Legendguard

[legendguard]

Behold, the biggest, most complicated fakemon I have ever made! Due to text limitations, you can read the full description here: https://www.deviantart.com/legendguard/art/1277365911?action=published Or here: https://www.reddit.com/r/fakemon/comments/1psnajp/comment/nvh3bm1/

And YES It's supposed to look like a Yu-Gi-Oh/Digimon/Bakugon/etc, I explain why in the description! If you say it looks like that, I will put glitter in your socks. You've been warned

[legendguard]

[Fakedex] Ferros 142: Legiceras [v3]

The latest entry for my Fakedex series, a three-region series that splits off from the official Pokémon games after B2/W2. Everything gen 6 and beyond is non-canon to my series, partially to make things easier on myself, and partially because I hate the direction Pokémon has taken.

I'm sure at least some here are familiar with my earlier work, especially that "Arceus Gospel Form" that I made back in 2016 (often incorrectly referred to as "Mega Arceus"). I used to be pretty dedicated to my Fakedex series, hoping to one day to work for Pokémon/Nintendo. Now though... I still enjoy it, and I'll still make Fakemon here and there, but it's not my main thing anymore.

Unfortunately, there isn't enough room for the full description or the Pokedex stat/entries, so you can see the full description here: https://www.deviantart.com/legendguard/art/Ferros-142-Legiceras-v3-1166658747

[legendguard]

Made as part of an ongoing project of mine, called "Pterraforming", featuring an alternate Earth (dubbed "Pterearth") where the K-T extinction event was less severe. Not all that original, I know, but really it's an excuse to work on a group of Pteranodon descendants that survived to become the dominant pterosaurs, and, in the case of the water, the dominant tetrapods; The Archopterans

This is a rework of my Pteroviathans, the largest of the "seawing" pterosaurs ever to exist, and the largest animal ever to live on Pterearth. While (on average) they tend to be shorter than blue whales, they are much heavier, and are built like literal submarines. They fill a similar niche to the blue whale, but are a bit more ornery and able to eat things a blue whale could never dream of. Pteroviathans are part of the "crown" seawings (pterocetaceans), which are the most advanced forms that have evolved. They all share a melon formed from modified salt glands, highly specialized flippers and bones, and a unique respiratory system that allows them to change their buoyancy similar to the chambers within the hull of a sub. They also possess an unusual tissue, derived from skeletal muscle tissue, that essentially acts like fat, but for storing oxygen. This allows them to so saturate their body with oxygen that they can stay submerged for hours!

Another interesting adaptation is the transformation of their pycnofibers that actually mirrors the evolution of teeth. The body pycnofibers are formed into "psuedodenticals", which are convergent and function to the dermal denticles of sharks. In the pterocetaceans, these pycnofibers have actually worked their way into the mouth, forming new "teeth" made of keratin. In "baleen" forms these "teeth" are similar to the flight feathers of birds, whereas in "toothed" forms they mimic both cetacean and shark teeth, depending on the species.

The hearing is especially advanced in pterocetaceans, being extremely hypertropied to the point some species have gone completely blind! Multiple gel-like structures on the jaw and on the forehead (the "melon" mentioned earlier) help both amplify outgoing sound while also helping to focus sound towards the ear, which like whales are internal. The entire jaw is formed into the auditory system, having special sound amplifying properties and having a radar-dish like shape in the back that helps funnel sound. This allows them to hunt for food and watch for predators in a near 360 degree range, even in the dark, while also not needing to put extra resources into reinforcing the eyes for underwater life.

Seawings, as a group, have near total dominion over aquatic tetrapod niches on Pterearth, the only other fully marine animals they share the water with being turtles and snakes. No other group has fully returned to the water. They simply can't. There's no room for them. Seawings were the first animals to return to the sea after the K-T mass extinction event, being able to revert to a more pelagic lifestyle by reactivating genes that laid dormant in the ancestral protoarchopteran. This allowed them to fully return to the sea when mammals were still only becoming semiaquatic on Earth, giving them a head start. This, combined with the young's ability to fly (which allows them to spread far and wide, into bodies of water not otherwise accessible by swimming or walking alone) and the ability to give live birth, meant that they took the waters by storm, and once they were in, they blocked anything else from following the same path. So on Pterearth, the pterosaurs rule the sea completely.

So the only competition they had was from each other.

Today, the pterocetaceans are the most widespread and speciated group of seawings, their advanced features allowing them an edge over their competing relatives. Over 200 species are known, ranging from passive filter feeders, to lunge feeders, to grazers, to carnivores that hunt fish, other seawings, and even pelagic birds and pterosaurs. In the north and far south, there are even psuedocrocodiles that pick up where their cold blooded contemporaries cannot survive. They are, in essence, kings among kings. And the mighty pteroviathan is the highest of all.

