E4 Evolution Design Contest Voting Thread! WINNERS ANNOUNCED!

[lyleberr]

Oh thank goodness, I thought I was the only one and figured people were getting annoyed of my ramblings by now.

It was a fun activity and I was surprised there was overlap with pokemon since I had a few more ideas for pokemon that I couldnt get the concept down beyond just a few ideas. Like a new evolution for Starmie when 3 come together called Starrus (You > Me > Us is the next progression?) seemed to be appropriate but how would it look or even be drawn? Ultimately I couldnt get it to look like anything that would be a pokemon so it was scrapped.

[Slade]

Same. Love the design lol

[joer]

I really liked a few of these. A couple in particular really made a lot of sense and I absolutely wish they could be a reality! Good luck guys!

[Llyrwenne]

The voting deadline is getting closer! Can we make 100 voters?

[PokMatt]

I saw this pinned but never clicked this thread for some reason and super glad I did. I had a really fun time looking at everyones drawings and the lore. I think everyone did fantastic and look forward to seeing what everyone likes the most and which evolution got the most votes.

[milhouse]

I will be closing voting in approximately 4-5 hours. If you haven’t considered voting, or only used 3-4 of your 5 votes then this is your last chance!

[milhouse]

Voting has closed and I can now reveal the winners of the first E4 Evolution Design Contest. I will contact the winners individually for their prizes either today or tomorrow.

We had 87 total voters with 320 votes cast for all of these incredible designs. For those who did not win or place a shout out for your efforts and your creativity. If I run this again in the future, I look forward to you participating again!

3rd and 2nd place were separated by a singular vote in the end, and both designs were neck and neck for the spot during most of the voting period. 1st place lead from very early on and came home strong. Receiving votes from 71% of voters.

3rd place: Skarjet

2nd place: Conkquer

1st place: Lunaclipse

[Dyl]

Huge congratulations to the winners! Please make yourselves known!

PS: I submitted Divorsmaus.

[milhouse]

If it makes you feel any better I laughed out loud in real life reading your Divorsmaus submission, and also showed some of my friends who also thought it was amazing.

[Dyl]

Aww, shucks. I had a ton of fun coming up with the design/lore! I hope that this will become an annual or biennial e4 event.

[joponnes]

Divorsmaus was my top 3 pick, such a creative and hilarious twist in the evolution line

I think it’s quite obvious but i was behind sloodge

[bbobrob]

Congrats to the winners! All designs were cool to see and had their own charm!

I also voted for Divorsmaus—I liked the lore behind it, and it’s typing was hilarious

[jaxlax21]

Congrats to the winners! At least my overall pick got 3rd! What an amazing designs all around!

[mrbubbles]

Much congratulations to all of the winners. Very deserved. I also enjoyed reading through all of the entries and the creativity was just super cool. Lunaclipse was also my pick due to the sheer detail and original concept behind the design. It was brilliant.

I had also participated and I made the submission for Escavish. I just want to share a few thoughts about it.

My first draft was going to be a Paldean regional form of Bruxish due to the fact that there a lot of mercury mining which happens in the Almaden region of Spain. So my initial idea was to design something along those lines. Have a more metallic looking fish which evolves from Bruxish when exposed to Mercury. However, that meant losing the colors the original design had which I wanted to retain.

I am a huge horror fan and I decided to take a much darker approach and use H.P Lovecraft 's monster Dagon as inspiration to design something based on an angler fish which really uses its light to lure and hunt prey. So it was going to be a fish on revenge, luring people and fishermen off the coast and eating faces off people, specifically the people who kept calling Bruxish ugly. However, at the last moment I decided to write a more Pokemon based evolution lore since I thought it would be too disjointed from the design of the Pokemon.

But when I read the excellent lore from many of the entries, specifically also @Dyl’s Divorsmaus, I think I should have just kept the more exciting original lore. Nevertheless, I had tons of fun trying to come up with ideas and see if there was something I can really base of the Lovecraft and Eldritch mythos.

Thanks a lot @milhouse for arranging the event and to everyone who voted. Really had a great time to do something out of the normal. Congratulations again to the winners and also to everyone else who participated.

Cheers!

[livindavido]

Congrats everyone! They were some awesome designs. I was instantly demoralised upon seeing Conkquer because I chose to do the same evolution line but can only draw like a 5 year old haha.

Although I loved all of them, Conkquer was my winner by a mile, it’s just such an incredible visualisation and something I could fully see in the Pokémon world. It would become a favourite of mine and something I would have in my team playing a new Pokémon game.

I clearly have a gen 1 bias but sloodge to me deserves an honourable mention. Really loved the concept for it and the acid from the mouth would make for so many fun concepts in both the anime as a storyline and a game as a moveset or potential animation.

What I have learned from this is that I maybe need to take more interest beyond gen 1 and gen 2 haha. The art is incredible but some of these, if I had been shown a picture, I would have assumed its a Pokémon already because they look similar to a Pokémon I vaguely know! That’s on me though!

Incredible showcase of art once again, thanks everyone!

[Llyrwenne]

!!!

My Lunaclipse?
At the top!?
I am truly honored!

