Tag: Design

It’s Alive! Alive! Creating Pokémon 1: Halloween Edition

Greetings mortals, welcome back to Paradise! Halloween is all about monsters, creatures and things that go bump in the night! Pokémon are created by Creatures Inc! Yet tonight..or whenever you are reading this..just make it night because that is more haloweeny, we are gonna create life ourselves. Like our friend Average Joe made Pokémom out of Symbiotes or Godzilla creatures so shall I make monsters out of the classic monsters. However We will go one step further and twist their designs into actual Pokémon.

The Rules

So a scientist like me Professor Pinkenstein should make it clear that we are playing with some rules today! My dear people! Not only will I just look at a iconic monster, give them a typing, some moves and an ability! We will all also reshape them into something pokémon like. After all most of the iconic creatures are humanoid in nature and while it can fit pokémon.. I was never one to take the easy way. We will discuss the creature’s biology and pokédex-like information and come up with a new name for it. Of course I can not really draw so these will be college creatures. If you are an artist and want to draw them for real.. I am up on featuring these images in a follow up post…but I don’t think I know anyone who actually draws?! Now let’s create some life.. or in many cases unlife. 

Frankenstein’s Monster

Let us begin with the iconic Mary Shelly Creature..Frankenstein.. To determine what pokémon it has to be we first have to deduce it’s typing. In many cases we are dealing with undead so ghost types can apply basicly to everything.. but we will try to keep it diverse. However since it’s very much interwoven in Frankenstein’s monsters lore it is brought back from the dead.. I think we will keep that typing. The other element should be obvious as of course we go for the Electric type. Most monsters on this list probably would more or less function like a legendary. Narratively it would make sense that Frankenstein’s Pokemonster would follow the same brief. The Pokémon Professor of the Horror Region Professor Manchineel  (Yes that is a tree and it’s super scary) was once the champion of this region . He defended the world against the evil team but in the battle against their leader lost all his pokémon and the evil theme began to rule the region. Trying to bring back his old team his efforts were in vain.. he did not have enough power… but maybe… he could bring one of them back?!

For this design we will create a chimera of dead Pokémon. But how do we decide what Pokémon to pick?! Well we do that with an Easter Egg. Originally in Red and Blue there was a hidden “boss” fight against Oak. Presumably after the Pokémon League based on their levels. This fight was triggerable through glitching but wasn’t activatable anymore in game.  To homage that we are going to build the chimera out of Professor Oak’s team.  That is, Tauros, Exeggutor, Arcanine, Gyarados and the starter that wasn’t picked. Now since the correct answer to pick as your Gen I starter is Bulbarsaur that means the Rival would pick Charmander so Bulbasaur would be the one left behind. Trained up to a Blastoise he will become part of our Chimera. Yes I know more people love Charizard.. and thus Bulbasaur would be the one left behind…..but this is my list…also the head of Blastoise is much easier to cut out  and work with then Venusaur’s or Charizards so there! Tauros would form the main body with Arcanine legs and some Gyarados fins. The extra exeggutor heads  are added as extra heads this time..except.. this time we will use the main head..because that was the professors friend!

With Tauros as a main body we can basically say that it made the rest type neutral and being revived from the death we get the electric ghost monster we know as Frankenstein..but a pokémon version.Alternatively we could look at canonically dead Pokémon..but that’s a bit of a hassle. Using Tauros as it’s main body and a Blastoise head the creature also has the physical bulk you expect of a Frankstein’s monster. The body type makes it more suitable for physical attacks, which also seems to be in line with the classics. So for moves I think it should know Volt Tackle a strong electric physical move. Shadow Punch, Rock Smash and Recover are it’s other moves with Shadow Punch dealing Stab Damage, Rock Smash .. being a symbol for it’s smashing power and hopefully like with a few old moves we can get a base power increase for it somewhere as it would help as a great weakness coverage. As an ability Volt Absorb makes the most sense as it negates the power of electricity. The ability Simple will function as a second and possible hidden ability. State Wise I think the most comparable Pokémon would have to be Golurk, with offence and defence flipped. Chimerstein seems like a nice name for this Pokémon.

