#normaldex

[normaldex]

If you've been following this blog from the beginning, you know that laptops dying have and will be something that happens. It's been a month+ (covid happened during that time, oops), but the blog is currently on hiatus.

Here's a peek behind the curtain on what we lost:

Note that this is all based on my memory, so I have likely forgotten some details or whole WIPs.

1) We lost a complete Pineco design (for the second time!). I was wanting to wait until I had completed Forretress before posting it. Forretress was close to completion, but there was something that I needed to learn before I could complete the design. On second thought, I could probably post Pineco as is without spoiling Forretress, so expect to see that whenever I get a new laptop.

2) I had a nearly finished Skorupi; just needed to be colored. Drapion was close to being finished, but I was facing difficulties with its foliage. Also, it turns out Drapion has a lot of shades, and most of the red Pokemon don't gel well with it. It might end up being a different color in the final version.

3) Cubone was done! I wanted to wait to post it until I had something clear for Marowak in case I needed to change the base form. Also, the edit was small enough that it felt appropriate to hold off. For Marowak, turns out having a characteristic prop means your sprite is less flexible than most.

4) I had recently started Jynx as a bit of an exercise- just trying to produce a PoC just to flesh out my thoughts and see what I wanted to do with it. It was a satisfying start, but not ready to be released. Smoochum had no work.

5) I made a Drowzee PoC, but it was so horrifying that it won't work as a starting off point. I'll reblog this with it if you want to see it.

6) I was working with Trubbish and Garbodor, but Trubbish's design was too round (jarlike) for what I had to be satisfying, and Garbodor's was too geometric with flat faces (boxlike) or me to find sprites to use. I did some good work on both of them, though! Very gooey!

7) Speaking of flat faces, Electrode's design incorporated the same Prop "Pokemon" wall sprite, but I didn't get far into teching with it.

8) For yet the second time, I tried making a sheepquatch line for the Mareep line. Unfortunately, Ampharos's face and general body made it difficult to incorporate into other shapes.

9) Kappas are pretty aquatic, so they make sense to be a Water-type Pokemon. However, there are other kinds of kappa that you can turn the Lotad into! I worked mostly on Lombre, but progess was slow (though highly rewarding).

10) I have a very bespoke plan for Golett and Golurk, and I wouldn't have started on it if I anticipated my laptop dying lol.

Luckily, before getting this last laptop, I started a Google Sheet to store ideas. Because of the nature of the Internet and the fact I have a mobile smartphone, I can still generate ideas and plan things out! If you all had insight on the final goal of this project, you might get the jitters ;)

[normaldex]

#621 Druddigon

Hey, idk how long it's been, but I've been cooking! I've always thought Druddigon was underrated, as many fans bemoan its lack of flying ability, general competitive incompetence, and ugly design. (Hey, it's ugly, but a realistically designed world is going to have some ugly animals.) Anyhoo, I think it's pretty neat. Move below the fold:

I've renamed this version Dimeter. I've enjoyed the idea of a dimetrodon Pokemon having this name. The idea comes from the sail collecting sunlight (as reptiles are apt to do) and the Pokemon's capybara-like demeaner enriching the land.

This design started with a desire to take a Pokemon and bend it so much that it kept a lot of elements from its original design, yet still felt like a new thing compared to the original. Of course, this sprite still has pieces from Feraligatr and Nidorino, but most of this mon is Druddigon.

I can see this mon having Solar Power or a renamed Chlorophyll as an ability, perhaps something akin to Flower Guard. I can see it learning your standard dinosaur (despite not being a dinosaur) fare and things like Rototiller.

The sail gave me some trouble, but hopefully each attempt after this gets better and better!

[normaldex]

#147 Dratini #148 Dragonair #149 Dragonite

Psuedo-legendaries are always fun to do! This is an odd one for me, since I can give a rough estimate of how long this took to do. Given I started in March (conceptualization), roughly ten months. Let's see some Dex entries!

#147 Proteus: "This ancient Pokemon is elusive and lives in caves. It's rarity causes some researchers to doubt its existence."

#148 Protojna: "It is unknown how this blind Pokemon senses its environment. It has been observed standing still in a pool of water for twenty-five consecutive months."

#149 Proterminus: "This Pokemon angrily fumbles around its environment. After years of torpor, it hungrily devours whatever it finds."

This line is based on the blind cave salamander mixed in with folk elements of the Olm. While I'm fully sure that an olm Pokemon designed by Game Freak would be Dragon-type, I knew even back in March that I wanted to make a Normal-type blind cave Pokemon, and what more iconic than the olm? These sprites have Chansey's coloration, though was that because it had the right shade of pink or because it had axolotl gills?

Proterminus had sprite parts from Druddigon (atrophied wings), Dragonair (gills), Magikarp (whiskers), and Golduck (arms). Protojna had Dratini gills because I thought it'd be neat if Proterminus had the most-developed and flowery gills.

Their movepools are probably what you'd expect: Surf, Rest, Stockpile, etc.

[normaldex]

Posting a new sprite soon, so let's play the WIP game!

It doesn't feel like feel like it's been that long since a WIP update post, but wow, it was in August! I'm nearing up on finishing a BIG upload, so let's see if you can guess what WIPs I have and guess which one is the upload:

This Pokemon has a regional variant. I will be doing a Japan-inspired design based on it, though I probably would be forgiven for doing something much more basic with it. No Gen 1 Gym Leaders use this Pokemon.

This Pokemon is used by an Elite Four member, and many fans are confused as to its biology. I enjoyed getting to design essentially new Pokemon for this submission.

This Pokemon's natural habitat isn't super clear in its debut games, but I'm designing something that lives in caves

These Pokemon are cuter than they have any right to be. This sprite may be Crimson in reference to a Magic card.

