Fakemon

1998fan artclassic

Fakemon is the umbrella term for non-canonical Pokemon designs created by fans rather than by Nintendo or Game Freak. The tradition began in the mid to late 1990s on fan sprite archives, then exploded across DeviantArt and 4chan's /vp/ board in the 2000s, producing everything from crude sprite splices to full imaginary regional dexes.

pokemonfan art memescharacter design memesdeviantart memesfandom discourse memes

Overview

Fakemon is the umbrella term for non-canonical Pokemon designs made by fans rather than by Nintendo or Game Freak2. Because official Pokemon sprites are small, they are easy to remix, so fans build new ones from scratch, splice parts of existing sprites together, or simply recolor real Pokemon in tools like MS Paint or Photoshop1. Some designers stick to the 18 canonical Pokemon types, while others invent their own categories to fit whatever concept they are chasing1.

Styles range from crude 5-minute splices on humor sites to polished dex-style artwork that closely mimics official Ken Sugimori work1. Design contests pop up regularly on Pokemon fan forums and art sites, and entire imagined regional Pokedexes get built out by dedicated fan teams2.

How It Spread

From Pokémon Factory, sprite-swapping bled into every corner of the Pokemon and gaming web, appearing on Serebii's fan sprite threads, the LittleBigNetwork boards, the War Of Ninja forum, and humor sites like FunnyJunk3. DeviantArt then adopted Fakemon as a proper art challenge, with one popular user-run brief tasking artists to complete a set of 105 original designs, and groups like New Type Fakemon, Fakemon United, and Project Hiatu formed specifically to share new creations.

On December 14th, 2009, DeviantArt user WaterTrainer published a large index of Fakemon sprites cataloging over 239 community-made creatures. Around the same era, 4chan's /vp/ board produced Tentaquil, a lumpy green creature whose name mashes Tentacool and Cyndaquil despite its design leaning closer to Politoed, and it became /vp/'s unofficial mascot4. Eevee-focused Fakemon also boomed after Pokemon Gold and Silver introduced Espeon and Umbreon, prompting fans to draw hypothetical Eevee evolutions for every type in the series1.

How to Use This Meme

Making a Fakemon typically starts with a concept: an animal, an object, or a theme to build the creature around. Artists often pick a type or invent a new one like Light, Glass, Cyber, or Sound, sketch the design in the style of official Pokemon art, and post it on DeviantArt, Tumblr, or a Pokemon fan forum for feedback1. Splicers still edit existing sprite pixels for quick low-effort submissions, and the community usually treats both drawn and spliced approaches as valid2.

Frequently Asked Questions

Fakemon

1998fan artclassic

Fakemon is the umbrella term for non-canonical Pokemon designs created by fans rather than by Nintendo or Game Freak. The tradition began in the mid to late 1990s on fan sprite archives, then exploded across DeviantArt and 4chan's /vp/ board in the 2000s, producing everything from crude sprite splices to full imaginary regional dexes.

pokemon fan art memes character design memes deviantart memes fandom discourse memes

Overview

Fakemon is the umbrella term for non-canonical Pokemon designs made by fans rather than by Nintendo or Game Freak2. Because official Pokemon sprites are small, they are easy to remix, so fans build new ones from scratch, splice parts of existing sprites together, or simply recolor real Pokemon in tools like MS Paint or Photoshop1. Some designers stick to the 18 canonical Pokemon types, while others invent their own categories to fit whatever concept they are chasing1.

Styles range from crude 5-minute splices on humor sites to polished dex-style artwork that closely mimics official Ken Sugimori work1. Design contests pop up regularly on Pokemon fan forums and art sites, and entire imagined regional Pokedexes get built out by dedicated fan teams2.

How It Spread

From Pokémon Factory, sprite-swapping bled into every corner of the Pokemon and gaming web, appearing on Serebii's fan sprite threads, the LittleBigNetwork boards, the War Of Ninja forum, and humor sites like FunnyJunk3. DeviantArt then adopted Fakemon as a proper art challenge, with one popular user-run brief tasking artists to complete a set of 105 original designs, and groups like New Type Fakemon, Fakemon United, and Project Hiatu formed specifically to share new creations.

On December 14th, 2009, DeviantArt user WaterTrainer published a large index of Fakemon sprites cataloging over 239 community-made creatures. Around the same era, 4chan's /vp/ board produced Tentaquil, a lumpy green creature whose name mashes Tentacool and Cyndaquil despite its design leaning closer to Politoed, and it became /vp/'s unofficial mascot4. Eevee-focused Fakemon also boomed after Pokemon Gold and Silver introduced Espeon and Umbreon, prompting fans to draw hypothetical Eevee evolutions for every type in the series1.

How to Use This Meme

Making a Fakemon typically starts with a concept: an animal, an object, or a theme to build the creature around. Artists often pick a type or invent a new one like Light, Glass, Cyber, or Sound, sketch the design in the style of official Pokemon art, and post it on DeviantArt, Tumblr, or a Pokemon fan forum for feedback1. Splicers still edit existing sprite pixels for quick low-effort submissions, and the community usually treats both drawn and spliced approaches as valid2.

Frequently Asked Questions