Welcome to Gaia! ::

Character Name: Jacek
Type: pokemon
Species: smeargle
Region: n/a
Trainer Type: n/a
Gender: Male
Height: 5’ 6”
Age: 24
Hair Color: brunette
Eye Color: brown
Skin Color: slightly tanned
Other: Well most of the clothes and such would be up to the artist, just really want a beret and some khaki colored stuff to be in there (and I’d like him not to look like a male fashion designer/critic if possible)
Nature: Bold
Ability: Own Tempo
Skill Set:
1. Sketch: It enables the user to permanently learn the move last used by the foe. Once used, Sketch disappears.
2. Sketch
3. Petal Dance: A rampage of 2 to 3 turns that confuses the user.
4. Water Gun

History
*note I'm sorry that it's a bit long. Also, I use Jacek throughout the whole thing because I feel that it is looking into his past, so they would already know his name.

Part 1.
One more swipe should do it. The smeargle thought as he painted the tree with his tail, a nice green blue coming out of the end of it, finishing the 5 line streak across the tree. Jacek had been a normal one, wandering around in his territory, marking it occasionally when he saw fit, fighting with other pokemon that he thought might threaten it. That’s how he spent most of his days within the Johto forest that he lived in. He had been born near the edge of the forest, spending a few months to learn from his mother, until he finally decided to go “lone wolf” and left her.

Throughout his life in the forest, he did not pay much attention to others, trying to create “unique” markings for his claims. Often time he wouldn’t even notice a pokemon pass as he concentrated on his creations. It made all the harder to keep his marked territory in check. When a pokemon commented on his mark, he would usually chase them off if they said it was bad in any way. He also did not want to be around others, enjoying his life by himself.

One day he noticed what looked to be a large brown and wooden square in the middle of his territory. Smoke was coming out of another square poking out on top of it. Cautiously, he approached the strange object, trying to stay hidden. He was not afraid to defend his territory if need be, but he hadn’t seen this thing before, so jumping out and just attacking was not the greatest idea.

Jacek moved closer, when suddenly a door open and what looked like a human stepped out. The human seemed old, it was moving slowly, and carrying something. This human didn’t look that scary. Stepping into the open, Jacek growled as intimidating as he could at the human. “Get out of here!” He yelled at the human, pointing his finger. Not that the human would understand, he was talking in the pokemon language after all. The human turned to him and smiled which confused the smeargle slightly. Was the human planning to attack? Jacek went into a defensive stance, preparing himself for what may come.

To his great surprise though, the human set down what they were carrying and took out a small pointed black object. The human then started to move his hand, from what Jacek could see, on the object. Jacek, curious as to what the human was drawing, cautiously approached the human until he could see what the human was doing.

His eyes went wide with shock. It… it looked like him! What was on the thing! “That would be a drawing of you.” Came a deep voice from above him. Jumping a bit, Jacek turned around and looked at the human who was still focused on the creation. The human smirked a bit. “This is called a drawing, and what I’m drawing on is called a canvas.” The human said.

That is how Jacek came to know Henry, the human, and learned how to create all sorts of paintings, drawings, etc. only with his tail. They had a good friendship. Everyday the smeargle would go to visit Henry. This routine lasted for a few months before Jacek started to notice things about Henry. The human would sometimes stumble a bit, get sick more often, and looked like he had a hard time holding a brush sometimes.

“I don’t think I’m going to be here much longer.” Henry said one day to Jacek while working on his current masterpiece. “But I must get this done. I want to show everyone my work.” He declared. Jacek knew that this piece was very important to the human. Over time he had learned that Henry used to be a famous artist, but his popularity had eventually dried up, causing him to wander around, trying to find the perfect place to make one last creation. Jacek nearly nodded his head, he had been hearing the same thing for the past few days. The next day changed Jacek’s life.

He had gone over to the cabin, what Henry lived in, as usual, only to find him on his bed, breathing slowly and what looked to be with some pain. Jacek wasn’t sure what to do. Should he help him somehow? Wait for him to get better on his own? He was still pondering this at the bed when an arm grabbed his. He looked up into Henry’s eyes. Henry gave a small smile. “I did it Jacek.” He whispered, Jacek the now new name of the smeargle by Henry. He nodded over in a direction and Jacek followed it and saw the completed painting. It was amazing! Jacek’s eyes sparkled with delight and awe. It was indeed a masterpiece. He quickly hugged Henry, showing that he was pleased. Henry hugged the smeargle back lightly. Suddenly he coughed quite hard. Jacek’s excitement died. Looking at Henry he realized that… the human probably wouldn’t make it. Over the months of visiting him, Jacek learned quite a bit about humans and knew Henry was close to leaving.

