Designing hybrid characters sounds like an interesting concept, right

Designing hybrid characters sounds like an interesting concept, right? Especially if you’re a fan of Pokemon or Digimon, where there’s tons of potential to fit the puzzle pieces together. Well, this much is true; you probably already know the “TF sequence/story” has been done before plenty of times, but what will your creations fall under? Hopefully, this advice can clear up your mind about where to go. Let’s get this show on the road, alright? Here are the examples of OCs I’ll be showing by example; from left to right, they’re Takeshi, Myra, Alec, and Gabriel. Right off the bat, what’s the objective? Are you aiming to Humanize a creature, “Creature­ify” a Human, or mutate someone into a genetic combination of the two? Typically, morphs fall under one of the five below.
Depending on what you’re choosing, you’ll have a general size of creative liberties you’ll be allowed to take. For example, the Gijinka is mostly humanoid with one or two animalistic tidbits, and the Reverse Morph is Vice Versa. The only thing I disagree with in the above is how he/she ordered them; rather, for the sake of sequence I would switch Hybrid and Reverse Morph. I’m gonna touch base on these four character ideas once again. This time, I’ll need to show them side­by­side with the Digimon they were inspired by. You see, it’s a similar albeit present resemblance. I’ll trace my steps back in order to lead a path from square one; these steps should work out with anyone else’s ideas to “experiment” with their characters. First, you might wanna think of what kind of creature you imagine someone to become. It should reflect their nature and not aesthetically conflict with his/her normal color scheme. If you’re thinking about Pokemon, hit up Bulbapedia and check out the pages for each type; they’ve got a list of every respective Pokemon with that attribute. Digimon is a tad more difficult, especially if you’re not familiar with the ropes. Since Digimon don’t have the same idea of classification that Pokemon does, the only alternate route would be searching by Digimemory, dividing the species list into categories that are along the lines of fire, water, earth, air, darkness, light, steel, and plantlife. Remember those choices you should be allowed to make between the “target” and the “Transformation?” You should then decide on new colors for the person. For the sake of this tutorial, let’s just say I’m turning each of these Digihumans into Pokehumans. Each species I selected can easily match with their intended counterpart. As Pokehumans, Alec, Myra, Takeshi, and Gabe can still wear the same clothes if I want them to, while the colors that deviate from Boldore, Vaporeon, Houndoom, and Hawlucha distinguish their identities alongside it. Notice how I’ve used Pokemon from varied regions, instead of limiting myself to a particular generation; this’ll keep things fresh longer for sure. So next, what about their bodily makeup? Are they made of fur, skin, feathers...or rocks? (to name a few relevant instances, of course) It pretty much sets up how they’ll be able to live in a transformed state. Also to note, their bodies may stay humanoid, but won’t have the same differences. Arguably, the Digihumans might retain “Digimon­like” body parts, but that would only be on account of their original state prior to the transformation. Takeshi may get those horns, but lose his bushy tail in order to have a thin one; Alec might have yellow and red rocks as his claws, tail, and hair, as well on his knees and elbows; Myra will probably lose her large hands, but gain that horn on her head and a fish tail; and Gabriel can get his wings more into a poncho­like configuration and acquire a mask for himself. Finally, how do you want your transformee to behave? Very far from their original nature, close to it...above all, it should really reflect how much you turn them into something else. With that said, I hope to inspire some new conceptions of this kind of art. Happy Hybrids!