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fakemonexperiments · 1 year

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the laundry list (of pokemon traits)

you've got a concept for a pokemon creature! great! but what makes a pokemon into a pokemon, from the average gamer's perspective?

PRESENTING: THE LAUNDRY LIST, a list of all pokemon traits you could possibly need to fill in for a given pokemon ever. treat this like a checklist and go down it, and fill them in to your heart's content. or don't fill them in, who cares! it's your pokemon, bud, not anyone else's.

let's get started!

(by the way, you don't need to do these in order, they're just organised in a way that makes sense to me. again, do whatever.)

NAME

every pokemon needs a good name. if you know anything about pokemon, you probably know that their names are often portmanteaus, IE multiple words or components of them strung together into a conglomerate. it is not difficult to make a good pokemon-sounding name, but it is also not particularly easy. there are general guidelines for this, but also, feel free to just name your fakemon glorp or whatever. (1)

pick up a thesaurus. this will be very helpful in giving you a pool of base words to mash together like two dolls kissing. if you're using an animal/object/plant, look up words related to it. this might be something more general or literal (like rock) or something more evocative, tied to a behaviour of theirs (like ruff being the sound that dogs make). don't just look up words that describe how they look, look up words related to their concept or character! what are their most interesting traits? what do you want to highlight? in the last post we talked about having a strong pokemon concept — this is where it will come into play.

have fun with wordplay. you've got words? good! smash them together like they're particles in the hadron collider. make horrible puns! you don't need follow the exact spelling of the original. feel free to drop vowels and change the hard "c" to the letter "k" wherever feels the most appropriate to you. feel free to also use words in different languages, depending on the regional inspiration of the pokemon.

make it readable. so the thesaurus part is, unfortunately, where some people stop, without actually trying to read their pokemon names aloud. not all of your names need to have their inspiration notable on first glance, but try reading it out loud a few times to see if you like the sound of it. often what makes this weird is the cadence of the pokemon name — for example, making what was originally a prefix into a suffix (e.g. placing the trop- in tropical at the end of your fakemon's name). switching things around like that can make it more difficult to actually understand the base inspiration of your pokemon, mostly because your reader will be matching things the wrong way round.

google your fakemon's name and components. this is especially important if you are using a word from another language, which you might not know the full implications of (practical or literal). (2) please also google the components, lest you end up including a racial slur in the name of your pokemon. if all is well, you may proceed.

make it practical. the longest existing pokemon names are 12 characters, of which there are only three (crabominable, squawkabilly, and brambleghast). you could also compress the base words to fit: remember, if the pokemon company can abbreviate alligator to -aligatr, so can you. (3) feel free to go longer than this if you aren't planning to code it into an actual pokemon game.

TYPING

typing is honestly pretty straightforward. pokemon has 18 types, some pokemon have single types, some pokemon have dual types. some typings already exist in the game, some don't. some pokemon even have unique types. people like to do lists of fakemon to fill in the typings which are currently not in existence in the game, so that's a pretty common fakemon archetype.

ideally, your pokemon's typing should match their concept and build. each type of course has its own strengths and weaknesses, and so some types perform better than others overall. but if your polar bear lives on an ice mountain or floats on an iceberg all the way to club penguin, it should probably be ice type or something.

my other note is that if you're going to design a fakemon pokedex, try to make sure that the type balance at least somewhat reflects that of an existing pokedex, with adjustments for the actual terrain of your region or whatever. I like using the unovan pokedex because it's designed to stand on its own without any additions until post-game.

BASE STATS

hopefully you are making this pokemon's base stats after designing their type, so you will know what to buff and debuff. base stats are what determines your pokemon's stats before natures, IVs, and EVs. (4) for those who have never looked at a stat-spread before, there are six stats, and the number they have is the number your pokemon will have at level 100. stats should always be made in conjunction with other battle mechanics.

