Are there any Pokémon you'd redesign?

The series has so many Pokémon now, there probably would be at least a few we think could be improved by a change in design - major or minor!

Are there any you'd redesign? This can be anything from changing its tail shape to making it stand on its back legs instead of all fours. Whatever you can think of!

Those awful, AWFUL Origin forms that Dialga and Palkia got in Legends Arceus. I'd design them to be more like Giratina's Origin form, which looks much better but would also be more thematically fitting than those...things. They're actually very offensive considering how fantastic the base designs are. Whoever designed them should be fired. Or at least given a massive salary cut and not be allowed to design Pokemon again for several years until they learn how to actually design something properly.

Also, any quadruped that evolves into a biped I'd like to redesign back into a quadruped - Incineroar stands out as the most awful example I can think of right now. I'd remake that into...I don't know, something like a more fiery version of Raikou? Also, as nice as it is, I can't help but feel like Dragonite should be redesigned to be a large blue dragon without any arms...or Dragonair should be redesigned so that it's not just a slightly bigger Dratini. The transition between those two stages is just too jarring.

Stantler and Wyrdeer - For Stantler, I'd use the design of the deer that was intended for Gen 1. As for Wyrdeer, I'd redesign that thing to look similar to that deer.

Boltund - This thing looks too much like a real dog. Arcanine and Houndoom have much cooler designs.

Oshawott - I'd give this guy cat ears, and maybe some more cat features.

Samurott - Unbelievable that people give Incineroar crap for going from quadrupedal to bipedal, yet turn a blind eye to Samurott going from bipedal to quadrupedal. I'd give Samurott a design fitting for a bipedal Pokemon.

Probopass - I'd redesign this thing to look like a bipedal statue, and get rid of the moustache and the weird red thing on its head.

Popplio - Get rid of its ears.

Brionne - This thing needs even more of a redesign than Popplio. For now, I'd say get rid of its ears and its skirt, make its nose a bit shorter, and maybe give it some hair.

Golbat. Too much mouth, just make it smaller.

Dugtrio/Magneton. Give them an evolution that doesn't look like someone just super-glued three Diglet/Magnemite together.

Kanto Mr. Mime just creeps me out. The Galar version is actually far more tolerable for me, so I guess make changes to it's pose mainly. And maybe make it less clown-like.

Magmar, get rid of the butt forehead. Neither of the other stages has it, why does magmar need to have it?
Magmortar. The lips.... just no. I'd prefer the mouth would've stayed closer to magby/magmar.

Croconaw. Get rid of the caveman like hide/print on the belly/torso.

Stantler & Wyrdeer. The face. Just... when I ride on wyrdeer in L:A and see it from behind or the side I'm like this mon actually looks pretty good. Then I turn the camera to the front and oh my do these two need a full facial makeover.

Snubbul.... idk... I'm kind of ok with Grabull, but Snubbull might be beyond saving lol Change it's appearance to be closer to Granbull's, perhaps.

Rhyperior. Rhydon has a better design imo. Not sure what to change. Since the trade evo item kinda looks like a piece of armor, maybe just an armored rhydon? =p

Porygon-Z. I just don't like how twitchy it is. I'd have preferred it not be twitchy and stay closer to porygon 2 in terms of shape.

Patrat/Watchog. The eyes, please give them different colors xD

Woobat/Swoobat. Change the nose. There are different ways of adding a heart motif lmao

Gurdurr/Conkeldurr. Why the big, red clown nose? just... why? Give them a more normal nose like Timburr has.

Scraggy/Scrafty. Not a fan of the baggy pants that need to be held up look. Just give it something to hold the skin pants up without having to use it's hands.

Vanilluxe. Get rid of the extra head. It's been done to death by this point. I'd just make Vanillish bigger and add the straw and maybe add some stuff you'd get in an ice-cream shop to it like nuts or sprinkles or maybe a sauce.

Foongus/Amoonguss. Make them less derpy. Changing the mouth and facial expression might already be enough.

Quilladin. Get rid of that pointy nose. Maybe make it a bit less rotund or a bit taller.

Greninja. Ditch the gross tongue scarf and make it a more normal scarf like Frogadier's.

Sliggoo. The eyes are too different from the other two stages imo, making their progression throughout the line feel weird to me.

Brionne. The dress feels weird to me so just ditch it.

Incineroar. Make it quadruped and lose the Fighting type resemblance.

Shiinotic. It's face mainly, but also the really slender hands/fingers. They just make this mon so dang creepy. Change the hands and fingers and give it a different type of face.

Turtonator. Change the mouth, it reminds me of birdo.

Thievul. The eye-mask is weird to me. Possibly because it stayed quadruped and yet gained something akin to clothing. Just ditch it.