Dracula

So making a Pokémon about Dracula should not be too hard? Should it?! Well he is very humanoid so we are going to have to deviate from his design quite a bit here. Let’s start with his typing. He is undead rather than dead, so I think Dark is a fair base typing for him. However.. there is one problem. Dark ..while it does have moves like Bite… doesn’t have any leeching abilities.  In the Alola Region they finally made the move Leech Life Good with a great base power. I think that is Dracula’s de facto move! To use it efficiently however we have to make him a bug type! Dark-Bug seems like an odd typing for Dracula, but in the confines for Pokéon it really works. We will place it in the humanoid body shape and give it some lore to fit Dracula. “A Rich Boy and his Zubat once went on an adventure on a river when they saw strange leech like creature toppled their boat..no one ever saw them again” Leeches haven’t been much of a thing in Pokémon. So for this story.. a leech attached himself to a Rich Boy..while his Zubat tried to pull it off..eventually an evolution much like how Slowpoke evolves into Slowbro ..by having a Shelder bites its tail happens.. only this time a human was involved.

Designwise this puts us a bit in a pickle! Do we make it look very human? No.. people don’t really like that. Do we give it too many clothes.. no, it will have a cloak that will look like it’s made out of spider web.. or some kind of pupa covering some silken cloth or something fancy. .It’s face will be hooded but underneath will be a leechy face.. similar to Digmon’s Nightmare Leech.  Then it will have a crobat like wings but larger. It’s shape is humanoid but only in shape. It will definately be one of the creepier Pokémon you encounter. The mix and match of body shapes will allow for a wide moveset befitting Dracula. Pokédex entries could state that the pokémon is afraid of wooden poles as the last thing the boy part remembers was his raft breaking. Or rumors that you can defeat this Pokémon with a single Solar Beam.
It is so ugly that it can not face it’s own reflection, crying over the handsome face it once had. And so we have designed a Dracula inspired Pokémon.

The Pokémon Ability it should have is Dry Skin. This is a rather complex ability but it gives our Dracula a weakness to fire and actually gives him damage under the direct sun. He absorbs water..which is kind of unfortunate..but Holy water seems more like a Fairy Type thing anyway… and Dracula would be weak to that. The ability of course represents his weakness to the sun.. but it also works well with the moisture rich leech part! So hey I am happy with that.  As moves Bite and Leech Life are a given and I feel Mist or Haze would make a good supportive move.. well not GOOD but flavourful. The last move should be something in the lines of Hypnosis, Charm, Attract or anything of the sorts. Of course he would be able to learn some other things such as Transform, Phantom/Shadow Force and all the Drain moves. Stat Wise I feel it should be something like Mega-Lucario. Good names would be Draculeech, Leechferatu or Tepeech.

The Wolfman

So for this one I have something special planned, the wolfman is a hard one to give a typing too. It seems very much a normal type.  There is no real element to connect it too. We could give it the dark type again but what if you want to run an all monsters team?! Plus Normal Dark isn’t really a good typing at all. So instead for a secondary typing we look at an important element for a werewolf.. the moon. The moon is very much connected to the Fairy Type on numerous occasions.  Many of the Moon stone evolutions are Fairy Types.  The move moonlight and Moon Blast are both fairy type attacks and Clefairy is said to live on the moon. Which again IS a Fairy type. Plus this would make our Pokémon to be weak to steel type attacks.. mimicking it’s weakness to silver! It would also be efficient against fighting types.. and as you all know punching a werewolf is a very bad idea so that makes sense. Most werewolf movies are about the transformation process about being cursed to be a werewolf and for this I think I have a perfect answer.

