Pokemon Fan Creates New Evolutions for Chesnaught and Sandshrew Evolutionary Line

gamerant.com:

A talented Pokemon fan and artist has made a Mega Evolution for Chesnaught, a pre-evolution for Sandshrew, and a new evolution for Sandslash. Pokemon fans have great creativity in reimagining Game Freak's creatures with different visuals. They are intriguing, depicting Pokemon in inventive ways, with some fans going the extra mile and writing original Pokedex entries, new movesets, and stats for them.

Pokemon fans come up with original ideas like making weapons based on Pokemon or creating Eeveelutions that don't exist yet, like a Dragon-type Eevee or Eeveelutions with unique types. They often make new Paradox forms for Pokemon that don't have one, with a range of examples, like the Hoenn starters, Lugia, and Cubone, expanding the Gen 9 gimmick even further. Another popular trend within the community is to turn Pokemon into humans by creating characters based on them, with origin stories inspired by Pokemon lore. It's also not uncommon to find fan art of baby Pokemon, either giving existing Pokemon a cute makeover or designing new pre-evolutions.

Reddit user PhantomLink2782 shared their artwork with new evolutions for the Sandshrew evolutionary line and a Mega Evolution for Chesnaught. Sandshrew got a pre-evolution called Sandsnout, showing a Ground-type Pokemon just like its Gen 1 counterpart, which has an adorable smile and a mischievous nature, and evolves at a high friendship level. Pokemon fans made alternate forms for Sandslash at other times, and this time the Pokemon got the one called Sandspike. In this fan art, the artist imagines a form that Sandslash takes when it reaches level 50, evolving into a powerful Ground/Poison-type Pokemon with a spiked stone hide and strong claws that make it a formidable opponent.

The OP also gave Chesnaught a Mega Evolution in anticipation of Pokemon Legends: Z-A, which will see the return of Mega Evolutions to the Pokemon franchise. In their fan art, the Gen 6 Pokemon has robust armor covering its body, with white and red