#digo speaks

and then INFLATE some of the cubes by 0.001 to GET RID of Z-FIGHTING

and then use the ROTATE tool to make the JOINTS look MORE NATURAL (and don't forget to centralise the pivot point using the button on the right!)

and then GROUP all the cubes you might want to ANIMATE into organised BONES (you can't animate the cubes themselves, only the "bones", or the folders you see below)

and then you go into your PAINT tab on the TOP RIGHT and click the CREATE TEXTURE button....

and then you PAINT your model (using the texture preview on the top left to make sure you don't miss any spots)

and then you go into your ANIMATE tab on the TOP RIGHT and click the NEW ANIMATION button on the TOP LEFT. rename the animation to IDLE and set it to LOOP (sorry i forgot to highlight that part....)

and then you start by making your model "breathe"; raising the Y-LEVEL of the BONE of MAIN BODY by a SMALL AMOUNT (I've done a value of two here) and INFLATING it by an EVEN SMALLER AMOUNT (i've done a value of 0.02 here).

(NB: make sure that the BEGINNING KEYFRAME (the first little diamonds on the timeline at the bottom of the screen) values of both these at ZERO)

and then you LOWER the Y-LEVEL of the TAIL BONES and ROTATE each BONE so that they still fasten to the BONE of the MAIN BODY (so that it looks like it's moving up and down with the breaths)

(NB: making sure the PIVOT POINTS are centred is EXTRA IMPORTANT here!!!! USE THE BUTTON!!!!)

and then you DO THE SAME for the HEAD and NECK BONES....

and then you ROTATE (i've done that by a value of 2 here) and only SLIGHTLY lift the Y-LEVEL of the LEG BONES (i've done that by a value of 0.2 here)

(NB: make sure to leave those tootsie-feet alone -- we're not doing a walk cycle here, it's gonna look weird if they're sliding around too much).

and then you HASTILY add EYE BALL BONES because you FORGOT

which are MOSTLY INVISIBLE so you go back into the PAINT tab and click the APPEND ELEMENTS TO TEMPLATE... button

and then you PAINT them to look like CLOSED EYELID BONES and RESIZE them in the EDIT tab to fit over the model's EYES. also, INFLATE them by 0.002 (the head's already been inflated, my b)

and then you HIDE them INSIDE THE SKULL of your MODEL and make sure they are PROPERLY ORGANISED in the OUTLINER panel

and then you go back to your ANIMATE tab and you WIDEN THE TIME GAP between the ZERO-VALUE and the NUMBER-VALUE KEYFRAMES (the inhale and exhale keyframes) in the TIMELINE panel. and then you COPY+PASTE the KEYFRAMES several times (idk i did it until it was like 10 secs long).

the ANIMATION should END with the ZERO-VALUE (exhale) KEYFRAME.

(NB: the smaller your creature, the shorter the time gap between keyframes should be. smaller animals breathe faster and their heart beats quicker. larger animals should be slower and more lumbering).

and then you pick a RANDOM POINT in this loop (i prefer to do near the end) and create NEW KEYFRAMES for BOTH EYE BONES with VALUES of ZERO. and then you add a NEW KEYFRAME 0.1 SECOND after that, and you MOVE the EYE BONES so that they OVERLAP with the edge of the HEAD BONE where you have PAINTED the eyes.

then, about 0.3 seconds after that, you COPY the KEYFRAMES, but MIRROR the ORDER. so it should look like THIS:

and then you go to FILE and click SAVE PROJECT.

Then you, too, can SAVOUR your very own LIVING, BREATHING (not really) CREATURE!!!!!

He's a mix between a woolless Hampshire Down sheep (bc british + sacrificial lamb vibes, especially from early on) + Arctic fox! You can probably tell from my notes that my process for this was making the concept for the fakemon (including stats, typing, abilities, moves, strategies to use with him, along with potential evolutions) before i started designing anything! That's because I wanted the design to reflect what stats and moves it might learn, and I wanted to incorporate the ghost typing.

i chose ghost because I think that meshes well with pre-memory lane Lukey and The Horrors and all that stuff -- memory loss, he's lost himself/part of himself, or his past self, except he doesnt even know that's something to miss. I thought that suited the ghost type pretty well. Ghost type also meshes really well with Hampshire Down sheep, because if you've seen pictures of them, it sometimes looks like they've got a skull on their face, since they have the darker skin/fur and then white wool overtop. Ghost + sheep + black and white theming + sheep skull = Tr!Lukey Vibes? I did initially start with a shuppet-esque hamster design, but idk, I wasn't vibing with it as much (you can see those in the first image).

I wanted him to be woolless to represent the taking off his armour, or specifically his helmet, thing. It also meshes well with representing his missing memories because a sheep without wool = strange/off/the sheep missing something vital (to people who dont spend a lot of time around sheared sheep -- which i understand is most people). But without the wool it was kind of difficult to tell that there was any sheep included in the design, so i added the horizontal pupils and those swirly bits to the ghost mist stuff (i didnt include this but they used to be more like marshadow vibes) to allude to wooliness. even if there isnt actually any.

I put the misty bits at the feet to go for a "lost his footing" type thing. tr!lukey in the beginning is very "out of step" with the other characters and its only really pangi + bad he gets along with for a little bit (because of the whole null rumours thing + pili grudge).

Pokemon inspo for this design was Nickit, Hisuian Zorua, Misdreavous (for the eyes specifically), and Gastly (for the ghosty misty stuff). Didn't use any sheep pokemon cos they all have wool (unless you count ampharos, which i dont bc. bipedal i guess) which makes the silhouette completely different.

picked pink + purple as colours because they kinda give dreamy vibes, while also toeing along the line of dark/light (black + white). i refuse to do actual black and white because. idk i just dont wanna. but i will deffo be making the pink paler in the real thing.

i think the only other thing i have to talk about is the pose? I've got him suspended at an angle like that to go with the no feet/out of step metaphor thing. but i still wanted to give a playful/chatty sort of vibe because that man can talk!!! so his mouth is open in a lil grin and his legs are all akimbo as if running. if i were to animate this thing, i'd have it seem like he cant get any traction on the ground, as if hes walking on ice, because he's a ghost and not fully in contact with the ground. honestly im using he/him pronouns but the more i worked on this (this is several weeks' worth of work btw, i havent even shown you the stat sheet yet) the more she/her started speaking to me. tgirl tr!lukey ftw. make her lesbians with tgirl pangi and we win. but thats off topic. who let me ramble for this long? this is just word vomit.