#fakemon tutorial

[fakemonexperiments]

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.

[scarfscrawls]

Heyoo! Some folks asked me about how I make my sprites, so I put together a little tutorial about it.

It's on my shop! PWYW, absolutely free!

Go forth, start on the path to putting your lil creatures to pixels!

[adaptingkaiju]

oh my god I love your art, I love how you capture the vibe of old pokemon art perfectly, do you know of any tutorials for it?

Sorry for the late answer!

It depends on the style but here's what i got

--Water colour--

Generally have a pencil like pen and fill the insides with white, and get a waterbrush and add a light colour to the shadows and a more vibrant or darker colour to a bit more dark bits and keep the white for the shines on the body

--GSC sprites--

These ones need an understanding of spriting so they are slightly harder and have the gneral rules of only 2 CUSTOM COLOURS (4 colours in total are used white, black and other 2 of your choosing) the sprite has to be around 36x36, 48x48 or 56×56, this depends on the size of the mon. Use real sprites as reference as they are the best guides!

[harlequinfrog]

when i was first learning how to code i was like ugh i already know how i want to do this why do i have to draw a chart about it and now it's like yay <3 diagrams <3

[cloudster-clown]

erm

am making a pinned post to keep things organized and help people so uh... here are things to direct you to my stuff:

art tag -> my art

ask tag -> ask

fakemon tag -> fakemon design

3d models tag -> 3d modling

blockbench tutorial (kinda)

main brushes i use -> brush 1 brush 2

you can use my art as pfps and/or banners as long as you CREDIT ME!

OTHER SOCIALS: twitter instagram bluesky

[kyepha]

Halo: Combat Evolved

Here it is! The second episode in my little Halo miniseries on my channel. This one was a LOT of fun to both and play and make.

I tried a new thumbnail style for this video too since I want to make them a lot more bold. After playing Halo Reach I had no idea what to expect for the trilogy, and oh boy was I SHOCKED. Halo is definitely one of those games that I just shrugged off as another FPS, but I never realised it has such a rich storyline. Sure the gameplay is pretty much the same throughout and I’m not entirely sure if I’d be super into the multiplayer and competitive game modes, but I am a real sucker for the campaign.

In other news, next video will be a lot more relaxing, I’m still not sure if I will script it but it’ll be my island tour on Animal Crossing New Horizons which has been a long time coming. That should be out next weekend.

I have also been working on a separate project, since I’m not really doing the Pokémon thing on my main channel anymore I actually opened up a second channel completely dedicated to Fakemon. I am currently working on a series of tutorials for Fakemon creation which will hopefully serve as true successors to my old old tutorials from 2018/19.

Anyways that’s all for now! Go check out the video, and let me know in the comments what you think! I’m having a lot of fun making these videos, I think I’ve finally found my element.

Until next time!

Ky 💫

[killbent]

So I recently learned about the Minecraft mod Cobblemon, and they have a full tutorial on how to add custom pokemon so now I suddenly have several fakemon ideas that will require me to design, model, and animate and also learn some Java probably

[claitea]

art fight is soon and i havent done a Single new oc ref since last year

in case you want info on them

esen is the leader of the three-person party of her, dayn and florian after they split from their original parties, since they worked best together. she helps to document heartless behavior and how to fight them and gives that info to the rest of the vulpes union. she's curious to a fault and often gets distracted trying to research new heartless while literally in the middle of fighting them. lives in the lighthouse and sails keykids to the island. sometimes sells her drawings at florian's fruit and veg shop.

chip used to be a very shy kid, until he went on his pokemon journey and learned to come out of his shell. he became a gym leader in the starting town because he knows how scary starting a journey can be and wants to support new trainers. he is the definition of a handholdy tutorial, like if you dont bring a flying type before his battle he'll ask if you want to catch one, before being told off by his sister cassidy for being too coddling and starting the battle anyway. as a surprise he's also the champion of the region, excited to see how you've grown over your journey and fighting you full force.

