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Description

Next up for my Pokemon ancestors project was the Monster group, which is a pretty catch-all group of mostly terrestrial Pokemon that look generally more intimidating than those in the Field group. Synapsia references synapsids, which are a real-life group of mammal-like reptiles, and somewhat of a 'middle stage' between the two.

There are a lot of Gen 1-3 Pokemon in the Monster group from when Pokemon designs were more of a mash-up of real-world inspirations that look vaguely kaiju like (I personally really like this design philosophy for Pokemon). I found there were a lot of Rock, Ground and Grass types, and a lot of 3-stage evolutions, so I tried to create a line that would represent these, evoking the likes of Bulbasaur, Nidoran, Nidoking, Aggron, Tropius, without being too similar to any of them.

In terms of real world inspiration, I looked at the gorgonops, diictodon, and dimetrodon, which are all synapsid reptiles, as well as brontosaurus, purely because there was a trend of long-necked Grass type Pokemon in the group. Dimetrodons are notable for the large sails on their backs, which I saw as the perfect opportunity to allude to the 'plant growing on the back' designs seen with the Bulbasaur line and Torterra.

Description

Next up for my Pokemon ancestors project was the Monster group, which is a pretty catch-all group of mostly terrestrial Pokemon that look generally more intimidating than those in the Field group. Synapsia references synapsids, which are a real-life group of mammal-like reptiles, and somewhat of a 'middle stage' between the two.

There are a lot of Gen 1-3 Pokemon in the Monster group from when Pokemon designs were more of a mash-up of real-world inspirations that look vaguely kaiju like (I personally really like this design philosophy for Pokemon). I found there were a lot of Rock, Ground and Grass types, and a lot of 3-stage evolutions, so I tried to create a line that would represent these, evoking the likes of Bulbasaur, Nidoran, Nidoking, Aggron, Tropius, without being too similar to any of them.

In terms of real world inspiration, I looked at the gorgonops, diictodon, and dimetrodon, which are all synapsid reptiles, as well as brontosaurus, purely because there was a trend of long-necked Grass type Pokemon in the group. Dimetrodons are notable for the large sails on their backs, which I saw as the perfect opportunity to allude to the 'plant growing on the back' designs seen with the Bulbasaur line and Torterra.