The process of designing, refining, and illustrating Lunaclipse was a blast! To see that translate into so many votes warms my heart! I will add my voice to the chorus calling for a contest like this to return in the future; it stimulated so many different kinds of creativity and gave us some truly unique creations! I truly enjoyed all of the entries, and all of the various aspects of Pokémon design they highlighted. The variety and artistry on display was wonderful to see! Out of all the incredible works of art, the following five (presented in no particular order) ultimately earned my votes;

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★ Conkquer ★

Conkquer’s wonderful hand-drawn illustration drew me right in! That smirk! The detailing on the shell is great. The extensive information on its behavioral and biological traits really made it come to life, and earned it one of my five votes despite my ambivalence towards the Pokémon it evolves from.

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★ Cramcordia ★

Cramcordia’s illustration is also a wonderful sight. The design itself really builds on the mechanics and behaviors of Cramorant, taking into account the outcomes of its ability, and truly incorporating those elements into this new majestic bird. It just works, far better than a Cramorant evolution has any right to.

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★ Pteroforge ★

Pteroforge earned one of my votes for the unique presentation alone. Rather than some dry information dump, I was immersed into the expedition journal of a Pokémon explorer, hot on the trail of a mysterious new Pokémon! Even with another excellent Skarmory entry, Pteroforge’s unique primal angle stands out.

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★ MirorTree ★

Miror Tree. What can I say? I’m a sucker for Miror B, Colosseum, and XD: Gale of Darkness. Miror B’s theme plays on repeat in my head. Tying it into its former weakness to water and Bonsly’s fluid regulation, packaged together in the brilliant concept of a juicy berry tree; absolute genius! Take my vote!

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★ Skarjet ★

Skarjet gets my last remaining vote. A slick illustration with excellent design notes pointing out the unique features of this Mach-speed Pokémon! The fire typing is a nice and unexpected twist on top of the radical ramjet base design. The knight’s visor is also a lovely touch. A worthy follow-up to Skarmory!

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I will contain my comments on all the other entries in the collapsible box below, just so my post doesn’t take up too much space. Please accept my praise of your design, even if it did not end up receiving one of my final votes!

Skewdaddle

Skewdaddle gets the prestigious “best name” award for its use of one of the jolliest words in the English language. The matching personality and the mention of its culinary potential add depth to an otherwise straightforward evolution design.

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Sloodge

Sloodge takes Pokémon’s environmentalist themes to the extreme by cranking up the pollution to the stage of existential dread. The appropriately horrifying description of its suffering fits right in to the game’s history of disturbing Poké Dex entries.

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Aciduck

Aciduck’s wonderful pixel styling puts me right back into the old Game Boy games. Taking the mismatched colors of its predecessors, combining them, and updating the typing based on this new combined color created an unexpectedly inspired evolution!

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Divorsmaus

Divorsmaus presents a unique concept for a new evolution method. Taken a step further, I could even see this work as a ‘cyclical’ evolution, where low friendship causes Tandemaus to disband, and high friendship gets them paired up again!

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Daubound

Daubound gives us a fresh take on our classic artist Pokémon by changing up its artistic occupation from painter to sculptor. This change is believably and expertly justified in the Pokémon’s description - absolutely wonderful work!

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Escavish

Escavish takes a hideous, unloved, and bland Pokémon and turns it into what it should have been. It turns that hideousness up to 11, embraces the deep-sea horror, and ties into humanity’s environmental abuse. An improvement in every way!

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Pyrant

Pyrant provides yet another Pokémon tradition; a species adapting to its usual predator, upturning their predator/prey relationship. There’s a sneaky play on ‘fire ant’ in there, as well as inspiration taken from acid-spitting ants. Excellent!

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Voltforge

Despite the admitted use of AI programs in its creation, I appreciate the personal connection to the artist’s passion. Going all in on the metal pin spikes certainly resulted in a menacing makeover for our precious little bean cushion!

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Spawnly

Spawnly surprised me with its dark yet intriguing lore. Its haunting ties to Lavender Town’s Pokémon Tower, and the suggestion of resulting playground rumors really made that little orb come to life beyond just some simple art on a screen!

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Vulkoal

Vulkoal shines in its straightforward simplicity. It (literally) builds on Torkoal’s trusty shell, and its dual volcano peaks make for a deserving follow-up to an underappreciated single-stage Pokémon from one of my favorite generations!

[inertgeometry]

congrats to the winners!

[tcgmaine]

Congratulations to the winners! So many clever ideas as well as some amazing art! And hats of to @milhouse for putting this all together! These types of things make the forum so much fun!

[northerninfernape]

Well done all and thanks to @milhouse for hosting the contest.

[Rattlesnake]

Thank you @milhouse for running a great contest and thank you to all the participants and voters for a great turnout! Events like this and the art contest are by far my favorite thing about E4.

Cloyster was a great candidate for a 3rd evolution because there are several options of real world water animals people could relate to. Just as I had that thought, I looked up at the Conk Shell I have in my office and the name “Conk-quer”immediately popped into my head. My thought process was a Conk shell would be relatable enough to kids and adults, but still be perceived as a top tier evolution given it’s bigger and prettier than many shells.

It was only logical for the shell to grow larger and stronger after Cloyster, however instead of keeping the same limbless black pearl in a shell, I thought it would be more exciting for it to grow legs and a tail. Additionally, this allowed me to mesh the name with its behaviors to seek out opponents to fight and conquer. The limbs also allowed me to slip in it’s weakness to help balance the Pokémon. As it’s power and abilities grew, it would need to trade off the ability to completely clamp its shell closed in defensive situations.

Thank you again for all the kinds words and votes! Conkquer lives!