cassidy is one of the lead developers for tms in the entire world. she's the one who gives you access to the tm crafting service and often appears to check on your progress and give you new tms. since she makes tms she researches pokemon moves; she's the fifth gym leader, part of her gym gimmick is that her pokemon all know torment, to force challengers to show her a variety of moves (and also stop flamethrower spammers she's so sick of this)

kalin is a ballet dancer, inspired by tales of meloetta and the red shoes it lost that fae heard as a kid. fae's mischievous, faer entire gym is designed to scare people. challengers are not told who the gym leader is or what they look like. doors lock behind you and you have to find hiding klefki to pass, a seemingly headless trainer chases you (turns out to be a disguised theatrigus, one of my fakemon), and at the very end theres a hall of portraits of the so far unnamed gym leader dating back to up to 100 years ago, however they seem to not age in any of them. the first pokemon kalin sends in is actually a zoroark to tip the player off that illusions were used to make the gym scarier. after beating the gym, kalin reveals that the gym has been passed down in faer family for years, all to keep the joke going and make it seem like the gym leader is immortal, a real faerie. kalin tells you faer real name and makes you promise not to reveal the gym's secrets. also yes i made a fairy gym leader just to give faer fae/faer pronouns the joke was too easy

not as much to lichen as the others haha. works at reid's coffee shop (another oc i have to fix the ref for but not as much motivation for xem as these other ones), sometimes runs a little arts and crafts event for kids in the shop. loves halloween and horror, outfit always has some kind of bat motif on it. might look scary but is genuinely sweet.

[scalematey]

anyway. this close to making a sideblog to talk about fakemon design lol. there’s plenty of tutorials out there but not like the tutorial i want to make!!!!! and barely any of them talk abt the racism/cultural appropriation issues so prevalent in the fakemon community lmaoo

[mapleshaiku]

Another Zorua. I was intending to mimic the official art (There’s plenty of tutorials out there thanks to people wanting to make Fakemon), and I think I did well. I remember trying several years ago and not being successful, but now that I have more art experience, it did turn out more successful.

[fakemonexperiments]

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 :)

[doubleddenden]

I've been quietly working on a fakemon region for 15+ years

You'd think I'd have made a lot of progress...well, yeah? But also nah

I have a lot of designs made. I even have regional variants and regional exclusive evolutions. My main issues I have is that

A. I need to redo most of them, because the older ones look like absolute shit

B. I need to make a bunch. Evolutions, pre evolutions, etc.

C. I need to finish a bunch

And you know what? With over 106 things I gotta work on for the base dex, do you know what my dumbass self decides?

I decided on a regional gimmick I wanna try

...

Well, a second one. The first one is a type changing scarf that changes or adds a secondary type, which I made before gen 9's Terrastilizing. Basically Pikachu with a Dark Scarf becomes Electric/Dark, whereas a Charizard with a Dark Scarf goes from Fire Flying to Fire Dark. Simple right?

So the second one is similar, just... makes more work for me lol

But it has potential to be cool design wise and offer a ton of variety.

Still workshopping the name, but the concept is somewhat similar to Armor Digivolving from Digimon. Basically with the power of certain items, some Pokemon can be temporarily evolved into another and changed back at will. In fact, said form can be attained at any point in the evolutionary line.

So for instance: a Pikachu could have 3 of these evolutions, but so does Pichu and Raichu. One form might be Electric/water, electric/flying, or electric/steel, and all have a unique ability.

The way it works is that for a Pokemon like Pichu, said evolution would give it the same bst as Pikachu, and for Pikachu, the same bst as Raichu, but as a fully evolved Pokemon it does not gain more than that. Each evolution would take the bst of said Pokemon and rearrange the stats to suit its needs (like a scyther/scizor situation), plus come with 1 or 2 level appropriate moves upon evolution.

Pokemon using this method do not level up while in this form, but they do "hold" the experience until they are taken out of the form, in which case it gains any accumulated exp at once- like Shadow Pokemon in Colosseum until they're purified.

This is not a hold item, but rather an item you can use multiple times to activate or deactivate the evolution from your bag. They're not the equivalent of megas- remember, same bst- so it's just meant to give you more strategies to try out.

