Pokemon Concept #11 - Snopuft, Frosspite, Wintrigo

Season's greetings and happy holidays! Noir here, finally back on schedule for a new Pokemon concept! This idea was suggested by , a frequent visitor and friend of the page!

This Pokemon line was a lot of fun to design! I was torn between removing its two prior stages (as suggested by a few friends) or showing all of them in the final product, but in the end I couldn't be happy with people not knowing of Snopuft! At any rate, these Pokemon are Ghost-types and their every aspect is meant to scare. You have been warned ~

I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed designing them. I wish you all a merry Christmas, and happy new year!

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DESCRIPTIONS
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Name | Species | Type | Abilities | Height | Weight | Description

Snopuft | Fluff Pokemon | Ice | Overcoat, Snow Cloak, Slush Rush (Hidden) | 1'02", 0.36 m | 5.5 lbs, 2.5 kg | Their true face has never been seen, as their thick, warm coat covers their whole body. The caves they live in tend to be very hot compared to the surrounding area.

Frosspite | Tundra Pokemon | Ice/Ghost | Overcoat, Snow Cloak, Slush Rush (Hidden) | 4'00", 1.22 m | 37.0 lbs, 16.8 kg | When these Pokemon are seen playing, it is best to avoid them. If they come up running from behind you, do not look back. Run.

Wintrigo | Snowstorm Pokemon | Ice/Ghost | Overcoat, Snow Warning, Slush Rush (Hidden) | 7'04", 2.24 m | 307.3 lbs, 139.4 kg | This Pokemon is usually seen as a silhouette slowly dancing in the distance, obscured by the blizzard. It creeps closer ever so slowly, until you wake up one day staring into the void that is its face.

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TYPE EFFECTIVENESS
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SNOPUFT
Damaged normally by: Normal, Water, Electric, Grass, Poison, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Bug, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Fairy
Weak to: Fire, Fighting, Rock, Steel
Immune to: None
Resistant to: Ice

FROSSPITE & WINTRIGO
Damaged normally by: Water, Electric, Grass, Ground, Flying, Psychic, Ghost, Dragon, Dark, Fairy
Weak to: Fire, Rock, Ghost, Dark Steel
Immune to: Normal, Fighting
Resistant to: Ice, Poison, Bug

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DESIGN & CONCEPT
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These Pokemon are largely inspired by various monsters associated with winter: specifically the yeti (and its variations e.g. the abominable snowman), and the wendigo. Other influences include Krampus, snowshoe hares, arctic foxes, snowmen, and various articles of Eskimo (Yup'ik or Inuit) clothing such as parkas, anoraks, and their hoods. It is also somewhat based on the Japanese oni and noppera-bō.

Abstract themes for this Pokemon are vagrants and nomads, which are a typically overlooked people group throughout history; lower in the social ladder than the poorest of farmers. They also represent the uncomfortable truth that festivities can only shield us from so much of the harsh reality; that a little bad may still lurk behind happy times.

SNOPUFT: This Pokemon is held at extremely high regard due to their natural inclination of rescuing those stranded in the cold tundra it makes its home. If it finds a person lost in the blizzard, it will push them along into the nearest shelter. A dozen of them will cuddle the rescued victim, warming them up until they gain consciousness. In the morning, when the winds have died down, they will leave the rescued to find their own way home. However, in older tales, they say that these Pokemon will pile on the victim to prevent them from getting up, holding them down until their family comes back home from an unsuccessful hunt, hungry and desperate. However, there has been no reports of this happening in recent times. This Pokemon's design is made to be simple: a cotton ball with teeth and claws made of ice. It has no discernable face, a trait which is shared with its evolutions, in reference to noppera-bō, a Japanese yōkai which frightens its victims by shockingly revealing its smooth, featureless face. It wears a short blue 'cape' which will develop into its fur coat when it gets older. It is meant to seem unassuming so as to lull their victims into a false sense of security. Theme-wise, this Pokemon is meant to represent a nomad baby: unaware of its harsh surroundings, and covered in thick clothing to stave off the cold.

