I finally finished this line! Today, we're going to be talking about my first double typed fakemon in this project, Posble, and its evolution, Maretal.
They have a long story with me, Posble was one of the first things I wanted to create because the type combination was unique and I wanted to give it a try. Years later, it's still not used by the official source! Anyways, let's see them first and then we'll talk about what went on here:
Since the first draft, I knew I wanted to make this combination one of those pokémon that basically tells you in the dex entry that it's the spirit of someone that died in specific conditions, but avoiding that trope. So I thought a miner was the perfect idea, giving it a helmet to have some contrast. Another thing I wanted for this line is to have no face. At least, not the usual one with two eyes, a mouth... that's why I preferred to imply the eye in both designs, to still give it something that can feel familiar and recognisable.
Maretal has had many iterations with other names in the past, but all felt like they failed in the same thing: they felt like Posble, but big and with a hole in the middle. I knew I wanted the geode-like hole in the middle of its main body, so what to attach to it was the main focus to make it feel different and unique. Initially, I tried to make it, weirdly enough, too creature-like, and it made it feel clunky, uninspired, like a regular golem but broken. It was thinking out of the box and making it not be symmetrical, or even needing to imply actual movement, what saved it for me.
I think that the element that really sold me the idea is the cage with the small spirit inside. It references how miners used to carry small cages with birds as an oxygen test. If the bird dies, well, get out immediately! It feels cruel, nowadays, and I didn't have the resolution to play around with a companion, like a pokémon like Skeledirge has, so it is just a wisp with no discernible features. It still sells the point that something caged died there, but in a way that could be interpreted as another metallic thing that was lying around and the creature assimilated.
I am unsure if this type combo would fit the role of the regular rock type in a cave, like Geodude or Roggenrola could be, but honestly I am not balance team, so for now, it could work!
This post gives closure to an idea that was marinating in my head for actual years, as I feel satisfied with Maretal's iteration, and I feel it's a nice final stage.
For palette, the regular one was something I decided early on, but the shiny was also something that took a bit to decide. The contrast between yellow and purple felt great, complimentary colours and all that. And making the rock grey felt correct. I experimented with more neon colours, like orange or lime green, and their complimentary shades, blue and red, specifically. The orange and blue one was the one I was going to go for, as the red made it look a bit too evil for my liking for this line. Also orange felt like a nice shade as I've seen miner helmets in that shade. But also, the colour that's not yellow that I've seen the most is white, so I decided to experiment and then the green, eerie jade shade felt natural. Totally not a biased opinion. Not at all.
These posts take a long time to make, specially because of what I'm going to show you next, which is the animations and backsprites, so if you took the time to read this, thank you so much and I'd appreciate your feedback and suggestions! For next time, I don't know which one of the ideas will come to life, so I won't corner myself teasing anything! But I hope I can show nice things!
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