We came up with a new regional form. Horrorian Ditto, The Ditto from the Horror region.  Being a silverish slime with wolf-eyes, a tuft of fur  and a wolf-fang would form the basis for this pokémon. Normally Ditto has the ability transform, which lets it transform into the pokemon it is facing straight away. However Horrorian Ditto will do the exact opposite. If it hits the opponent with a physical attack.. it’s specially designed ability will trigger. Fur-Curse.. which will transform any pokemon it hits into Horrorian Ditto. This resembles the involuntary transformation aspect about lycanthrophy very well. Regional Ditto would be a great way to take your opponents ace away and force them to have a flexible strategy that doesn’t rely on a single pokemon! With Eviolite you can make sure your variation is much sturdier.. but YES Eviolite! Because we need to add more wolves! When exposed to a moonstone this Ditto will evolve. Taking the shape of an almost liquid werewolf still transforming with some parts being thinner and slimier. He seems to be in constant pain..this new form shares its ability still but now is much more powerful.. but as a trade off you can give your opponent something THAT powerful too.

This new werewolf form of Ditto shall be known as Idemoon. This is a portmanteau of Idem and Moon… Ditto got its name sake from the latin expression Idem dito. A phrase mostly used having the same mindset or wishing them the same you just wished upon them. It also has a bit of a sound like it’sa demon. Idemoon would be a bit like better Slaking. Statwise  it isn’t AS amazing but it can attack every turn, it just changes it’s opponent in itself with a contact move meaning you can never hit it super effectively.  This pokemon however will shine in double battles. You basically force your opponent into a typing you can always bring a counter to. Moves this Pokémon should learn are. Slash, Bite, Play Rough and Moonlight. It has a high stat total but a fairly low defence to make sure it can take itself out without making games needlessly stally. Slash and Play Rough are Normal and Fairy Type moves that get buffed by having the same attack type bonus and Bite… well it’s a wolfman after all.

Dr Jekyll and  Mister Hyde

For now I want to conclude this with one final pokémon the form of the classic by taking a spin on a pokémon that already does this kind of thing. Morepeko is a hamster that can be cute  when it’s full or evil when it’s hangry! It has a move that works very well but I want to do it better. So this monster really works well with that. Better Morepeko doesn’t need to be a Pikaclone so we can get rid of the pretty useless electric type. For the Mister Hyde side of things we can use the Dark Type.. in Japanese the thing is literally called evil type and it would work very well for Mister Hyde. The second typing could be the Fairy Type as more or less it’s natural opposite. However since Dr Jekyll is a scholar and a man of science and of the mind I think the psychic type makes more sense. This will later also come into play with the moves and such. Alternatively Fighting type could work for Hyde as he often is depicted as brawn..but this is not always the case. For the design I am thinking of it being a top hat. and a tophat just. With lore on how it was worn by a man who always doubted himself.. he wanted to help people but he also hated everyone.. one day the hat went mad and attacked its owner then immediately it tried to heal it again.

Why a Top hat? Well  I think it is a nice symbol for the tale and I love object pokémon. It also keeps the humanity aspect of the character but puts it in a monster much more in the vein of pokémon.Plus we can make a wink to the fact that it might be a had of the Mad hatter, and then we can cross this sort of blog over in Fairy Tales some day.  The Jekyll side of the hat would be colourful but simple, clean and gentlemanly.  It features a monocle and perhaps a cross to symbolise it belongs to a doctor so maybe we can add a moustache as well. In Hyde mode the hat would look torn, more chaotic darker.. but also more details… loose stitching, a bearded look and some tokens it can take from it’s victims. One of those things that looks like it will bite your head off. I think Morepeko design wise makes some very smart choices but it could have done more.

