Hieros Gamos, Fakemon and More

[megaMasquerain]

So this is what I usually make.

These are not in Black & White style. I tend to prefer making fakemon in my own style (which changes a lot) so that's what you'll get.

(I post these a lot of places.)

[GrooveMan.exe]

It's hard to describe them as 'fakemon' if they don't actually take any design cues from Pokémon, both in design and sprite style.

Your choices of colour are pretty good, but posing might take some tweaking, especially that last one; she looks really unbalanced.

[megaMasquerain]

It's hard to describe them as 'fakemon' if they don't actually take any design cues from Pokémon, both in design and sprite style.

Yeah, I've been told they don't look like Pokemon design-wise but I haven't really found a fix for that yet - "bigger eyes less complex designs" doesn't seem to work (and the latter has been all but forgotten with some of the 5th gen designs).

If you have any advice on that I would love to hear it! I strive to make my designs look like slightly more "extreme" Pokemon - more cute, more badass, etc.

As far as sprite style, this is the way I prefer to do it, so what I'm mostly concentrating on now is making them look more Pokemon-ish.

I'll work on fixing the last one's balance issues, I just want to hear what people have to say on the design stuff.

[Neslug]

They look more like general RPG monsters (mascots as the case may be with the last two). Well, at least this thread surprised me positively.

The highlights on the dark sludge monster are a little too bright. I'd suggest further darkening the darkest of those shades.

[Phantom Killah]

The first one actually looks pretty Pokemon-ish, except maybe the shading on the torso, which really doesn't seem very lizard like (it is a lizard, right?)

[megaMasquerain]

Edit of the last one's legs, admittedly very quick and done with a fixed-up rotation tool.
Fix of the sludge-monster forthcoming,

and yes, the first one is a lizard.

[Cobalt Blue]

mainly because pokemons are for the most part more focused on the nature of a character. most of the time they're basically animal+something.

[Proton]

I can see the first 2 as Pokemon, but the dress ones seem a bit too artificial with it looking they physically wear the dress.

[TomGuycott]

More like "Shining in the Darknessmon"... I don't know why, because the color limitations don't match, but the first thing that I thought of when I saw these was Shining in the Darkness, in terms of where they are looking and how in-your-face RPG monster they are. That, and the blue one kinda reminded me of Dark Sol, who had a blue face.

[brandman1996]

Basically what KingTom said, when I look at these I definitely don't think of pokemon. Over all the sprites are great it's just the pokemon design wise aren't too great. Try to make it more simplistic, and think of how your fakemon would fit in the universe.

[Keychain]

They look really nice in general, as sprites. As 'fakemon' however they don't have much of a Pokemon feel to them.

[megaMasquerain]

Okay I am sort of curious what constitutes a 'fakemon' now.

I do want to hear your opinions, these look like Pokemon to me, but if you want to say "they don't look like Pokemon" you should be a little more specific - for example, what misterssauga said about the dress. (which at this moment I'm not going to fix but it's going on my to-do list once I finish more of my fakedex)

Anyways thanks for the critique guys, here's some more:

[StarSock64]

Well it's hard to make fakemon that are in such a different style from pokemon style and then have them fit in in the first place

but even without style, they don't fit the facial types, proportion, anatomy, design patterns of pokemon

many don't even seem like their animal idea thought process is pokemon-like.

Pokemon can be greatly varied but they still almost always look like pokemon and they look like pokemon for a reason. If you want to carry on with this way of making monsters, they look nice and people might be fine with that. If you're bent on calling them fakemon, however, I suggest you study and draw/sprite pokemon so you can get the right idea. Pokemon are also much simpler and generally have cleaner designs. Geometric shapes seem to be the basis of a lot of pokemon structure and patterns.

Anyway, in regards to your latest sprites, I don't like the yellow on the first one. It doesn't go well with the black and kind of draws unneeded attention there, tone it down. I don't really like how the middle one is shaded and it lacks contrast on the blue parts (lightest and middle shades) and the rainbow parts look pretty off

[megaMasquerain]

Well it's hard to make fakemon that are in such a different style from pokemon style and then have them fit in in the first place

but even without style, they don't fit the facial types, proportion, anatomy, design patterns of pokemon

many don't even seem like their animal idea thought process is pokemon-like.

Pokemon can be greatly varied but they still almost always look like pokemon and they look like pokemon for a reason. If you want to carry on with this way of making monsters, they look nice and people might be fine with that. If you're bent on calling them fakemon, however, I suggest you study and draw/sprite pokemon so you can get the right idea. Pokemon are also much simpler and generally have cleaner designs. Geometric shapes seem to be the basis of a lot of pokemon structure and patterns.

yes, I am bent on calling them fakemon since there's such a larger "market" for fakemon than RPG monsters.

Anyways, this is the same stuff I've been hearing all along, and it tends to not help. I have been working up from editing Pokemon sprites when I was a lot younger and RSE had just come out, so I have plenty of practice working with official sprites.

I realize that something seems off to most people but I'd like to hear specifics regarding why a certain sprite doesn't look like a Pokemon rather than generalizations on why all my sprites aren't Pokemon-y.

I hope I'm not coming across like an asshole in this post, it's just that this is the same stuff I've heard all the time and it never seems to help.

As for the contrast on the rabbit I will get to that as soon as I finish another sprite.

[StarSock64]

No it's fine, I understand. Fakemon can be real complicated and I suck at them so I know it's not easy

The lizard might work, but it might be too busy. Like there might be too many flowery parts. I wouldn't worry too much about this one though.
Second one might work. A little confused about what the idea behind it is, but it's pretty nice.
Third one's been discussed. Idea's really random too, pokemon doesn't have random ideas
I'm not actually entirely sure what to say about the fourth one so I'll just skip it...!
Fifth one, that face would probably never happen (eyes especially), arms/hands aren't...geometrical enough, and it's generally too busy. Not sure if the sun (?) thing behind it is floating or what but it doesn't seem to fit that much. You might wanna consider moving it or making changes or something. I'm not really sure what the concept behind it is supposed to be, either (I guess to go with the moon one but I mean the animal and why?).
Sixth one, the face looks more any anime than pokemon, you might consider making the anatomy more zangoose-like (torso area might be too big? that causes a problem with the details though so I'm not sure), forehead mark might be unnecessary and stars on legs would probably not happen like that

Of course, when I said "I don't understand the concept here" it doesn't mean that concepts have to be immediately obvious, I just mean that there should be a reason why it is what it is so that's something to keep in mind