Indeedee. I love Indeedee, but they could stand to be a bit less.... rotund. It just feels unnecessary on this mon.

Pretty much just ignored anything I couldn't think of improvements for =p

Syndaesia said:

Those awful, AWFUL Origin forms that Dialga and Palkia got in Legends Arceus. I'd design them to be more like Giratina's Origin form, which looks much better but would also be more thematically fitting than those...things.

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LMAO your contempt is so palpable I love it.

I would just give a little more flair and visual interest to the array of "regional birds". It doesn't even have to be good - sometimes a bad design is fine if it's memorable! But just something that gives all of them a distinct and unique silhouette.

ReKoil said:

Scraggy/Scrafty. Not a fan of the baggy pants that need to be held up look. Just give it something to hold the skin pants up without having to use it's hands.

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Hi this is my favourite Pokémon so my thoughts!

Scraggy/Scrafty use their pants for protection. Scrafty's dex entry tells us that it pulls up its own pants while kicking, more so to defend itself from attacks while being defensive. And not like it's a hindering element because its strength comes from their headbutts as well as their concrete shattering kicks. As for the baggy pants look, it's perfectly fine to dislike them however it was designed with this concept in mind, especially with the gen 5 sprites making it possible. If it were to hold up its pants with something else bar its hands, the idea it being designed with baggy pants will not be as communicated as well as make it felt slightly cluttered imo.

I do have a few mons in mind I would redesign but I'm on mobile. It's an interesting topic for sure because I am a student taking a field involving graphic design, which deals with concepts and whatnot.

Ahhh, just today I was thinking of this! While thinking of ideas I'd implement in a fangame, redesigning a couple of Pokémon while keeping their stats intact was on my bucket list. Some examples I'd thought of:

-Sprigatito: White, cream and/or brown fur, because green is disgusting on a Pokémon supposed to resemble a cat. Smaller eyes also, because they're a little uncanny valley. Were it up to me, it would have been a colorpoint kitten with a twig in its mouth that gains darker markings with each evolution.
-Ducklett: Perhaps too late now that Quaxly has been revealed, but I would have made it white to match both the Ugly Duckling and the Little Swans from Swan Lake.
-Fletchling line: These birds thin as hell! I would redesign them to be more in line with European robins instead of Japanese ones. Talonflame is a little bit generic as well, so I would have given it more of a Robin Hood angle just for pun.
-Machop line: I would accentuate their vaguely reptilian features and downplay their humanoid aspects. Think the Totodile line, but Fighting-type. The ROM hack Pokémon Reboot pulled this off spectacularly well; they're one of the few designs I prefer over those of the original Pokémon.
-Lopunny: I'd downplay the humanoid aspects as well and make it look more like either a bipedal rabbit plush (like its pre-evo, and the Scorbunny line) or a quadrupedal lop.
-Incineroar: I'm actually okay with its current design, but I would also like to adjust it a bit so it can alternate stances between bipedal and quadrupedal (like Swampert) and have it look good.
-Hisuian Sneasel line: Oh god, we have to do something about that color palette. Perhaps shades of brown would have been a better choice.
-Kingdra: The beta Kingdra from the Spaceworld demo was, in my opinion, one of the best designs, and much more coherent with the rest of the Horsea line as well. Why Game Freak went with its current design is beyond me.
-Meowth line: Kantonian Meowth is a perfect design, though I do wish, like Incineroar, that its changes in stance between bipedal and quadrupedal were brought up more often. Kantonian Persian though... I wish it looked more like an actual Persian cat, or a Turkish Angora, and that it kept the same charm as Meowth did. Alolan Meowth and Persian would look more like blue British Shorthair cats, and Galarian Meowth and Perrserker would resemble Norwegian forest cats (down to being bigger than either their Kantonian or Alolan counterparts).

I'll add more in a further post as I think of them. Have these for now.

Vielleroue said:

Ahhh, just today I was thinking of this! While thinking of ideas I'd implement in a fangame, redesigning a couple of Pokémon while keeping their stats intact was on my bucket list. Some examples I'd thought of:

-Sprigatito: White, cream and/or brown fur, because green is disgusting on a Pokémon supposed to resemble a cat. Smaller eyes also, because they're a little uncanny valley. Were it up to me, it would have been a colorpoint kitten with a twig in its mouth that gains darker markings with each evolution.
-Ducklett: Perhaps too late now that Quaxly has been revealed, but I would have made it white to match both the Ugly Duckling and the Little Swans from Swan Lake.
-Fletchling line: These birds thin as hell! I would redesign them to be more in line with European robins instead of Japanese ones. Talonflame is a little bit generic as well, so I would have given it more of a Robin Hood angle just for pun.
-Machop line: I would accentuate their vaguely reptilian features and downplay their humanoid aspects. Think the Totodile line, but Fighting-type. The ROM hack Pokémon Reboot pulled this off spectacularly well; they're one of the few designs I prefer over those of the original Pokémon.
-Lopunny: I'd downplay the humanoid aspects as well and make it look more like either a bipedal rabbit plush (like its pre-evo, and the Scorbunny line) or a quadrupedal lop.
-Incineroar: I'm actually okay with its current design, but I would also like to adjust it a bit so it can alternate stances between bipedal and quadrupedal (like Swampert) and have it look good.
-Hisuian Sneasel line: Oh god, we have to do something about that color palette. Perhaps shades of brown would have been a better choice.
-Kingdra: The beta Kingdra from the Spaceworld demo was, in my opinion, one of the best designs, and much more coherent with the rest of the Horsea line as well. Why Game Freak went with its current design is beyond me.
-Meowth line: Kantonian Meowth is a perfect design, though I do wish, like Incineroar, that its changes in stance between bipedal and quadrupedal were brought up more often. Kantonian Persian though... I wish it looked more like an actual Persian cat, or a Turkish Angora, and that it kept the same charm as Meowth did. Alolan Meowth and Persian would look more like blue British Shorthair cats, and Galarian Meowth and Perrserker would resemble Norwegian forest cats (down to being bigger than either their Kantonian or Alolan counterparts).

I'll add more in a further post as I think of them. Have these for now.

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I love your idea for Lopunny - cute! It is not a bad Pokémon or anything but I think having it a little less humanoid would be cuter. I loved Buneary largely because it was so cute and plush-like, would have been nice to keep that feeling in its evolution. ;_;

Personally, I would put Meowth's models on all fours. I feel like that is the best look for it and don't want to emphasize the fact that it can stand on its back legs. Sure, they probably did it because Team Rocket's Meowth is so iconic, but he learned with a lot of work how to stand like a human and that isn't the norm for the species I imagine. Also Alolan Persian needs to look more elegant.. that round watermelon head 😭

fafrir said:

Hi this is my favourite Pokémon so my thoughts!

Scraggy/Scrafty use their pants for protection. Scrafty's dex entry tells us that it pulls up its own pants while kicking, more so to defend itself from attacks while being defensive. And not like it's a hindering element because its strength comes from their headbutts as well as their concrete shattering kicks. As for the baggy pants look, it's perfectly fine to dislike them however it was designed with this concept in mind, especially with the gen 5 sprites making it possible. If it were to hold up its pants with something else bar its hands, the idea it being designed with baggy pants will not be as communicated as well as make it felt slightly cluttered imo.

I do have a few mons in mind I would redesign but I'm on mobile. It's an interesting topic for sure because I am a student taking a field involving graphic design, which deals with concepts and whatnot.

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I just answered the thread question according to my own taste.
Just because it was designed with the concept of baggy pants needing to be held up in mind does not mean I have to like it. If anything it just makes it a bad concept to me as I don't like the look in the first place. It does not need to look like it has baggy pants to me. Concepts get changed or scrapped all the time; I'd be fine with a different concept for this mon.

For me, something like a suspenders scraggy/scrafty would fix the issue I have with it:


Anyway, tastes are tastes, baggy pants Scraggy/Scrafty does not work for me, concept or not. Whereas suspenders Scraggy/Scrafty looks kind of amusing to me and would be enough for me to like the mon. Just because they had baggy pants as a concept, does not mean they absolutely had to stick to it.

Luvdisc: maybe make it look like that one in the anime that had a crown and give it some slight alterations like give it a long tailfin or sorts so it's not just a sideways heart with a face.

Other than that, nothing else atm comes to my mind.

One suggestion that comes from the "Grill the Pokémon above" thread: Houndoom. It's supposed to be based on a Doberman and a hellhound, but the horns curved backwards miss the point of the former.

The solution? I'd take its Mega form and redesign Houndoom to be more in line with a smaller version of that, if Megas should never be usable again.

Other Pokémon I'd redesign to incorporate aspects of the Mega form:
-Beedrill, to make it look more visually distinct from its real-life source,
-Pidgeot, for its Mega's fantastic color palette and punky "hairstyle",
-Audino, to bring it more in line with the concept of a nurse.

I admit this question made me reconsider my stance on Megas slightly. I still don't like the mechanic or the majority of the designs, but looking back, some designs are more salvageable than I thought.

EDIT: On the matter of Lopunny from my first post in this thread, I have also considered alterations for its Mega Evolution following my "rabbit plush" idea. Since Mega Lopunny is part Fighting-type, perhaps having the fluff on the tips of its ears become an extra pair of fists wouldn't be a bad idea. I know they did this with G-Max Cinderace already, but in that case, the long ears didn't serve much purpose other than setting the G-Max design apart from regular Cinderace's.