And here is how!  Aura Wheel might be cute as a move but I suggest an adapted ability which works as follows.  This pokémon gets the moves. Heal Pulse a Psychic Support move to heal adjacent team members, Dark Pulse an Offensive Dark Special move.. because.. it’s a Hat .. it can’t physically attack. Amnesia , to boost it’s defences and explain the weird memory lapses the character experiences and Milk Drink..I know that last one seems a bit weird but it is the closest move there is to pokemon chugging a potion..since potions in pokemon work as sprays! It provides healing and you will want that on this pokémon because it has an ability similar to Hunger Switch.. just more useful. We will probably call it Potion Chug as well or Face Swap.It comes with an extra. If you use Heal Pulse while in Jekyll form you get a random stat increased.. kind of like Acupressure the move. The same happens if Mister Hyde uses a dark pulse.  Of course this pokémon can forget Milk Drink and Amnesia for moves like Psychic and Bounce..so your Opponent is always guessing when will you buff and when will you go against the grain.Kind of like this duo! Their name shall be……

I don’t know actually! So how about I leave that up to you?! How should we name this pokémon?! Let me know in the comments and the best one gets a shoutout and becomes the official name for this thing! For now the monster making is done and I will crawl back to stir in my cauldron! I could use a new broom to fly on by the way! So if you happen to have broom money laying about consider supporting my Ko-Fi and ensure you won’t be stitched into my next monster! I am probably joking anyway.. but who knows!

My favourite Pokémon: Sylveon

Hello again  my little monsters, each monday I will talk about a specific Pokémon, of course when kicking off this blog I just need to make one post for everything so it might not be monday.. but meh! Anyway  talking about my favorite Pokémon off al time seemed like a good place to start. You have read the title..most likely, so you already know its Sylveon.

Design:
Let’s break down why I love this Pokémon so much. Step one it’s design. In my humble opinion it’s the best looking Eeveelution by far. Of course it helps vastly that it is made in my favorite colour and its absolutely cute as a button but there are so many design choices that work for it as well. Putting it leagues above the likes of Glaceon Jolteon and Leafeon, and putting it still quite a bit above Flareon, Espeon and Vaporeon. It’s only rival in my opinion is Umbreon. They even help each other boost to new levels. Eevee to me is kind of like the ultimate “pet” Pokémon and I prefer the Eeveelutions that keep that quality. 
Jolteon Vaporeon and Leafeon kinda drop the ball in this category in my opinion.  Jolteon looks to “rough” for a pet, while Vaporeon gets too “weird” to be a pet, it’s fishtail and that big collar make me think it’s kinda slimy and not as huggable. Leafeon becomes too skinny and frail looking, giving it a much more “wildlife” vibe to it. The others all keep the “pet’ feeling quite intact. Next on the agenda,does it read like it’s typing. Umbreon Sylveon, Vaporeon Flareon and Leafeon read incredibly well as their types. Imagine watching them in black and white, for all of those you can still pretty much tell what type they would represent.
Espeon’s readability doesn’t directly scream psychic.. it’s mostly the colour that gives it away, the split tail or gemmed head might remind of us psychic by referring it to other things and legends and the likes it doesn’t scream it out to me. Jolteon in black and white would be just a spikey dog, something I if I wasn’t aware might rather class as a bug type like look.   Glaceon just looks sharp, there is nothing that would give away it’s ice type accept for its colour, if I saw it in black and white I might think it’s a steel type or so instead, it just has it’s colour going for it really.
Now why does Sylveon’s design work so much for me? It represents the Pokemon perfectly, much like Umbreon. Where Umbreon is very sparingly decorated to represent the emptiness of the night with their only being the moonlight to keep you company Sylveon is in many ways the polar opposite. Sylveon becomes what it is by showering it with love and presents ( sweets or games etc)  and that is captured in its design very well. It feels lavish, it feels like it’s been groomed. The ribbons representing all the stuff you deck your pet out with, giving it a much needed departure from the very basic peers of it. It feels more colourful than the others, yet it doesn’t actually use more kinds of colours then most.
Most of the family is made up out of four colours, with some minor intensity changes. Though some only use three. Sylveon is made up out of just four colours as well.
The slightly pinked white, the bright pink, a light blue and a dark blue. Yet with Sylveon you feel like there is more, I for one distinctly  and always remember there being a softish yellow on it’s ribbons as well as the four earlier mentioned colours, and it’s eyes just are more sparkly for me. When it’s out of the pokeball and the ribbons wave around it just feels so alive and vibrant to me that I just think … I would love that to bits… and that is exactly what Sylveon has to be about. 