HP is very straightforward, it's the literal amount of health your pokemon has. for example, shedinja has 1 base HP because of its ability, while blissey has 255 base HP, the max any pokemon can have in one stat.

ATTACK determines the amount of damage your pokemon does when using physical moves. chansey has base Atk 5, while mega mewtwo x has base Atk 190.

likewise, DEFENSE determines how resistant your pokemon is to physical damage. chansey also has a base Def of 5 in this, meaning it's very physically weak (because it's an egg), while eternamax eternatus tops this out at base Def 250.

SPECIAL ATTACK determines the amount of damage your pokemon does when using special moves. feebas has base SpA 10 in this, an example of how stats can also tie into your pokemon's narrative (milotic's base SpA shoots up to a whopping 100, all thanks to the ugly duckling). topping out this stat is currently mega mewtwo y at base stat 194.

SPECIAL DEFENSE of course determines how resistant your pokemon is to special damage. magikarp is here at base SpDef 20, while the highest is also eternamax eternatus at 250.

SPEED makes your pokemon go fast and move first. shuckle, while very specially defensive (230), also has a base Spe of 5, while regieleki peaks at base Spe 200.

your BASE STAT TOTAL (BST) is all these six stats added up together. special forms and legendaries usually have the highest BSTs, while starters have between 520 and 535 BST depending on the generation.

stats should be made with the pokemon's moveset in mind, IE if they're physically offensive, they should ideally have some physical moves that do serious damage. that said, not all pokemon can be winners, so it's fine if your fakemon is a little bit of a failmon.

stats also 1) generally get better as the pokemon evolves and 2) either lean broadly physical or broadly defensive. if you're familiar with any type of fighting game ever, you'll know that there are more specific builds like glass cannons and so on.

a good reference point is the bulbapedia page listing pokemon by (BSTs). find an existing pokemon with a similar build to yours, then copy or make subtle (or major!) amendments to their stats. this is the most straightforward way to balance your pokemon. note also that certain types have general trends in their stats (e.g. psychic types tend to be high SpA for obvious reasons), so take that into account when making your fakemon.

MOVE POOL

every pokemon has moves, of course. there are plenty of existing moves and you can happily note down what your fakemon learns at each level (see the STATS section for the physical/special divide).

moves have different types, not all of which are the same as your pokemon's. they have a wide variety of effects; some are offensive, some are defensive, some also have secondary effects. pokemon can learn move via levelling up, TMs, or egg moves. again, looking at the movesets of similar pokemon can really help with figuring this one out.

some pokemon have signature moves, IE moves that only that pokemon can use and learn via level up. if you're adding one of these to your pokemon, all I can humbly request is for you to not make the world's silliest and most unbalanced physical-special combo move that does 150 damage with no adverse effects named PENIS BLAST or something similar. but also, be creative! go wild, man. this is fiction. (5)

ABILITY

each pokemon can only have one ability at once. some pokemon have up to two potential abilities, and possibly one hidden ability on top of that. abilities do all sorts of funky stuff, like change a pokemon's type, change the weather, or boost the pokemon's stats when an opponent faints. regular abilities have a 50/50 chance of appearing if there's two of them, but hidden abilities usually only appear on pokemon with specific locations, event pokemon, etc.

like signature moves, there are also signature abilities. the same rules apply, and your best bet to figuring this out is looking at the existing list of pokemon abilities and figuring out one that is fun and cool, if balanced at all. your ability should ideally be relevant to a pokemon's concept (e.g. palafin's zero to hero is really funny and I like it a LOT), or relevant to the kind of pokemon they are (all starters have one regular ability and one hidden ability).

POKEDEX ENTRY

this is the flavour text addition to your fakemon. by now, you should have a strong fakemon concept and backstory, so literally just write it down. since most pokemon generations have two pokemon games in one release, there are usually two pokedex entries per release, which can say the same fact in a different way or say something completely different between the versions. they can also say things which are COMPLETELY contradictory or don't make sense, so don't worry about it. a pokedex entry usually signals how a pokemon functions in the wild, interacts with humans, and so on. this is how you give your pokemon lore.

you can also take into account things like time period or author reliability — the entry for lapras changes between generations from endangered to happily repopulated. pokemon legends arceus also has some unique facts based on the in-game context of pokemon knowledge of the past.

