Have you ever wondered what Pokémon might look like as realistic creatures?
By their very nature, Pokémon are highly stylized, so reimagining them as more biologically
feasible lifeforms presents an exciting challenge.
This concept is the idea behind the Realistic Pokémon project, a series by RJ Palmer, aka
‘Arvalis’ who is one of my favorite creature designers, and is so talented he was hired
to assist with the designs for movies like Detective Pikachu.
I have links to where you can follow and support him in this video’s description.
His art imagines what kind of biology a more scientifically grounded version of a Pokémon
might have — often with fascinating results.
So, for this entry into the archive, you can expect a Pokémon nature documentary of sorts,
examining Palmer’s redesigned Pokémon as if they were real animals.
Before we get started, a quick disclaimer: These realistic lifeforms are an awesome speculative
exercise, but not an attempt to somehow ‘improve’ the stylized designs of the original games.
They’re just meant to be interesting alternate takes.
Also, when Palmer calls these designs ‘realistic,’ he means they ground the appearance of Pokémon
in real-world anatomy — but many are of course still more fantastical than what you’d
find in nature, and in some cases still possess their elemental abilities… because it’s
more exciting that way.
He incorporates real science and biology when he can, but the main goal of this project
is just to have fun.
With that said, let’s get started, and dive into the incredible world of realistic Pokémon…
We’ll begin our journey through the natural world of Pokémon in the Kanto region, and
examine realistic versions of the starter lines.
Opening with Venusaur and its pre-evolutions — you can see how different Pokémon look
when rendered with more realistic detail.
Here, Palmer has molded the fantastical anatomy of the Venusaur line off real animals like
horned lizards and the extinct parareptile genus Scutosaurus — an organism that wasn’t
actually that far off in size from a Venusaur.
Palmer also imagines the organisms have an endosymbiotic relationship with a large type
of flower — similar in size to real life Rafflesia plants which can reach four feet,
or 1.2 meters in length.
Actual Rafflesia are also parasitic, meaning they derive some of their nutritional requirements
from other plants.
We can imagine our Venusaurs have a similar (albeit more mutually beneficial) arrangement
with the plant that grows from their backs, giving the flowers energy in exchange for
added defense, and perhaps vice versa.
Plant-animal symbiosis isn’t completely unheard of in nature — like hummingbirds
pollinating flowers, or moss growing on the fur of sloths (although sloths don’t have
much say in that one).
This Venusaur line is definitely taking this to a new level, but it’s more fun to imagine
a lifeform with a giant symbiotic plant than without one.
Charizard and its pre-evolutions are up next, and have been reimagined in fearsome detail.
Palmer has added new complexities of scale patterns, ridges, and layers of muscle to
help ground these more fantastical creatures in the natural world.
For inspiration, Palmer has drawn from the appearance of many different types of real-world
reptiles — some of which look like they could be from another world if you stare at
them long enough.
The claws on the forelimbs in particular remind me of the anatomy of monitor lizards like
the Komodo dragon, which in real life can grow up to 10 ft, or 3 meters.
And like most monitor lizards, this more biologically feasible version of Charizard usually stays
lower to the ground due to its weight, and is rearing up in this image as an intimidation
display.
And the last starter we’ll be covering here is Blastoise and its pre-evolutions.
These turtle-like creatures now seem much better adapted for life in an aquatic environment,
with sea turtle biology forming the basis for all three designs.
Palmer imagines Squirtle might have long, rudder like tails to steer through the water
— and much like a baby sea turtle, are quite a bit slower on land.
In contrast, Wartortle — seen here having a minor standoff with a quite realistic Krabby
— spend much of their time resting on the seafloor.
Palmer has depicted Wartortle’s head-fins as a unique kind of fan coral that grow from
the creature’s head due to their sedentary lifestyle.
And the aquatic behemoth Blastoise is perhaps the trickiest to get right.
Cleverly, Palmer has reimagined its cannons as biological water jets much like the ones
some real-world squid species use for propulsion, although Blastoise’s jets have evolved to
be much more powerful.
If you look closely, you can also see Staryu and Shellder in this image —which creates
an immersive sense of a rich underwater ecosystem.
Moving past starters, interestingly, Palmer reimagines Dragonite as a giant amphibian,
taking inspiration from the Japanese Giant Salamander — and basing Dragonite’s earlier
forms Dratini and Dragonair off salamander tadpoles.
In nature, some salamander tadpoles do feature frill-like structures on the sides of their
head, which do look somewhat like Dratini’s little side-crests.
Strange though it might sound, in the real world, these body parts are actually the salamander’s
external gills.
Since salamanders are one of the few real-world animals where a serpentine-looking creature
transforms into a reptilian-looking critter, it’s a pretty clever fit for a more biologically
feasible dragonite.
And while real world Japanese Giant Salamanders of course aren’t dragons, they might be
the next closest thing.
I could really see this sort of creature living in swampy environments.
Up next, we have various evolutions of the unique Pokémon Eevee.
In this more realistic world, Palmer imagines these organisms are the result of a single
species diversifying to adapt to different environments.
