#frostinal

[puppyluver256]

[Image Description: A woman with dark skin, dark brown hair coated with an abundance of snowflakes, and teal eyes. She is warmly dressed for winter, wearing a turquoise coat, a purple scarf, pale blue earmuffs with a blue band, blue mittens, grey-blue pants, and light grey winter boots. She is holding a red and white Pokeball in one hand and standing on one foot as though ready to go. Beside her is a fan-made Pokemon resembling a large female cardinal with dull tan feathers with red on the belly and wingtips, a large three-feathered head crest, a maroon beak and legs, a blue facial "mask", dark blue eyes, and turquoise talons resembling icicles. The background is a blue expanse in the midst of a snowstorm, with wind-blown snowfall and a few larger snowflakes flying about. End ID.]

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"Welcome to Sheeneland! We're kind of famous for two major things around here: hot and heated Rapidash races, and beautiful snowfall! You can probably tell I prefer the latter, haha! I'm Holly, and I'll be testing to see if you've got what it takes to withstand the icy chill of our northern town! Think you can keep your cool against me?"

Here's Pokemon Plow's seventh Gym Leader! Gonna be honest, I initially had no idea where to go with an ice-type trainer in a Kentucky/Tennessee (before I decided to open it up to the rest of Appalachia), so I just...googled stuff that happens in the winter here. Did you know some cities in Kentucky do horse-drawn carriage rides in the winter? I honestly didn't before looking this up, hehe.

In Plow Version's Sheeneland Gym, you'll face off against the ice-type specialist Holly. While Sheeneland is known for Rapidash racing, Holly runs a lucrative tourist service of taking people on carriage rides pulled by the fancier Galarian Rapidash. Despite her job involving psychic/fairy types, she's very fond of the ice-type. She's really interested in finding out about that icy horse that Galar legends speak of, though she's been told that it might be ghost-type instead. Anyway, her Gym challenge involves moving around carriages in order to create a path to the center, after which you can fight her.

You may have some issues with Hedeomadon's ice weakness if that's your starter, whereas Minosteel has an easy advantage and Jabittern may fair well until the end. But hey, you've got a balanced team by now, you can definitely take her on! She'll have a Glaceon at level 46, an Abomasnow at level 47, a Weavile at level 48, and a female Frostinal at level 49 who she'll join in with for a Union Battle. After you become the Champion, Holly will have a Glaceon, a Glalie, an Axleet, an Abomasnow, a Weavile, and a female Frostinal.

HEY THOUGH! Don't think you've avoided having to battle Holly if you picked Pokemon Circuit! Because in Circuit Version, Holly is part of Cantessy's Elite Four! In your initial battle with her, she'll have an Axleet at level 53, a Glaceon at level 54, an Abomasnow at level 55, a Weavile at level 57, and a female Frostinal at level 59 who she'll join in with for a Union Battle. When you take the Elite Four on again in rematches after post-game, her whole team will be boosted by ten levels and she'll add a level 63 Glalie.

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Pokemon and related concepts © Nintendo/GameFreak Artwork, Holly Caldwell, Frostinal, and the Cantessy region © PuppyLuver Studios

[puppyluver256]

[Image Description: A wintry scene featuring various Pokemon, both official and fan-made. A Glaceon (blue fox-like creature) is playfully chasing a snowy humanoid with blades in its feet that resemble ice skates while a snow sculpture with a blue bucket on its head watches. Two cardinal-like Pokemon, a bright red male and an olive-colored female, are flying in front of a snow-covered pine tree and feeding each other small white berries as two snowy humanoids, one covered in glowing yellow lights and the other wearing a snowflake and twigs on its head like a halo, watch them. Behind the tree, an Abomasnow (large ice-covered pine tree monster) is holding a crying Snover (smaller ice-covered pine tree monster) and shaking its free arm angrily at the birds. The background consists of a snowy field with snow-covered pine trees beyond the horizon.

There are three more images, but they are just the previous image with different layers visible to show off the different elements in full that would otherwise be obscured. The first features layer with the bird Pokemon and the skating Pokemon playing with Glaceon, the second features the unobscured tree, and the third features the angry Abomasnow and its Snover child alongside the snow angel Pokemon.

End ID.]

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Welp! I may not be participating in any secret Santa events due to my self-imposed workload, but I just couldn't resist giving you guys something holiday-themed because I both remembered that cardinals were used a lot on holiday cards and I got inspired. So here's a little seasonal thing for y'all from Cantessy :D There's a decent enough number of ice-types in Cantessy, there'd have to be to justify having an ice-type gym leader in certain circumstances of course, and so I made a little wintry scene with 'em. We've got a pair of Frostinal sharing some berries, a sad Snover whose berries those were and their Abomasnow parent getting upset about it, and a Glaceon playing with some pals. I'm really proud of this one, honestly, it's been a while since I've drawn something with so many elements in it!

You may have noticed that a few of the Pokemon here are neither official nor have been revealed as part of previous Cantessy offerings. That's because I admittedly didn't make that many original ice-type families (most of the ice-types in Cantessy are official Pokemon woops) and the only other ones besides Frostinal were ones that I wouldn't otherwise be getting to in terms of going in-depth with them just yet, hehe ^^; So consider this a sneak peek at the other family! Their names are Snogelle (to the right behind the tree), Glimmafrost (at the top of the tree), Axleet (skating away from Glaceon), and Sculptrake (to the right behind Glaceon). Try to guess what secondary types they are based on their looks alone! Shouldn't be too hard to do, you guys are smart. Well, aside from any guesses to Snogelle's secondary type, I'm gonna go ahead and letcha know that one's pure ice type and evolves into the other three by...secret methods that I will go into detail about later :3

💖🐶 Check out my pinned post for ways to support my artwork, among other things! 🐶💖

~If you like, please reblog to show your friends! Likes are appreciated, but reblogs let more people see my content! If you have something to say, feel free to give feedback in tags/comments/replies as well!~

Abomasnow, Snover, and Glaceon © Nintendo/GameFreak Frostinal, Snogelle, Glimmafrost, Axleet, Sculptrake, the Cantessy region, and artwork © PuppyLuver Studios

[puppyluver256]

[Image Description: Three fan-made Pokemon made to resemble the northern cardinal bird, one of which is presented as two sexually dimorphic individuals.