POKEMON CATEGORY

pokemon category is like, the shit that ash's pokedex reads out when it scans a pokemon for the first time. like, "gengar, the shadow pokemon". pokemon categories are usually one or two word/phrases. they describe either the pokemon's literal body or the concept that they're meant to embody, like how gyarados is "the atrocious pokemon" because it is literally the worst (and also a delight). pokemon categories can repeat, so don't worry if you end up naming yours something like "the dog pokemon".

if you're struggling to describe your pokemon in one or two words, this may be a sign that the component parts of your pokemon don't have strong synergy with each other. you might need to work on refining your concept a little bit, in that case.

SPRITE/KEY ART

you might be wondering why SPRITE/KEY ART is so low on the list given that that's like, the number one thing that people post when it comes to fakemon. this is mostly because I'm going to make a future post fully dedicated to talking about pokemon art, so it's just not the main topic of this post.

really though, art of your pokemon is literally just to show how your pokemon looks and help flesh out your concept. don't worry about it if you don't know how to do pixel art or draw in the masuda art style!

HEIGHT

pokemon come in a wide range of shape and sizes, but they should still ultimately be able to be someone's favourite pokemon. here's a list of pokemon by height for your reference. the shortest pokemon is joltik at 10cm tall (4 inches), and the tallest/longest pokemon is eternamax eternatus at 100m long (328 feet 1 inch). the tallest/longest regular pokemon is wailord at 14.5m (47 feet 5 inches). this makes sense because it's a blue whale.

you'll notice that I say both height and length because snake-like pokemon (basically anything longthy) are measured from head to tip of tail. why is furret 5 feet 10 inches long? boy, I wish I KNEW.

make your pokemon height whatever makes the most sense for its concept. there is technically no real limit upwards or downwards on this, but the vast majority of pokemon are 12 feet or less. again, find something that's similar to your build and measure against that.

WEIGHT

correspondingly, here is a list of pokemon by weight for your reference. this should roughly correspond to the material your pokemon is made of, like if a pokemon is made of literal rocks it should probably be heavier than a bug, unless the bug is also made of rocks. the lightest pokemon is gastly because it's made of gas, and the heaviest (right now!) is celesteela at 999.9kg (2204.4 lbs).

this is a good point to mention that yes, you can make pokemon height and weight into silly numbers for silly reasons. yes, you can have a pokemon where all its base stats are 69 and it has a height of 4.20m and weighs 420kg. who am I to stop you on this.

SHAPE

each pokemon has a shape in the pokedex, and yes there actually a limited number of possible shapes! there are 14 pokemon shapes available, and you can use them to search in pokemon HOME.

think of these as less body-shaming your fakemon and more about just figuring out the general silhouette of your fakemon (like how many legs or arms it has, or none at all). this is probably something that should be applied retrospectively after you design your pokemon, so don't worry too much about it while making one.

note also that all the pokemon here have eyes! having eyes isn't a necessary trait in all pokemon (think zubat) but a face certainly is. faces are important in making them friendly.

FOOTPRINT

say it with me: if your pokemon has a foot, it can have a wikifeet page. in gen 4, there is a guy named dr footstep who will give your pokemon a ribbon "based on its footprint" (its friendship level in DPP, the BDSP one is different). not all pokemon have canonical footprints, because they're really only a thing up till gen 5, but I like their little pawsies. look at them!!

