FAKEMON - Water-type Starter

Water-type Starter Pokemon:

I wanted to create a trio of Starters whose common theme would be “the monsters of cinema”.
For the Water type, I chose to represent the Kaiju, these great monsters of Japanese culture whose popularity has gone beyond their original borders!
As a model, I obviously based myself on Godzilla, the king of the monsters and Kaijus in general. But as Gamefreaks already has its Tyranitar to represent the first Godzilla, I was inspired by the 2 American versions (1998 and 2014) to create my sea lizard.

For the theme specific to Starter Water, namely the theme of "amphibious animals", I based myself on the Marine Iguana, endemic to the Galapagos Islands, its lizards have acquired the ability to swim underwater to feed on water green algae. This is all the more impressive since the waters around the Galapagos are cold because of the sea currents coming up from Antarctica.
On the other hand, for the first 2 forms, I based myself on other lizards of the Iguana family: the Jesus Christ Lizard and the Anolis.

And to bind them to their Water type, I gave them the lifestyle of Marine Iguanas, diving for food, until they had completely adapted to it. In order to make it more obvious, I imagined this system of water bubbles which would act (over the course of evolutions) as a secondary respiratory system so that their diving would be easier and easier for them.

The Shiny was inspired by a book that showed the color variations that Marine Iguanas can have. Some being black gray and others sporting brick red and turquoise… that’s what gave me the idea for this surprisingly bright colored Shiny, compared to its base colors.