I have an idea about how to adapt Meditite and Medicham into live-action for a hypothetical Detective Pikachu sequel/spin-off (after all, at least Meditite is confirmed to exist in the movie's universe).
Even if this idea is never implemented I’m still adopting it as headcanon if I ever get to draw or write stuff with them.
The idea is to portray Meditite and Medicham as living statues. Make them appear to have been carved out of clay, wood, rock, etc through their textures.
Jizo statues. [source] (more like this)
In-universe, this would be an advantage because they are supposed to meditate and stay still for hours, so it would serve as camouflage of sorts both in mountains and households. It’s easy to imagine a character (maybe a detective looking for clues *wink wink*) mistaking a Meditite for a simple decoration until it suddendly moves.
Out-of-universe, this could avoid the uncanny valley effect that their humanoid appearences could cause if they go all out with it (not every humanoid fighting-type may work as easily in live-action as Machamp did). Also it may help Medicham come across less as a “belly dancer” (wich is a dangerous archetype) and more like a vague, enlightened monk monster.
I got this idea from Mr. Mime’s dodgeball-like shoulders and solid, horn-like “hair”:
A lot of thought must have gone into these details. It made many people wonder if the pokemon was meant to be a plastic toy or puppet all along instead of some weird non-human humanoid. It helped with the inmersion of the movie. So now I like to ponder how the textures of different pokemon should look like, especially in live-action. What can a texture say about the pokemon?
