drifloon or a Machoke playing Sonic the Hedgehog. He also likes to look outside of official Pokemon lore and make totally original creatures, like a ghost-type Eeveelution called Specteon and a desert-themed Ivysaur variant called Cactasaur.

Ashby chooses his projects based on the ideas that personally interest him, the footage he has access to, and the current big trends in Pokemon. For example, his “Crab Rave” video starring Crustle and Dweeble came about after a conversation in Twitch chat about the meme. Ashby remembered that he had footage from a friend’s trip to the beach that he could use. “It was only because we were talking and joking about Crab Rave that I got the idea,” Ashby said. “Crustle was big because of Pokemon Unite, so I was like yeah, this feels like the right time to do it.”

Once Ashby gets an idea for a video, he’ll either shoot the footage for it himself or ask people he’s worked with in the past to send him clips. Sometimes he’ll take ideas that get pitched to him on social media too. “Occasionally someone will approach me with an idea, and I sometimes will take it on,” he says. “It’s not every single post. It’s more about does it interest me? Is it fun? Is it different? Unless it’s interesting or different or makes people laugh in a new way, then I’m just not interested.” Ashby typically doesn’t do Pokemon AR videos for a commission either. “If you start doing it as a job, then you lose some of the fun attached to it.”

Though Ashby’s Instragram and TikTok are his biggest platforms for sharing videos, his Twitch channel is actually where he puts his biggest focus. “The majority of my effort now is just making a fun place to be while I’m making content on Twitch,” he says. “Because there are a hell of a lot more animations that people haven’t seen that only function on my Twitch as interactions.” Ashby’s Twitch interactions, like his AR videos, are all custom animations he’s created for his chat. Viewers can activate a Bulbasaur that reaches into a Halloween bag and pulls out either candy or spiders, or a Pikachu that moves around the screen and zaps him. With channel points, viewers can toss a Poke Ball out and catch him, or initiate a raid just like Pokemon GO – with Ashby as the raid boss. “I just keep adding more and more and now it’s got to the point where it’s absolutely ridiculous. My Twitch streams are something else.”

Ashby, also known as DaveLiquidlizard on Twitch, Instagram, and TikTok, streams while creating Pokemon videos every week. Most of the models he uses come from Pokemon X & Y, and once he settles on a project, he can typically finish all of the rigging and animating in about four to five hours on stream. Sometimes people come in with technical questions that Ashby is happy to answer, but for the most part, his Twitch chat is just like any other: a place to hang out and have a good time. “Most of the time it’s usually a gang of 20 people who come in and out and we just hang out and talk and joke about things,” he says. “I enjoy doing it that way, making a community there and interacting with real people in real time.”

Ashby also has his own original characters, a trio of dragons named Razor, Lynks, and Cynder who star in many of his AR videos. The dragon’s were Ashby’s first characters long before he started animating Pokemon, and he’s currently planning a longer, Pixel-style short film featuring them.

DaveLiquidlizard streams on Twitch three times a week on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. You can check out his 3D animation stream every Tuesday. He also streams community games and long plays on Thursday and Sunday, he’s currently playing Dead Space 2. To see his finished Pokemon AR animations, check out his Instagram page.

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