Actually you know, I'd be down with keeping every Pokémon as is if Nintendo would acknowledge Kirby as a Pokémon.

i think my only beef atm is with chesnaught's design. :c it could be probably anything else other than what it is now, but i remember feeling fairly disappointed upon its reveal. u_u

Gurdur: Change those weird head lumps to something else.

Machoke/Machamp: Change the championship belt to look less like it's blatantly a championship belt. Make it skin patterns or a tail wrapped around its body.

Coalossal: Make it a choo-choo train. I like choo-choo trains. Also give it one eye like Rolycoly. Carkoal would be redesigned as well.

Drizzile: Make it's color scheme more like Sobble/Inteleon's and give it an extra finger.

Rillaboom: Ditch the drum, and give it a wooden plate on its chest that it would beat like a drum.

Now that Gen IX is out... hoo boy, there are a lot of Pokémon from this batch that I would redesign. Just for starters:

-I would pare down Meowscarada's design - literally, just like Delphox. Trim its ears, its mask, and its "suit" to something more elegant and more agile like its pre-evolution. (EDIT: Exactly like this! This is my headcanon Meowscarada design from now on. It's incredible how less hair immediately improves the design. Oh, and I would give it a longer tail as well, as a final touch.)
-I would give Skeledirge a silhouette similar to that of its pre-evolutions. The result should be something like Bowser, but red and flaming. Alternatively, I would make it a flat f*** to emulate a vinyl disc. Either way, I think its design would definitely benefit from being less angular and more Round (TM).
-I'm tempted to just ring Whole Pokémon Disposal Services on Quaquaval and call it a day, but I'm going to give it a chance. Make it less human-like and more peacock-like; make its feet more angular, nerf its hair a bit (which could also apply to Quaxwell), and redistribute some of the fat on its backside to its thighs. Problem solved.

Other Gen IX Mons I would redesign:
-Lechonk and Oinkologne. One simple change; swap its Shiny and normal palettes so they look more like regular piggies. Also, get rid of the weird yellow markings underneath its eyes.
-Pawmot. As much as I love it, Pawmot looks kind of awkward with that neck hair. I would remove it so it looks more like its pre-evolutions, and make its anime hairstyle a tad rounder. That way it would look even more like Ginger from Xenoverse than it already does, lol
-Squawkabilly. Make its pomp match its main color (maybe even give the pomps different shapes according to the color?), and change the eyes into something more beady like real parrots/budgies. The contrast would be amazing.
-Charcadet. Should have been two forms, each able to evolve into either Armarouge or Ceruledge, for consistency. The purple flame just looks tacked-on last minute.
-Greavard and Houndstone. I would have made them regional variants or convergent forms of the Growlithe line - maybe even resembling ghostly echoes of the long-extinct Hisuian forms. I would also fix that dreadful underbite, ugh!
-Espathra. Change its whole color scheme, and reduce it to just one or two hues.
-Wugtrio. Keep Wiglett's color scheme. Maybe even add some ornate yellow and black markings for badassery like those of real garden eels.
-Toedscool and Toedscruel. Swap the Shiny and normal palettes. Toedscruel's look absolutely badass. The Shinies could be something more similar to Tentacool and Tentacruel, even.
-Kingambit. Ugh, that hair! It's literally my only problem with it. It's so heavy, he can't even stand!
-Iron Thorns. I would change the color of its armor to be more minty, like the energy flowing within it. Its design would also benefit from some kind of red accent... maybe a natural progression from this Larvitar plush? Ahh, it's so adorable - I want an entire line of it!

I'd give Garchomp and family a more natural looking color/pattern scheme and make Dialga and Palkia look less like furniture and more like awe-inspiring deities.

literally just make flamigo not pink so people stop calling it just a flamingo

I would probally redesign shiny gengar and shiny garchomp as they are simular to the normal counterparts

Dugtrio, Magneton, Hypno, Hitmonlee, Hitmonchan, Mr. Mime, Jynx, Blaziken, Manectric, Luvdisc, Lucario, Lickilicky, Gallade, the three elemental monkeys, Conkeldurr, Palpitoad, Vanilluxe, Klang/Klinklang, Bouffalant, Aromatisse, Binacle, Incineroar, Pheromosa, Cinderace, Inteleon, Boltund, Milcery, Noice Face Eiscue, Meowscarada, Quaquaval, Pawmot, Tandemaus, Maushold, Squawkabilly, Palafin, and Dudunsparce.

i will just keep gen 9 out of equation and say Inceroar, i love the first two evolutions, but that... is terrific, i would make its more similar to torracat probably.
and Probopass, shave that moustache and close those creepy eyes and i think its good to go!
hmm i guess inteleon? its not a bad design, but i love the other gen 8 starters so much that its kinda of a let down. i would have it probably be a buffier version of drizzile.