Pokemon Fan Art Combines Gives Lucario a Monster Hunter-Themed Makeover

gamerant.com:

A Pokemon fan has recently redesigned Lucario, imagining how the creature would look as a Monster Hunter beast. Pokemon and Monster Hunter are two popular series with memorable creatures, so taking elements from both and combining them is an interesting way to create surprisingly good fan art.

Lucario is a Fighting/Steel-type creature that first appeared in the fourth generation of the Pokemon franchise. Lucario evolves from Riolu, a dog-like creature that only gains access to its stronger form when leveled up with high friendship parameters during the day. In Gen 6, Lucario gained the ability to turn into Mega Lucario when players use the Lucarionite on the Pokemon.

Now, an artist called shunixe decided to reimagine Lucario using the art style of Capcom’s popular series Monster Hunter. The new design distills Lucario’s essence into a Monster Hunter-inspired creature very well. For instance, it keeps the creature canine’s head in a somewhat similar shape, still resembling its most important features and maintaining the blue and black colors. Lucario’s whole body, on the other hand, changes drastically, gaining a strong scaled skin that makes it look more like a dragon.

This is not the first time that shunixe has created Monster Hunter-themed Pokemon, though. A few days ago, the artist also reimagined Reshiram as a Monster Hunter-styled creature. This previous design follows the same patterns as the most recent one, with Reshiram conserving its original colors, the overall shape of its head, and its distinctive blue eyes. However, the creature is no longer biped in the new form and has metallic-like scales instead of feathers.

Last year, shunixe also created a Monster Hunter-inspired version of Vaporeon. In this case, the cute Water-type Eeveelution no longer looked like an adorable pet, as it also gained strong scales, huge claws, and a tail made out of water. Of these three designs, Vaporen is arguably the one that looks the least like the Pokemon that inspired it,