Oh, and you can teach them tms, including new ones they couldn't learn before. Certain moves, however, will be forgotten when you turn it back.

As far as how many there'd be- I'm still workshopping it, but some can have 1, some can have 2, and some can even have 3. Some can even share a form, such as Heracross and Pinsir.

For some, there's even an advanced form- akin to Golden Armor Digivolving basically- that actually DOES give them a Stat boost- basically picture Charizard becoming Reshiram or something. Only a small handful, though.

As far as story goes, I have it in my head, I even have a pretty rough layout of the beginning in PowerPoint format, but it is mainly concepts, rough explanations, and dialog.

I also have a bunch of trainer sprites made.

As far as actually programming, uhhhh I have Pokemon Essentials. I tried to follow a tutorial and already screwed up. It's tough as hell

Don't get me started on music. Idk how to even start that

And to make even MORE work for myself, I'm thinking about trying to remove my "signature" styling quirk to make it more normal styled. It's hard to quit tbh but I wanna try.

Keep in mind the most help I've had is getting input from friends about some stuff. I wish I had a team working on this lol

Anyway that's all

[millipededragon-art]

Hello!

My name is Millipede, Milly for short.

I'm 27 years old, neurodivergent, and a wizard.

This blog is where I post my art.

SFW only

Minors DNI

What to expect on this blog:

Spyro

Dragons

Pokemon\Fakemon

MLP

Mythical creatures

Horror art

Ocassional reblogs (other's art, tutorials, useful, refs)

I'll tag the posts reblogged as seen above, if you think anything else needs tagging feel free to ask

[nomiqbomi]

Morpeko draft 2!

All of these notes are based on my personal, unprofessional opinion and should be taken with a grain of salt.

I’ve come to realize that a big problem with a lot of these designs is that they’ve made them out of the simplest 3D shapes possible and then haphazardly slapped a pattern on them.  I get the impression that the 3D models were finished off before they decided on a final design.  This is a lot more apparent in Pokemon like Cufant, which I’d also like to take a look at at some point!

I’ve also done Nickit and Boltund!

[agentkirin]

It's that time of year again, which means it's time to post a thematically fitting Fakemon! Kthastral is one of Symphora's Mythical Fakemon. If this hypothetical pair of fangames were to be made, there would be a special, remote location where the sealing-away took place, but which also functions as a rift through which Kthastral could communicate with anyone there. When the player visits, it would ask you to free just a small fragment of it from its prison, allowing you to wield some of its power in exchange. This, of course, takes the form of said fragment joining your party. Later on, it is fully freed, unlocking its true form. The basic idea behind Kthastral is that it's set up as a classic demonic deal-maker... but it actually does mean well - its deals simply tend to go south for the mortal it's dealing with because it doesn't fully realize the consequences of its actions, which is what got it sealed away in the first place. Design-wise, I took inspiration from animals associated with a few of the Seven Deadly Sins (fox for greed, snake for envy; the true form has a peacock-like appearance representing pride), with a dash of Baphomet and Andrealphus. Originally, this form was going to be about a foot tall like some of the canon cutesy Mythicals, but then I decided to make it even smaller so that it's the perfect size to sit on your shoulder and whisper in your ear like the world's most adorable shoulder devil. While I have the true form designed, I haven't drawn it digitally yet. It's on my to-do list, but it'll be a while, since I have a lot of other stuff on my plate. I won't abandon the Symphora region entirely, but I'm trying to shift my focus towards more original work. Lately I've been learning to use Unity, and I have a project I want to do as a learning experience, which will likely also require me to learn Blender. I look forward to sharing some of the progress I make on that, once it's in a more presentable state. In the meantime, enjoy this tiny demon birb!

[fakemon]

@oripoke‘s first ever tutorial video, How To Make Pixel Art in the Pokémon Style, is available to watch on YouTube!

Featuring Dirtquatro! The Sugi art in the thumbnail by @racieb, the original design by @skulln0va and the original concept by @davvvd :D