EGG GROUP

egg groups are not directly equivalent to real life taxonomy. for instance, not all "bugs" in the "bug" egg group have six legs. in fact, some of them are SPIDERS. they're more a description of the general group of the corresponding real-life thing, like how all mammals are in the "field" egg group (and hence why hot skitty on wailord action, etc.) and snakes are in the "dragon" egg group.

egg groups are almost exclusively for breeding purposes, since you can breed two pokemon of different genders from the same egg group. ditto has its own egg group because ditto can breed with any other egg group. "no eggs discovered" is for pokemon that can't breed, due to being legendaries, baby pokemon, gimmick pokemon, or nidoqueen.

"gender unknown" isn't strictly speaking a mechanical egg group, but pokemon with unknown genders can only breed with ditto (though of course, if they're in the no eggs discovered mechanical egg group, they can't breed at all).

GENDER RATIO & DIFFERENCES

gender ratios are actually equal parts mechanical and lore-based in pokemon, reason being that they're used to make pokemon easier or harder to find half the time.

for instance, starter pokemon generally sit at a 7:1 male to female ratio, reason being that the game doesn't want you to start a starter breeding factory at the beginning of your playthrough (the same with fossils and gift pokemon). other pokemon are gender exclusive or have gendered evolutions, like the nidos, vespiquen, or salazzle. some pokemon with a 3:1 gender ratio in either direction are usually human-like and look masculine or feminine (although YMMV on the genderification of arcanine, which is a dog-tiger). honestly the vast majority of pokemon are a 1:1 gender split, so unless there's a specific mechanical reason for you to do it or you seriously and deeply feel you have to do the gender binary for lore reasons, then yeah.

gender differences are often misapplied in (frankly) sexist fakemon. the vast, vast majority of existing pokemon visual differences are literally just things that the animal or whatever they're based on displays, like male and female lions having different manes. again, the vast majority of pokemon do not have visible gender differences: male and female gardevoirs look THE SAME. pokemon can look like whatever you want them to be, stop giving them human sexual differences. (6)

last note is that some pokemon with gender differences have slightly different stats, move pools, and abilities between the two genders. some pokemon, of course, have unknown genders, and these guys are usually objectmons of some kind, or legendary pokemon, etc.

OTHER MISCELLANEA

these are things that each pokemon technically has but I can assure you no fakemon creator goes out of their way to add into their fakemon's bio.

EV yield

each pokemon, when knocked out by another pokemon, gives the victor a number of effort values (EVs). this is not to be confused with individual values (IVs), which are a pokemon's genes. most pokemon drop the EV of the stat they're highest in, with evolved pokemon dropping more EVs corresponding to their stage. for instance, bulbasaur drops 1 EV, ivysaur 2 EVs, and venusaur 3 EVs total. these EV yields can be spread across different stats (venusaur has 2 SpA 1SpDef). here's a list.

experience yield and leveling rate

honestly this is kind of beyond me because I'm pretty bad at understanding large amounts of numbers and theorems but the broad rule is that more annoying a pokemon is (powerful/rarer/evolved) the more exp it gives when knocked out and the slower it levels up. (7) the exception to this is the chansey line, which gives an exorbitant amount of EXP and you should absolutely farm in large numbers to level up your pokemon.

catch rate

pokemon that are more powerful, rarer, and evolved have correspondingly shittier catch rates. legendaries have the worst catch rates. here's another list.

hatch time

pokemon that are more powerful and rarer IN THEIR BASE STAGE FORM have correspondingly longer hatching times. gyarados is very powerful but only has 5 hatch cycles because its base form is MAGIKARP. the longest hatch times are mostly pseudo-legends because legendaries don't have eggs (manaphy/phione notwithstanding). here's an extra list.

pokedex colour

all pokemon have an internal data-assigned colour, although this is no longer directly searchable in the pokedex. assume that this the main colour of your pokemon. here's a list also.

base friendship

pokemon that are (lore-wise) more friendly to the player or get along better with humans have higher base friendship. otherwise, they mostly average base friendship of 50 (gen 8 onwards). here's the final list!

conclusion

there are lots of traits that go into making a fakemon! this is because pokemon, broadly speaking, are complicated, and the pokemon franchise is wide and sprawling. don't feel compelled to fill in every single one of these characteristics: just pick the ones that you feel would help people to understand your fakemon better.

if you've made it all the way to the end of this 3600 word horrorshow, thanks for reading! I hope you get some use out of this.

footnotes

(1) I think about glorp at least once a month, but definitely every day when I'm actively making fakemon.