[legendguard]

Waited until I finished the [true] teeth before uploading. Behold! The parts of Eowenah's skull! Because she isn't complicated and overly designed enough... There is *one* missing element in this (aside from the hyoids/tongue bones), a tiny bone called the pterygoid. In mammals, this is mostly reduced and sits behind the palatine. In birds, however (And Eowenah) this bone is part of a bony system that allows the upper mandible to flex, something a mammal is completely incapable of. That bone I need to wait to do until I can get the other angles of the skull done, so I can know where exactly to put it. Until then, it is excluded.

Note that most of the elements, such as the upper mandible and neurocranium, are made up of multiple different bones, but have become completely fused together - to the point that none are visible at all. So there are no visible sutures anywhere on the skull. When it comes to her skull, if it ain't mobile, it's fused. The bones that are mobile are all deeply socketed, to the point that - if the skull were somehow separated from the body - the bones would all stay connected to each other. So dislocating these joints would take a hell of a lot of force, which is important to keep the skull's strength intact. This does also mean though that there is very little flexibility around these joints, so certain movements, like moving the mandible from side to side, are pretty much impossible. Fun fact, Eowenah chews like a rodent! She moves her molars forwards and backwards instead of from side to side like we often do while chewing.

I plan on making another give showcasing the mobility/movements the skull can make... but first I have to figure out how to do that. If anyone has any advice or tutorials, feel free to shoot them my way!

You can see the DA link here: https://www.deviantart.com/legendguard/art/Anatomy-The-Parts-of-Eowenah-s-Skull-GIF-2025-1164972935

And the colored, full head and skull here: https://www.deviantart.com/legendguard/art/Anatomy-Eowenah-s-Head-Base-Colors-1165360276

[legendguard]

And now for the colored version! Well, base colors at least, I'm going to have to look at a *lot* of tutorials to get the full coloring on this done. Eowenah is very, very iridescent. Dazzlingly so! Even her bones are iridescent due to the microstructures within them, like an abalone shell! So yeah, it'll be a while before it's fully done. I've never been good at painting, so this'll be interesting.

Since there's a character limit, and because I am incredibly lazy, I will link to the DeviantArt post for the full description. You can see the full text here: https://www.deviantart.com/legendguard/art/Anatomy-Eowenah-s-Head-Base-Colors-1165360276 Expect more from this series, believe me there is a lot.

[legendguard]

I'm doing it! I'm finally doing it! I'm uploading to Tumblr like I said I would fifty-bazillion times but never did! I don't know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it!!

I'm a long time user of DeviantArt, trying to escape its bullshittery and find a new home for my art. If you've ever seen that "Arceus Gospel Form" or "Eowenah Enraged Form", "Shadogaire Omega Form", or "Yinyanro Pondora form", that was me. I'll probably be re-uploading my gallery here, or at least plan on it, along with gradually switching away from DeviantArt for good. For a while at least, I will probably submit to both until I wean myself off.

I do have a lot to learn, though... It's going to be hard because I've been using Deviantart almost exclusively since I first joined back in 2009, so learning an entirely new format is really daunting. Probably why I've been avoiding the switch for so long. But my despise for DeviantArt and its shitty Eclipse update is far greater than my fear of trying something new, so here we are.

Fair warning for all future posts; I am a terrible writer. Be prepared for text that looks like it was written by a middle schooler who just discovered a thesaurus and wants to sound smarter than they actually are

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This is the latest iteration of the head and corresponding skull of my long-time sona/Pokesona Eowenah, and the character for which I derive my username (She is the "Legendguard" Pokémon, or Legendary Guardian). Since I'm new here and y'all haven't been exposed to my shenanigans for the last sixteen years, I remake her. A lot. I'm not even sure what "version" this redesign is at this point. I will probably do it again. No I'm not sorry. I will say I am quite happy with this version, at least for now, so maybe it will be a few years before that happens. You can see the previous version here: https://www.deviantart.com/legendguard/art/Anatomy-The-Head-of-Eowenah-2022-905702058

Eowenah is a light/psychic* type legendary Fakemon and the mascot of my fake Pokémon version, Pokémon Celestine. She is a chimeric clone of many, many different Pokémon, created by Mewtwo very early on as a test of how to mix various Pokémon genes more efficiently, who then became "possessed" and enhanced by the legendary Fakemon Haliapio to transform her into the Legendguard to take on the Evil legendary Fakemon Shadogaire. If that sounds like a bunch a' cringe... it is... but goddammit it's my cringe.

*Flying/Psychic if the Light type is repressed by certain attacks

Being a chimera, Eowenah possesses traits from many different Pokémon families, especially from avian, felid, and pterosaurian lines. This can easily be seen in her skull, which looks a bit like a mammal skull with avian parts glued on. But there is a method to the madness. Being arguably one of the most powerful Pokemon ever, and having the best attributes picked out by Mewtwo during her initial creation, all of these parts meld together into a surprisingly cohesive structure, even if it looks a bit odd.

Here we will solely be focusing on Eowenah's head and skull, minus the hyoid apparatus (for now). (Cont in comments(?))