Have I drawn too many pokemon lately? I think so, but they're so fun to draw!
Anyway, a while ago I tried the pokedesign challenge and afterward I decided to use the same thing to choose a pokemon to draw realistically. And as you can see I ended up with Xatu ^-^
I decided to do my own original take on this. Most people seem to choose an eagle or condor, which would make sense as it is supposed to look like a totem bird, but I felt like something like a secretary bird would be fitting with its head feathers and such. And since xatu is a psychic type, which is strong against poison, and the secretary bird eats venomous snakes the two matched up nicely :)
The setting should be familiar to anyone who've played the first couple of Pokemon: Mystery Dungeon games.
As for the drawing itself. I tried to keep it pretty simple and tested a couple more things in this style of drawing. I'm getting pretty comfortable with drawing this way, but I still have a long way to go with many textures. And I'm pretty sure I layered the feathers and wings wrong, but it shouldn't be too much of a problem visually with the lack of details.
Hope you like it, and critiques are most welcome :)