(2) this is also where sensitivity reading might come in handy, so if possible get someone from that culture to give it a once-over.

(3) from feraligatr, if anyone is confused.

(4) note that official pokemon calls base stats "species strengths" and EVs "base stats". yes this is confusing, I agree.

(5) if you want to practice balancing your pokemon, try learning a bit of competitive pokemon play and the strategies that are commonly used — consider looking at smogon or VGC as starting points. they employ different strategies.

(6) I do not make claims to the political progressiveness of pokemon or anything, but at least the majority of their animals are just animals and not animals with human tits.

(7) starters are all medium slow leveling rate, pseudo-legends and legends all in the slow leveling rate category.

#fakemon #pokemon #fakemon tutorial

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fakemonexperiments · 1 year

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fakemon concepts

so, you’re still thinking about making one of those pokemon creatures: the question is, what kind of pokemon creature do you want to make?

how to concept

before we get to actually designing the pokemon, you’ll first want to come up with a strong concept. this is what your pokemon is actually about, its core conceit, what makes it special! a strong concept will guide your design and tell you exactly what your pokemon should look like, in terms of physical characteristics, pose, and personality.

disclaimer: pokemon concepts have evolved over the generations, which is really only to be expected from an almost 30-year-old franchise. pokemon concepts will continue to evolve over time. I’m not going to be the judge to say “this looks like a pokemon” or not, mostly because they release new and surprising pokemon every year and I always find myself liking them anyway. these are just a few frameworks that will hopefully help you navigate fakemon design.

anyway.

the fundamentals

pokemon concepts are often made up of multiple parts: where the skill lies is in pairing parts that go well with each other. for example, bulbasaur is a bulb-frog that evolves into a flower-dinosaur. confusing? yes, when I put it like that. but what makes it work is the narrative that ties the pokemon together (a rafflesia growing and bursting into bloom). so,

pick a base concept. easy tier would be an animal, plant, or object (1), but feel free to go further! many of the more anthromorphic pokemon are based around ideas or professions rather than a specific animal. think of snorlax (hungry sleepy animal, not actually a bear) or kirlia (a ballet dancer). pick a base that’s evocative and flexible. the base should be something that would be familiar to a child, if not in specifics then at least in general. (2)

find a secondary concept. the secondary concept does not need to relate to your base concept, but it should have synergy with it, IE they should resonate with each other and make it easier, rather than harder, to understand your pokemon on first glance.

marry these concepts together using a narrative and personality. your pokemon should tell its own mini-story. how does it function in the wild? how does it behave in relation to humans? what are its likes and dislikes? at this point, you may start filling out the laundry list of pokemon traits (post upcoming), like their typing, evolution stage, pokedex entries, stats, and so on. (3)

does this pokemon go with other pokemon? if so, you might need to think about those pokemon too! like real life critters, they can have a variety of relationships, be it mutualistic or antagonistic or anything along those lines. if this pokemon evolves, think about how its core idea evolves through the different stages (as opposed to just getting bigger and more complexly designed). you can go through this process for those guys too!

happy with your fakemon concept? good! now is time to refine your concept further. here is a DIAGRAM I have made for your reference.

