Decades after its release, Pokemon continues to be a popular franchise with a huge collection of games, spin-offs in different genres, and plenty of merchandise such as newly-revealed Eevee evolution Funko Pops. Fan response to the growing catalog of available Pokemon released each generation also continues to flourish online, with the idea of combining two or more monsters together becoming common in recent years thanks to the advent of "Pokefusion" generator websites.
These sites take one part of a Pokemon sprite, for instance its head, and attach that to another Pokemon. Sometimes the results are aesthetically pleasing enough that artists are encouraged to draw the new beast fully formed, as is the case with Reddit user Ronjaki who posted three Pokefusions to the r/pokemon subreddit yesterday. The three combinations are a Sceptile with a Mandibuzz, an Abra with a Nidoran, and a Cubone with a Rapidash.
The results are compared to everything from fantasy beasts in Dungeons and Dragons or Avatar: The Last Airbender (now on Netflix), sci-fi creatures that Ronjaki says could fit well into some of their own created worlds, or in the case of Sceptile and Mandibuzz, a real-life tropical bird called the hoatzin. When asked if they could do more Pokefusion drawings, Ronjaki says they have a bunch of sprite combinations saved so they "might doodle some more" if inspiration hits.
The idea of creating fused Pokemon in unique art styles has been popular enough that a fan game named Pokemon Infinite Fusion was released in 2015 and has an active subreddit with people creating and posting their own sprite mash-ups. It isn't the only kind of Pokemon fan art out there, however, with another popular variant being "Gijinkas," or Pokemon depicted in human forms.
Since joining Reddit in November 2019, Ronjaki has posted fan art for a number of different franchises beyond Pokemon. The notable other video games include Shadow of the Colossus and Elder Scrolls Online, which has a new Stonethorn expansion coming to Stadia in August, but they also have art for movies like Dreamworks' How to Train Your Dragon franchise.
These three Pokefusion pieces by themselves are a great showing of the artist's skills, however. Pokemon fusion fan art opens the door to a lot of interesting creative possibilities, so its worth watching Pokemon-focused social media or forums to see more. It will certainly be fun to see if Ronjaki creates other fused monsters anytime soon.
Sources: Pokemon Infinite Fusion, Reddit