Henry couldn’t leave though. He had to get people to recognize him again! He had to get his painting put up somewhere where people could see it! But… what could a mere smeargle do? Jacek sighed, pulling the blanket up for Henry a bit more, and decided that he was going to find some way to get that painting recognized.

Part 2.
Jacek had for the first time decided to sleep in the cabin. Before Henry would always offer, but the smeargle just refused them, deciding that the forest was the best place to sleep. With his worries though about the human, he just couldn’t leave his side.

As he was just drifting off a musharna appeared to him. Well, at first he didn’t believe it was a Musharna, but when the human identified itself as a musharna that had become human he believed him. After all, it was a dream right? Couldn’t those be manipulated? The musharna smiled at him and asked if Jacek wanted to become a human? Human? He thought at first, the idea sounding silly. Why would I want to do that? The musharana calmly smiled at him and said that pokemon have various reasons for wanting to become human. The reason musharna visited him, Jacek was told, and that he could feel the drive in the smeargle, the need to do something, to help his human friend.

Hearing that, Jacek thought about it a bit more. If he could become a human… he could help Henry achieve his dream! Surely other humans would listen to one of their own kind? Smeargle pleaded to the Musharana. He wasn’t sure if the other pokemon’s words were true, it was a dream after all, but if he could do anything to help his friend…

Part 3.

The next day, Jacek felt something heavy on his shoulders, moving him about a bit. Slowly opening his eyes, he could see that Jacek was out of the bed, shoulders on the smeargle’s. “Jacek! You’re awake.” Henry exclaimed, a look of surprise on his face. “Of course I am.” The smeargle replied in what seemed a torn form of English. Replied? REPLIED??? Jacek’s eyes became large as he realized he had just spoken something other than the syllables of “Smeargle”. How could he have done that. Putting his hand to his face in confusion… wait a hand? Taking it away from his eyes and holding it out from in front of him, he saw that his paw was now a hand. Looking over the rest of his body, he could also tell it had changed into that of a human. The musharna had done it!

Henry had gotten up by now and gone into another room to bring the surprised smeargle some clothes. Jacek of course, didn’t know why he needed them, or how to put him on, but Henry insisted. So with the human’s help he put the clothes on.

It took a month, but soon Jacek could speak quite well and had learned a bit of human customs with Henry’s assistance. He learned how to eat, where to sleep, what to do for hygiene, everything that Henry said, 'had' to be learned. Also during that month he learned how to use his tail, extremely glad that it had stayed with him when he had transformed, and learned not only how to paint with it like a brush, but also how to change the colors of it. His first few paintings were... under par as Henry put them, and Jacek had spent the first hour of that day rambling on at Henry that "it was good for a first time and that he should not have been so critical on the new human." He had also sulked a bit for a few hours, refusing to talk to the human in case he might disappoint the man more. The rest of the day was spent sulking about, sad that the paintings weren't good enough and that he had yelled at his only friend.

Also he gave his own critiques to Jack's own paintings, pointing out what he thought were flaws, keeping notes in his head, for he had not learned how to write yet, and to make sure he did not make the same mistakes. The ginjinka also learned that not only could pieces of art look good, but he could use his creative thinking in other ways, such as cooking or for decorating. Hygiene was also a must, Henry forcing Jacek into learning the basics such as showering and brushing his teeth. The smeargle didn’t like it much at first, but he had learned to accept it as something that needed to be done, motivation coming also from Henry saying that no one would take him seriously otherwise. Jacek no longer cared about keeping his territory, he had his friend to be with, a friend who was failing in health more and more each day. Henry tried to pass it off as nothing but Jacek could tell that something needed to be done soon.

“What do I need to do to get your painting so that others can see it?” Jacek said, a serious look on his face as he gazed at his friend in the bed. No longer would this task be put off. He would do it! Henry smiled at him, pointing to the 'refrigerator'. “The blue note on there, it has the phone number of a friend of mine who can help you.” He said, nodding. “He said he would help me put up the painting. I haven’t been able to call for a while of course, but he should help. We’ll get it in gallery real soon.” Jacek nodded and proceeded to follow his instructions, a bit clumsily since he had only once used the phone before.

It took another two months, but they were finally able to get it up into a gallery in Goldenrod. Standing there looking at it, Jacek was happy that it had finally found it’s place among humans again. Unfortunately, Henry had passed a few days away before the public had unveiled it. Nevertheless, the human had a smile on his face as he died. Jacek decided he wanted to continue what Henry had taught him; he would also make paintings and masterpieces so that others could enjoy them. Henry had also influenced a change in the ginjinka.

As a smeargle he could have cared less what others thought, selfishly marking territory for his own and beating any others who would try to take it. He had also lost his paranoia of humans, learning that not all of them were bad (though he had met a few that had gotten on his nerves at least). No, now he had learned patience, had realized that he had quite the talent in art, and that instead of keeping his work to himself, he wanted others to see it and enjoy them. He wanted to be an artist.

