67chrome's Fakemon

[67chrome]

Man, I had way to much fun making these.
And also probably took way to long fussing over the formatting of these as well.

Here's the Grass, Fire, and Water starters of my region.







They're all dinosaurs because dinos = super-rad.
Also I wanted to run with something that looked powerful and top ~1/3 of the roster worthy, because how can a Pokemon call themselves a starter if they fail that? It's kind of their whole deal.

I also like the idea of starters having a form-change in some way that could stick with them between generations without needing to bring back dubious gimmicks, so all these get a new passive on stage 3.

 

[67chrome]

My regional rodents and obligatory common-everywhere mons. Wanted to make these solid support pokemon in double-battles if nothing else, especially with a push to make all my gym leaders official VGC compliant doubles-battlers. Honestly hated double-battles in Ruby/Sapphire, but I think a large part of that is due to how underutilized they are in the game. Like; 10 double-battles total, which mostly makes them an annoyance rather than an interesting mode to build around. Making them the default for Gym battles would also solve so many issues for them: in ramping up difficulty in a fun way via the complexity and some resilience against 1 mon sweeping them, justifying a team of 4 rather than 6 for the 4v4 mode, allowing more dynamic plays and tech....




My regional flyers. Feels weird playing a new pokemon game were they'res a mandatory Rattata, Pidgey, and Spearrow clone; but Zubat, Tentacool, and Magikarp keep comming back as the go-to Cave, Surf, and Fishing encounters. Grass-patches also have more than enough PKMN at this point to justify 2 regional 1-star rarity mons, were Caves, the default DnD monster-setting, is still weirdly light on standard mons in Pokemon.
Anyways; my bats have a split-evo to make the fact they're going to be a common sight a little more interesting.
Also wanted to create a new weather condition; though finding a way to enhance gameplay and puzzle-solving elements of PKMN rather than creating some "just smash A and win" style of weather was quite a challenge. Not sure if Moonlight Night stuck the landing; but a lot of PKMN could benefit from their Super-effective weaknesses being toned down; and the game as a whole could probably benefit from more options for a slow-down/defensive pivot over predominantly just Steel or Water.

 

[67chrome]

My take on a line of dragonflies. Unfortunatly the Bug+Dragon typing didnt's really pan out; were STAB flamethrower (or Mystic Fire) just seemed a lot more interesting for the final evo than Bug Buzz. Admitadly designed this guy with the intention to drop the bug type from the outset thinking it was too stinky; but after creating a lot of Fakemon I'd have to rate bug as a weirdly OK type to work with; and weirdly a much easier type to work with than Grass. All Bugs really need is a good secondary type for STAB to be solid.
All that said: still really happy with how these turned out; the clawed stained-glass window wings on the final form and the ~mutalisk-inspired, but it's own thing exaction of these was fun to work with.

Also wish more early bugs were an actual type. Bug is almost like a Fish or Bird type in that it's redunant with another type; though the Bug type in PKMN is at least making an effort to justify being here. The dynamic with Psychic in gen 1 was fun (in theory); and Bug sharing Grass's vulnerabilities to Fire and Flying; Flying's resistances in Ground, Fighting, and Grass; and Poison's general offensive "prowess" with good vs. Grass and: well, the futuristic psychic boys rather than medieval magic girls; along with several envenomation-themed moves; does at least allow bug pokemon some freedom in typing. When Bug is most of what I'd want out of Grass, Flying, or Poison it does free up some space for other typings. Big sad the overwhelming majority of bug PKMN are grass, flying, or poison types as-is though, rather than using the typing as a springboard for interesting monster ideas it's often used to make something redundant and pathetic.



My dragonfly counterparts, some fluffy bugs: which their are a weirdly large amount of IRL, which I mostly found a lot of inspiration for when comming up with a Bug eeveelution.
Regardless: always wanted to use a Fire+Lightning+Ice core in a mainline PKMN game playthrough, and oh man is it depressing how so many mainline PKMN games just don't allow the player to use an Ice type.
Ice moves also tend to have the most satisfying animations, so just having a little blorbo firing off the occasional icy wind would be really fun for a memorable early-game mon.

Also wanted both of these to have a fairly respectable mid-stage form. I did really enjoy using a Charjibug in my Ultra-Moon playthough, though it lacked the aesthetic of something I'd need to stick with until it was level ~60; and kinda wanted these to have a mid-stage form that could carry that weight a little better to offset the weight to a trade evo.


Some fun little lightning bugs. Such a solid animal to not have a proper PKMN form for. Also such a versatile pokemon for trainer teams, really feels like a missed opportunity we don't have a solid lineup of these yet.
These also round out my ~starting set of Fire, Lightning, and Ice PKMN available early-on.




Some bombardier beetles. Designing bug fakemon is honestly some of the most fun I've had designing fun little dudes; there's so much that can be done with their overall shape and silhouette, and so much inspiration to draw on for them.