In game
Now if a great design automatically meant a great Pokémon, I would always run Swanna and Alolan Ninetales in my team, but unfort, I don’t particularly enjoy battling with either. Alolan Ninetales really felt lackluster when I ran it on my team..partially due to how terrible the ice typing is. Most of the Eeve’s are not very usable in battle.  Flareon, Leafeon (kinda) Umbreon and Sylveon being the exceptions. Leafeon being bogged down by needing a lot of set up unfortunately can’t compete with the other three. In fact the fire dark and fairy trio are pretty much the only eeveelutions you get during Random Battles at Pokémon showdown.. a good way of telegraphing what they are capable off. Sylveon being the only one of the three, that can fulfill a more versatile role.  Umbreon will always be your toxic stalling wall. Flareon you run with an Toxic Orb and Guts and the whole physical sweeper shabang, that Swellow and Talonflame do better. Sylveon can function as a toxic staller, as a team healer, with Pixilate-Hypervoice it can adequately damage as well and it’s one of three Eevee’s that has an immunity, the others being Umbreon and Eevee itself, for safe swapping. The fact that it can safely be swapped into a subbed (behind a substitute) outrager makes it nice to use in some friendly battles. During the regular game its bulky enough to take some hits and strong enough to deal some damage, making it a delight for your team in that aspect as well.
Here is where Umbreon falls a bit flat for me, as toxic stalling mostly shines in Nuzlockes, which I don’t like cause I will cry if my Pokémon dies.  So another point for Sylveon.I also feel I encounter more fighting, dragon and dark types then I would encounter psychic or ghost types so yet another point where Sylveon has what the japanese call “Blacky” beat.

Appeal
‘Okay great Pinkie, yes Sylveon might be on of the better Eevee’s but why use that overused troper, there are so many cool Pokémon, why would you keep going to Sylveon?’
That is a good question actually, whenever I do a run without a Sylveon in my team… I feel naked. I feel like I am actually lacking something. Poke-Amie isn’t exactly my favorite thing to do in the games, but the feedback when a pokemon hangs on for you, or when it looks at you when it landed a big hit, it does do something for me. I care more for such Pokémon, and because I can’t escape that with Sylveon, even when I rush through a game otherwise, it will be the one I care about most. I’ve bonded with this Pokémon in a way like I never did to a Pokémon before. Not even the follower Pokémon in Heart Gold and Silver not even the Pixelgoop, I mean Pikachu from Yellow, felt as close to me… and as loving to me as Sylveon does. Though I love Pokémon very much, the idea of creating a Pokémon that actually loves you back I’d say was a stroke of sheer brilliance. Sylveon doesn’t love you because it walked enough steps or murdered enough of Joey’s rattata to max the damage on return? No you have to earn it’s love to draw out it’s potential, you have to make it love you, and when it finally does it always will. Sylveon might not have been my first Pokémon, it was my first Pokémon companion, dramatically increasing how much I like it.
The very way it is designed, the way you evolve it and interact with it, I have never felt a Pokémon to be as much of a pal to me before Sylveon.
Of course Let’s Go Eevee and Pikachu blow it out of the water now, but hey, I might have nicknamed my Eevee “ Sylveon” and when it uses Sparkly Swirl… it channels the spirit of its inner Sylveon…not because I love it .. but because it loves ME! No other Pokémon can do it like my pink little adorable ribbon floof. No matter the design, no matter the mechanics. Sylveon loves me…and I love it because of it.

Well then my little monsters, I could go on about Sylveon’s cute anime moments, and how I love it’s cry, and its Gijnaka’s but I figured it’s time to leave the floor to you.
What is your favorite Pokémon? Leave a comment to tell me! Leave a like to farm some affection from me.. so one day I may turn into a real life Sylveon as well.
But before that day has come, be good to your Pokémon , make them love you but love them back and stay pink!
Until we read again.