There are all sorts of small creative details here that make this image great, like Vaporeon
having more defined flipper-like feet — almost like a seal or sea lion — Espeon resembling
a hairless sphynx cat, and Leafeon having a high density of moss in their fur, giving
them the appearance of being green – sort of like a sloth.
In the category of Legendary Pokémon, Palmer imagines Arcanine as a powerful predator,
taking anatomical inspiration from canines, of course, but also borrowing features from
lions and tigers, which makes sense considering Arcanine in the games has something of a lion’s
mane and some tiger-like markings.
Plus, if any real animals deserve the title of ‘Legendary,’ lions and tigers are definitely
among them, so it makes sense that a more lifelike Arcanine would resemble them.
Palmer also drew the pre-evolved form Growlithe, which I think looks a bit like a lion cub.
A small detail I like is it seems to be playing with a turtwig, although the turtwig doesn’t
seem too happy about it.
For the Pokémon Nidoking, Palmer took inspiration from various sources, adding the leathery
armor and central horn of a rhino, and also borrowing the claws and spines of a porcupine
for the rest of the anatomy.
The result is a truly unique looking creature.
And near this Pokémon’s tail, Palmer snuck in a realistic interpretation of a Pikachu,
which not surprisingly looks quite rodent-like.
In the realm of flying-types, Palmer has converted Honchkrow into much more biologically-feasible
looking creatures— an impressive feat, considering how stylized Honchkrow are in the games.
Their ‘beards’ have been reimagined as parts of their body they can puff up to attract
mates, similar to the displays of some birds of paradise.
Their hats have also been reimagined as unique-looking bony plates — which are actually quite similar
to the bony plates on the heads of real-life cassowaries, plates that cassowaries can use
as a deceptively powerful weapon.
Another challenging Pokémon to make realistic is Garchomp, who happens to be one of my personal
favorites.
This version is an imposing carnivore, imagined as a fusion of a large theropod dinosaur and
some kind of shark… just on land.
In fact, I could imagine this strange predator stalking the sands of an arid environment.
Definitely one Pokémon which might be dangerous to encounter in nature.
Another dinosaur-like Pokémon, but with some intriguing insect influences, is Scyther — depicted
here looking quite different from its original design.
The creature’s forearms in this version resemble those of a Mantis, although this
reinterpretation also has some pretty clear theropod influences as well.
Its wings are depicted as a kind of back sail — like a thinner version of the sails on
the backs of dinosaurs like Spinosaurus.
A pretty inventive reimagining.
And rendered in this much realistic detail, it once again really hits home how dangerous
some Pokémon might be if they were real-world wildlife.
Perhaps the trickiest Pokémon on this list to imagine as a living organism is Gengar
and its pre-evolutions.
Instead of ghosts, this evolutionary line has been reimagined as bat-like organisms:
which fits their spooky theme.
Starting with Gastly, Palmer depicts this bizarre pre-evolution as a poisonous bat with
a specialized helium bladder that allows it to float, almost like a living balloon.
Strange?
Sure, but you’ve got to get creative when imagining a ghost type as a wild animal.
Haunters have been realized with translucent wings to give them that floating hand look,
which is a creative way to ground the design biologically.
And finally, Gengar is a heavier, terrestrial creature, which Palmer imagines as an active
carnivore.
Zoroark has also been given the carnivore treatment, with its anatomy now much closer
to canine predator, and the stylized elements of the original design toned down.
In the skull and teeth region, Palmer’s Zoroark somewhat resembles a hyena.
And moving down to the ground, also ready for their closeup, is Diglet, conceptualized
as a more conventional burrowing lifeform akin to a star-nosed mole.
Which is good, because star-nosed moles are the best.
Returning at last to Legendary Pokémon, this awe-inspiring reimagining of Reshiram focuses
on the avian qualities of the Legendary to create a more taxonomically consistent design.
An ancient and powerful being in the games, this portrayal likewise takes inspiration
from the anatomy of proto-birds and early avian dinosaurs — just scaled up to epic
proportions.
One extra worldbuilding detail is that Palmer imagines the silver bangles on its neck were
offerings from early humans who worshiped it like a deity.
And as the finale of our journey through realistic Pokémon designs, we have Groudon — looking
straight out of an epic myth when rendered in realistic detail.
Huge and pulsing with some unknown bioluminescent display, this gargantuan creature stretches
the limits of size for wildlife — taking anatomical cues from the largest of theropod
dinosaurs.
It’s the sort of behemoth that would seem right at home stomping through a volcanic
landscape.
Of course, a creature of this size would have an effect on its environment.
Running from this titan’s thundering steps is a Magmar, which in this interpretation
resembles a shoe-billed stork — an animal that proves nature can frankly be just as
weird as Pokémon.
The world of realistic Pokémon is vast and has yet to be fully explored, but we’ve
reached the end for this particular video.
There are extra designs on RJ Palmer’s site and in his artbooks, so check the links below
if you’re interested.
And I’ll be back next week with Part II, which will feature Palmer’s more recent
designs—where things get even wilder.
Also, thanks for watching.
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See you in the next video.