Can you guess which one is getting uploaded? For bonus points, can you name these Pokemon?

[normaldex]

#453 Croagunk and #454 Toxicroak

I've been busy as all get out recently, but I'm happy to present Pilowog and Croakshanks.

"Pilowog use their thick insulating hairs to protect themselves against fluctuating temperatures. They also hide as rocks to avoid predators." Pilowog is based on the hairy frog, but without the abilities that gave them their Wolverine moniker. The red fingertips were kept as if to imply bones pressed against the skin, ready to escape. This sprite uses parts from Growlithe and Eevee, but the colors come from Pansage and Fearow.

"Croakshanks have large retractable claws they use for hunting, foraging, carving, and warding off predators and competitors. No two Croakshanks have been seen cohabitating." Croakshanks is based on the Wolverine frog, leaning into that aspect and shying away from the hair aspect. This sprite uses parts from Herdier, Kadabra, and Piloswine. Colors come from the same source.

[normaldex]

#438 Bonsly and #185 Sudowoodo

I don't recall which came first: the decision to make Sudowoodo into a Hidebehind or the decision to turn the Hidebehind into one of these. Either way, there was a lot of hemming and hawing about whether to turn Sudowoodo's sprite into the Hidebehind itself or the tree. I thought it'd be really neat to make a biological being that had an anatomy that just coincidentally had the same size and shape as Sudowoodo. I did trial runs with both, and having it be the animal doesn't really work (to my knowledge): sprites are two-dimensional objects that exist in the plane, so hiding it behind a tree would mean (due to congruency) that it would just disappear. However, making a believable animal to stick behind the tree also proved difficult. I was doodling one day and started by drawing hands that'd be wrapped around the tree. I realized that I didn't need to construct the whole animal, just the parts that'd be seen. Hinting at the animal would probably be more interesting; I hope you agree. If these were in a game, I'm sure the PokeDex would make comments about how nobody knows how they really look, how they're often mistaken for shadows, etc.

Bonsly being a Baby Pokemon means it has a lot of weirdness innate to its design. The idea for this one is that Normaldex Bonsly are attracted to well-manicured bonsai and that nobody ever *asks* for one. Designing the animal for this one was what I tackled first and it was measurably easier to conceptualize and do than the "pot." I originally wanted it to be a lot more polygonal, but................. In fact, I wanted it to be anything but Bonsly's the whole time. I got so desperate, that I even used the bag sprites for incenses (It looked pretty dope, but the view was head-on rather than angled). I looked at pictures of actual bonsais and figured, y'know, stubby feet would probably be fine.

Bonsly's animal has parts from Smoochum and Happiny, and colors from Smoochum. It's pot is colored as Bronzor and that's where the stubs originate.

Sudowoodo's animal has parts from Aipom, Stantler, and Meowth. I wanted it to have countershading, so that's why the face is colored by Trubbish and the hands are colored by itself. The shiny version has Stantler's colors because I just really liked how it looked.

[normaldex]

I should probably be better about giving updates. Let's play a game about my WIP folder. See if you can guess what these are based on the descriptions!

This one is going to be wild and I wouldn't mind GF making a Pokemon based on this idea. This is a two-staged line, and the lower version is practically done, but the evolved form is just killing me. That said, the lower version isn't even close to feeling to "complete," and I don't have a clue as to what it's "missing." I could post the lower version without feeling like I need to wait for both in the line.

A two-stage line: I know exactly what I want for the lower form, but no clue what I want for the upper form. The lower form is easy enough to do, and it's almost complete, but I don't think there's a sprite that'll do what I need it to do, so I'm walled. When I post the unevolved form, I can imagine people being disappointed, but ultimately going "Yeah, that makes sense." This is a gen 1 Pokemon.

This two-stage line changes types in the game. I would imagine nobody doing their own Normaldex would go with the idea I did, but once I publish it, I feel people will understand why I did. The unevolved form needs recoloring, but there is a technical issue that prevents the evolved form from being finish at this very moment. This is an idea that hasn't been explored in Pokemon, and I don't think it ever will.

This two-stage line is being interpreted in a way that strays far from its inspiration, but stays in line with the theme. Some may argue the way I'm doing the evolution is more Digimon-esque than Pokemon-esque, but I'm having fun with it. That said, I don't think what I'm doing with the evolved form will ever be done in canon Pokemon. I'm finished with the unevolved form, but don't want to publish this line in pieces. The evolved form has two parts: One is done, but the other part requires I do something that is not currently in my wheelhouse, and so they won't be finished until I learn that skill (woohoo!). These Pokemon are cute in their original forms here, and they're cute here too, though their eyes may make you feel some kind of way.

This is the most abstract I've gone with a Normaldex submission yet. Instead of turning its sprite into a new living thing, its sprite becomes a prop. This Pokemon is finished, but I don't want to publish it until I finish its Baby form. The shape of the Baby form is giving troubles, though, but I'm getting there. Almost done, this is the one most likely to get published next. Can you guess who these 5 lines are? Good luck!

[normaldex]

#050 Diglett and #051 Dugtrio Diglett was inspired by a real-life experience I had. I'm also in love with JRPG enemies that interact with the environment, like the Buzzy Beetles from Paper Mario. It'd be cool if it had some kind of wall move that had different effects in different environments. If I were to rename Diglett, I think I'd go with the admittedly simple Burrow. It'd probably get to learn Withdraw and Quick Guard. Dugtrio (Pallwafer) would be much like Burrow, except with access to Ally Switch and Tri Attack and maybe some other moves. "As Burrow grow, they form tight bonds with others in its peer group. When a group lives in the same wall for enough time, they eventually become a Pallwafer." The mouse heads were made by fusing Rattata with Raticate, putting Diglett's Eyes onto it, then coloring it with Diglett's colors.