The first Pokemon is a young bird with yellow feathers, tipped red-orange at the wings and on the tail. It has a small rounded blue beak, blue legs, and big dark blue eyes. It has its wings tucked against its body and is looking to the left of the image as it faces the right. The feathers on its head stick up to imply the beginning of a crest. Light blue text to the right of the image reads "Cardling".

The second Pokemon is a juvenile bird with tan feathers on its body and red feathers on its wings and tail. It has a blue beak and legs and light blue markings around its dark blue eyes. Feathers on its head stick up in a crest. Its legs are pulled up against its body and its wings are outstretched in flight. Light blue text to the right of the image reads "Purdinal".

The third Pokemon are two adult birds with large three-feathered head crests, maroon beaks and legs, blue facial markings, dark blue eyes, and turquoise talons resembling icicles. The individual on the left is a little larger and has bright red plumage with blue tipped wings and tail, while the individual on the right is a little smaller and has dull tan plumage with bright red belly, wingtips, and tail. Their wings are tucked up to their bodies and they are positioned to that their bodies are facing each other, while their heads are facing away. Turquoise text outlined in light blue to the right of the image reads "Frostinal", while smaller text in the same colors reads "male" and "female", indicating the larger red individual is a male and the smaller tan individual is female.

End ID.]

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Cardling - Chick Pokemon | flying While Cardling are capable of flight a lot earlier in life than some bird Pokemon, they are almost incapable of dealing with the cold until maturing. They tend to become quite close to their parents while they can before they make the trip back north. / Cardling are very susceptible to frigid temperatures, and as such their parents must nest much further south than the typical location of their home. They feast upon a wide variety of berries several times a day in order to build their strength.

Purdinal - Fledgling Pokemon | flying They are capable of fluffing up their down undercoat in order to provide some better cold resistance than they previously could. They seem to be quite fond of Snover berries, but their opportunities to taste them are quite rare. / Beginning to develop some mild cold resistance, Purdinal sometimes travel further up north than they could as Cardling. They are still not fully capable of living in cold climates, merely visiting to briefly reunite with parents while they are still fairly young.

Frostinal - Cardinal Pokemon | ice/flying It lives in the northernmost parts of Cantessy, except for during breeding season when mated pairs will travel south to raise their less resilient young. Males can be seen feeding females berries plucked from Snover during courtship. / Its talons are as cold as the snowy north it calls home. A mated pair will fly south to warmer climates during breeding season as their young cannot withstand the cold very well until fully grown.

I know the tradition with Fakemon stuff is to introduce all the starters and their evos together, but I wanted to post the full evo lines for my starters pretty close to posting people who would reasonably use them, ie. the player(s) and the rival characters. So we're gonna wait a bit on Calflame's evos for now and instead focus on Cantessy's "Route 1 bird": Cardling! And of course its evolutions Purdinal and Frostinal! Compared to the origins of the starters' inspirations, the Route 1 bird was fairly simple to figure out. I knew when I was figuring things out that I wanted my Route 1 bird to be based on Kentucky's state bird, the northern cardinal. I see 'em all over the place here, and they're really not hard to spot, especially the bright red males for which the species gets its name. (fun fact, when I first learned about catholic cardinals I thought they were named after the birds, luckily I was old enough to have the critical thinking to realize it was probably the other way around pretty quick on my own hehe) So Cardling are based on a mix of the babies and fledglings, Purdinal on the juveniles, and Frostinal obviously on the adults. This is going to be the only Cantessy Pokemon to have a gender difference, as I wanted to reference how the females are closer to olive drab rather than that iconic vibrant red. Better egg camouflage, y'know?

Thanks to my buddy Tav for suggesting the final stage of this evolution line gain the ice type! This was the only major hang-up I had with this line at any point, tbh. I knew I wanted it to gain a secondary type, but I didn't want to just play into the red coloration and make it fire type, and becoming fire would also make it too similar to Talonflame with fancy colors. They suggested ice, and I was reminded of all those winter images and holiday cards that have cardinals on them, not to mention the red plumage would artistically stand out against a snowy scene in a really lovely way. (come to think of it, that's probably why cardinals are used in those images hehe) And speaking of ice-type cardinal Pokemon, please check out the Pokemon Cardinal series on YouTube! It's a really cool Fakemon series and I think y'all would liiiike it O:

Also if anyone wants to suggest other moves for these guys to learn and some physical stats (ie. height and weight, idk much about scaling hehe), feel free to throw ‘em at me :3 Links to their info pages will be provided in the replies!

💖🐶 Check out my pinned post for ways to support my artwork, among other things! 🐶💖

~If you like, please reblog to show your friends! Likes are appreciated, but reblogs let more people see my content! If you have something to say, feel free to give feedback in tags/comments/replies as well!~

Pokemon and related concepts © Nintendo/GameFreak Cardling, Purdinal, Frostinal, the Cantessy region, and artwork © PuppyLuver Studios