pokemon graph 01

you’re probably looking at this like. what the hell does THAT mean??? but you also probably get it from looking at it. all pokemon fall on this diagram somewhere. you should try to stay within the pale red diamond, otherwise known as “the pokemon zone”. here are why I labelled the axes as such:

a zoo animal is a pokemon that’s too familiar for anyone’s liking. it does not necessarily need to be an animal, that’s just the name I’m using for it. this often happens if you lean too hard on your base concept and make your pokemon wayyy too specific. like if you made a mantis shrimp but it’s just a mantis shrimp. yes, it’s very cool, because mantis shrimp are fundamentally cool, but at the end of the day, it’s still basically just a mantis shrimp with no other significant traits. again, “zoo animal” can also apply to more humanlike concepts - this happens when you make a pokemon’s assigned characteristics too clear in its design. remember: timburr has a vest and carries a steel bar, but it does NOT wear a hat and its vest is not high-vis. try simplifying and abstracting if this is you.

a furby is a pokemon that is unearthly to the point of unfamiliarity. I mean, yes, strictly speaking all pokemon are unearthly, but this is a pokemon that’s so unfamiliar it’s hard to parse on first glance what’s going on with it. often this has to do with missing the mark on pokemon design conventions, but the existing pokemon I’d place close to this are actually ultra beasts, which are like this by design. they do this by doing things like having uncomfortably and satirically humanoid silhouettes, missing faces and facial expressions, being full abominations and so on. there are some really interesting things you can do in this space, but you want to still make sure this pokemon is interesting and likeable to a child.

a digimon is, well, a digimon. there are plenty of theses on why digimon are different from pokemon, but personally the main difference is in the scale of design: digimon tend to be much more anthropomorphic and also much more complicated, with the addition of armour and clothing. when a pokemon (such as lucario or gardevoir) is anthro, they aren’t straightforwardly so - they mess with the proportions, they disrupt the silhouette. they also don't straightforwardly add clothes; usually the clothes are baked into the pokemon's fur or skin to give an impression (such as with gumshoos). people fall into the digimon trap when they overcomplicate their design by adding too many elements into it.

a neopet is also, well. a neopet. unlike digimon, neopets tend to be undercomplicated and oversimplified. instead of having the secondary concept, they tend to have a single concept with a personality tacked onto it. not all cute pokemon are neopets, and not all neopets are cute pokemon. for example, eevee looks like it could be a neopet, but is specifically designed to be no particular animal, as well as having a unique concept behind its evolution and relation to other pokemon. if you’ve got a neopet-looking pokemon, try to make its concept more complex (although not necessarily more convoluted).

you might have noticed that I’ve mentioned that certain existing pokemon lean one way or another, but are still considered pokemon. this is because pokemon changes all the time and is constantly pushing the definition of what it means to be a pokemon. as I said, making fakemon is meant to be fun! do whatever! but pokemon official is able to do this because they are aware of pokemon design conventions to begin with. that’s why ultra beasts are Labelled As Ultra Beasts, it’s because they don’t fit the design conventions. keep this in mind when conceptualising your pokemon!

appeal to children

think your fakemon sounds like a fakemon? cool. now you want to make sure your fakemon hits the right tone, and for that, it must be parseable to a child.

like, a kid should be able to listen to your concept and be like oh that makes sense and not get lost along the way. this is because despite the ageing fanbase, one of the cornerstones of pokemon remains being accessible to new and young players, rather than just old veterans. if it’s too complex, streamline your ideas! if it’s too simple, buff up the narrative! every pokemon should, theoretically, be able to become some child’s best friend and companion.

if you’re struggling to figure out how to do this, one thing I’ve found very helpful is actually relying on the frameworks pokemon already gives us in game. that is, your pokemon’s condition!

in-game, pokemon are used in contests, and their condition is part of their judging. for fakemon, this means you can use these stats to guide the appeal of your pokemon:

tough

cool

beauty

cute

smart

or any combination of these! most pokemon (I find) tend to lean on 2 of these characteristics. a pokemon can be large and brutish, but it must be scary in a cool way. in an exciting way! in a “wow that’s so sick I wish I had one of those” kind of way. note also that conditions tend to lend themselves to certain kinds of moves, builds, and stats, but if you’ve been following along with a fakemon in mind that should probably make sense to you anyway.

now that you’ve thoroughly refined your pokemon concept, it’s time to put your pokemon in context.

cultural concepts (and appropriation)

okay, listen. if you are making a fakemon, there’s a good chance you’re thinking of making a fakemon region, or pokedex. like the pokemon company, you’re probably considering basing it on a real-world geographic area and culture. and that’s not bad! but you need to be careful!