Some thoughts:
Regarding Critical: What about when people don't ask for critique? Does he maybe offer up critique when it's not requested? Does he put down others in offhanded comments?This, as well as some of the other traits you listed, feels like you're only describing his behavior when he's hanging out in an art gallery. How does he act with non-artists? How do these traits apply to every day life?

Regarding Weaknesses: Both of these traits feel like their the same thing: "Mood Swings". It could be "When his work is criticized, he easily goes into anger or depression, but even that quickly turns around to motivation to do better. When his work is praised, he quickly gets a lift in mood. The slightest thing can turn his mood around."

Regarding History: The first sentence gives the visual of a dog marking his territory with pee. I don't think you want that. You should talk about the kinds of marks he makes and how he makes them. And what is making the squish noise.

“Get out of here!” He yelled at the human, pointing his finger. Make sure you mention he's doing this in poke-speak.

There are way too many exclamation points near the end of the story! Some of these should be question marks! Or just periods!

When you use quotation marks to "emphasize" a word, it usually means that the word you've used is not the correct word, and you should follow it up with an explanation of what you really meant. I think in some cases, you mean it to be the word the human applied to an item, which Jacek didn't know before? Then you should say "what the human called his "cabin"" or something like that. But I'm not sure why you put "current" masterpiece like that.

I think I'd also personally like to see some of Jacek's negative qualities come out in the story. Like, him offering critique to Henry in his own pokemonish way? Or him developing his own tail-paintings and being self-centered about them? Something.

Personality:
Critical
You're going to need to rewrite this as the sentence structure is poor. I understand the basic idea that you're trying to convey but if I had to read it four times to grasp the basics then I can guarantee others will have to read it more than that. If you need help in restructuring the phrases then I'm more than happy to assist but this does need a little work.

Oblivious
I have a tiny issue with this as he's a Narcissist and they rarely forget about themselves and the admiration of those around them. Oblivious individuals are generally those who are completely unaware of the opinions and views of others, as well as being forgetful. Given he's a narcissist I would encourage you to consider "Engrossed" as this allows him to maintain the selfish aspect of his personality.

Narcissist vs Devoted
Pick one as they currently contradict. A narcissist is only ever devoted to themselves so why in the name of goodness would he bother helping anyone without it benefitting him a great deal? If he's a narcissist his work will ALWAYS take precedence and he's highly unlikely to give a rats a** about anyone elses!

Serious
In light of the above contradiction, you may wish to consider how this is phrased.

Strengths and Weaknesses
These are typically reserved for physical weaknesses and strengths as they can't be discussed in personality. You need to add these physical strengths/weaknesses in for this section to be correct. In addition, you may wish to recognise that 'creative' and 'determined' can also be considered personality traits which you may decide to elaborate on in the previous section.

History
The way I'm reading this at the moment, he really doesn't come across as a narcissist at all. He might be a little egotistical and certainly have a lot of pride as an artist, but he's not nearly to such a severe level as a narcissist. With this in mind, you may wish to reconsider your personality traits to compliment your history more.

Generally speaking, the history is good but having read it I really would encourage you to review your personality traits a little!

Personality wise, his traits should explain how they effect his relationships with others on a day to day basis. They should be daily things, and when they don't apply, give examples! A lot of them only are written, or directly impact/draw from, his artworks. Personality should show beyond just his thoughts of objects after all, when another RPer reads the profile, they'll want to know how well their character can interact with your own. If all the see personality wise is Jacek and his artwork, they won't have much to draw on.

I will ask though, you say he's easily depressed, yet then from that he's self motivated to go back and do better? This is both a flaw and a virtue, as then, he's taking a bad thing and able to rebound from it, making him a rather optimistic individual. This also happens in emotional. Try tying the two flaws into one or use more then his art as an example to really put an emphasis on just how these two flaws are really flaws that shouldn't be considered the same.

Strengths and weaknesses are either ways to highly the personality in a few short phrases, OR, ways to point out small less notable quirks or traits that are worthy to note but don't necessary play into the overall personality. So, it's much less physical aspects and much more drawn from personality : D

History seems fine, even if part 3 seems a bit rushed but..the way Jacek reacts towards Henry's criticism, doesn't really match up to personality? It's sort of detached. Otherwise, it works. I'd just review history and make sure both personality and history work tandem and match at the end. if his personality changed since events, reason why so when reading from an outside perspective, it flows.

Fixed the personalities, took out easily depressed and emotional (figured he had enough negative attributes anyway) and tried to fit the attributes and such into the history. Also tried to show how he changed a bit more.

Yeah you'll definitely have to help me out with the history because I have a problem of not being able to tell where I have made mistakes XP

Examples being math tests where I go over the problems and I get the same answer again, even though it's wrong. sweatdrop