I’m not saying that you should only write or make art about cultures that you personally are familiar with, but please for the love of god do not make racist fakemon. I have seen enough racist fakemon for a lifetime. think about the appropriateness of the story you’re telling. are you the right person to tell this story? is this story yours to tell?

as a creator it is your responsibility to research thoroughly any other culture you seek to represent, especially their mythology. this includes being sensitive to their perspective on said culture, which may have religious or otherwise implications that you aren’t aware of. I am once again asking you to be, at the bare minimum, respectful. (4)

if you’re working on a culture that isn’t yours, look into getting a sensitivity reader! I assure you that this is not as scary as it sounds, and could be as simple as asking a friend from that culture to look over your work and point out any blind spots. (if you don’t have any friends from that culture, this should doubly make you question why you’re making fakemon about it, of all things.) please also thank your friend for their time - sensitivity reading is also a job that people get paid for, if you’d like to hire someone instead.

anyway, key points:

if you’re representing a culture or background that isn’t yours, do your research

part of that research may involve speaking to people from that culture or background to actually make the pokemon work

this is not a bad thing and will in fact help you make better pokemon

ultimately the goal of any culturally inspired pokemon should be to celebrate that culture! not to perpetuate racist stereotypes lol

conclusion

a lot of people think that pokemon is often X + Y = Z. they’re not wrong, but it’s actually more like A + B + C + D + E = Z, where A to E aren’t just different things, they’re different categories of things. A might be your base concept. B might be the weird riff you’re putting on it. C might be a personality trait. D is the narrative role of the pokemon. and E is probably the completely broken unique move or ability you’ve concocted for your pokemon that would make it horrible to play against competitively.

make your pokemon rigourously! make them robust! make them fun! and ultimately, please make them a child’s best friend, to go on their pokemon journey with.

footnotes:

(1) I guess a sort of riff on animal, vegetable, mineral, except that pokemon objectmons go far beyond minerals. grass types aren’t all strictly plants, and vegetables do encompass mushrooms though.

(2) a child might not be familiar with the specific parasite that orbeetle is based on, but they do know ladybugs and they do know UFOs. and they’d be like, wow, so cool!

(3) please know that even though I’ve labelled these steps 1-4, you don’t have to actually do them in order. you could start with a typing you want to fill or a narrative in mind, then come up with a pokemon to fill the gaps. start with a design and then make up a personality for it! I’m not the boss of you.

(4) I’m not going to pretend pokemon doesn’t have its own history of cultural appropriation and racism (cc xatu, jynx, etc.). but that doesn’t mean you have to do it.

#fakemon #pokemon #fakemon tutorial

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fakemonexperiments · 1 year

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intro: why make a fakemon?

so, you wanna make one of those pokemon creatures!

I wanted to highlight the core principle of this blog: fakemon are for fun. sometimes when I talk to people offline about the fakemon I've made, I get a bunch of questions about why I make these guys instead of making [my own original game series / a series like pokemon / something else]. so, here are my reasons for why:

I think they're neat

pokemon provides a convenient framework for us to come up with new little creatures

the flexibility of the model means that theoretically speaking, many (but not all) things can be made into pokemon

it's fun!

I don't think making fakemon is a substitute for creating original works. to me, fakemon is a kind of art study, where I'm studying the style and artistic direction behind an existing piece of work and trying my best to replicate that. it's an opportunity to experiment and be creative, which is made easier by having clearly defined rules to follow.

anyway, all this is to say, fakemon is for fun, and making fakemon, like any other transformative work, is a form of art. but like all art, its ideas can be subjected to critique as well. so, here are the aims of the blog:

make cool and fun and interesting fakemon

study pokemon and figure out how to make fakemon fun and cool and interesting

think critically about pokemon as a piece of media and consequently, the transformative works based on it

so ya :)

#pokemon #fakemon #fakemon tutorial

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fakemonexperiments · 1 year

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any tips for drawing grass type pokemon?

grass types, despite the name, are actually about the concept of plants/vegetables rather than strictly being plants. this is why mushroom pokemon (amogus etc) are considered grass types.

my general process for grass pokemon is about the same as any other pokemon except that

pick a plant or fungus. determine the defining characteristics of this plant or fungus and what would make it unique and interesting, either to the naked eye or in terms of function/role in the ecosystem. be as specific with this plant or fungus as possible - this will make it easier for you to highlight defining traits.

find another concept to marry with your plant. this will help you anthropomorphise it but also give depth to your pokemon. this can be anything - a literal animal (bulbasaur is a frog-dinosaur mixed with a flower bulb), a character type (shiftry is a ninja), or something more abstract/referential (applin worm in an apple). think about whether this pokemon comes in groups, like paired pokemon or an evolution line. how does it interact with other pokemon? if in an evolution line, base stages tend to be simpler and much more aligned with seeds/sprouts, while fully evolved forms are flowering/mature plants. alternatively, you could just pick a bigger version of an adjacent plant (see cacnea and cacturne). pokemon tend to develop more arms and legs as they get bigger, also.

characterise your pokemon. what’s their personality like? how would this appeal to a child? for this I like to use the five contest appeals (cool, smart, beautiful, tough, cute) and sort of pick 1-2 that i think will work. write 2 pokedex entries - this should help you determine how your pokemon would function in the wild, or how it interacts with humans! around this time, you can also finish off the laundry list of pokemon characteristics: things like type, stats, and so on.

now that you have your pokemon concept clearly laid out, it’ll be much easier for you to draw the pokemon. the complexity of your drawing should scale with A) the evolution stage and B) box legendary-itis. in general however, you should think of the pokemon as something that a child should be able to draw if they tried hard enough. for grass pokemon, focus on your concept and see how you can break it down into simplified shapes (e.g. virizion does not look like a real life deer, it looks like a very stylised deer slimmed down to reflect a sort of elegance). simplify the shapes and proportions. remember that this isn’t necessarily about what the things you’re drawing from look like in real life, but something that should be easily parseable to a child. lastly, try to convey their personality: through their size, shape, pose.

grass types lean towards being green because of the generalised plant theme, but this is not the only colour a grass pokemon can be. even grass starters don’t have to be fully green - think rowlet and green bowtie as an accent. pick the colours that work best for the vibe you want to give off: they do not have to be realistic to your plant or animal at all. shiinotic is purple because it glows in the dark, not because shiitakes are purple. do whatever you want 🙏

at this point I feel like I should give an example of a grass pokemon I’ve designed, so here’s coconaught again:

I started with the concept of a coconut, but I wanted to do something different from alolan exeggutor. I always kind of thought that the three holes in a coconut kind of looked like its face, so that of course became its face. when I doodled a first draft, it looked somewhat haunted, which gave me the idea to give it a secondary ghost typing! coconuts are naturally round, so the silhouette was easy but too simple - I gave it the coconut tree/sprout to make it distinct at first glance what the pokemon was intended to be. then I trialed different legs (whether one leg to hop around on or two legs to waddle on) and sort of settled on this mr game & watch type legs, which had a sort of synergy with the haunted/ghosty nature of it all. I think I went for something cute but in a kind of spooky way - sort of mimikyu-adjacent. then I named it coconaught (coconut + naught as in nothing, to convey the sense of hollowness). anyway I think he’s really good. hope that helps

#pokemon #fakemon #ask box #grass #ok to rp #<- ref coconaught

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