FROSSPITE: It boasts incredible agility, able to climb up and down the sheer cliffs of the snowy mountaintops it calls its home. It slices through the throats of animals it hunts with its hidden claws, dropping from high trees or cliffs. In the evening, groups of them will gather and play, typically by standing on two feet and pushing each other down. This gives them the appearance of children playing and laughing in the snow. People that have lived near their lairs know not to approach them, but others might not be so lucky. A sudden chill will go down the spine of the naive people who decided to come close, and realize that these 'children' have no faces. The last thing they will hear are heavy, lumbering footfalls crunching the snow behind them, freezing them in their tracks. For its design, this Pokemon is meant to convey an unsettling balance of creepy and cute, human and animal. They are modeled loosely around arctic foxes as well as so-called 'feral' children. Its fur coat bears a resemblance to clothing worn by children in cold weather, adding to its uncanny appearance. The red 'strings' stuck to the hood can be seen as the laces of a jacket's hood (to tighten the hood's aperture) or frozen blood from a previous hunt. The red ears that sprout out from underneath their fur-lined hood gives it an appearance of an oni, a Japanese mythological creature known for their recklessness and cruelty. This Pokemon continues the theme of nomadic or vagrant children, who turn to crime to make a living. Put in a place where nobody wants or cares for them, their desperation lands them in the dark, gloomy world of the backstreets. These children become ruthless, cold, and numb.

WINTRIGO: Thought to be the stuff of legends, only people who have lived generations in the harsh tundra know the truth of these monstrous Pokemon. They are said to prey on the weak and the unprepared, who went into the tundra without bringing enough food to last their journey. Slow and lumbering, these Pokemon are said to track the marks left by sleds. It may take them days to track down their victim, but they will know if a sled is carrying doomed passengers. The people who see these Pokemon are usually delirious from several days of exposure, and will sometimes come running into their arms, thinking that they are being rescued. Chillingly, not much is known to what happens afterward: legend has it that these people become Wintrigo themselves, but this has yet to be observed first-hand. As for design, this Pokemon again is meant to sit at the uncanny valley of human and non-human. It appearance is human-like, but it moves in an eerie, unnatural manner. It can somewhat be described as 'dancing' as it moves: swaying side-to-side, like a human whose joints have become stiff from the cold weather. Its face is a void, framed by hefty white fur with a single horn protruding out from the mane. This is meant to give the appearance of a carrot-nose snowman with massive mouth lined with jagged teeth. Its arms are club-like, which is meant to allude to severe frostbite, where the extremities (fingers and toes) eventually turn black and fall off from the lack of circulation, leaving only stumps. The dark blue coloration hence reflects where the frostbite is most severe, and spreading to the rest of the body. Its orange-red coloration is in reference to cadavers preserved at high altitudes: their exposure to the sun giving them a reddish-orange appearance. Its torso is also meant to resemble a massive tongue going down to its hips. Its general appearance is meant to represent the idea of an oni, which are typically depicted having long hair, horns, several protruding sharp teeth and wielding a large (spiked) club. Overall, this Pokemon is a thematic representation of the unknown: a horrific amalgamation of our fears and insecurities, preying on whatever is left of our free thought and meek sensibilities. It is the 'leader' of the underworld: not a person, but a presence that terrorizes and haunts the minds of those who chose this sordid path.

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NAMES
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Snopuft comes from the words 'snow,' what it resembles, and 'puff,' due to its puffed-up appearance. It is also a reference to the 'Stay Puft Marshmallow Man,' a giant statue of a mascot that was possessed in the 1984 film Ghostbusters.

Frosspite is named from the words 'frost,' the ice that appears on surfaces in very cold, humid weather, and 'spite' the desire to deliberately hurt or harm someone (a common theme of malevolent spirits). It is also a play on the word 'frostbite,' a severe symptom of hypothermia.

Wintrigo is a combination of 'winter,' and 'wendigo,' a spirit or possessed human which is consumed by the desire to devour human flesh (out of desperation and/or extreme starvation), as told in the folklore of North American native peoples.

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EVOLUTION METHOD
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Snopuft is the unevolved form of this evolution line.

Frosspite evolves from Snopuft with maximum friendship while holding an Ice Stone.

Wintrigo evolves from Frosspite starting from Lv 44, in a blizzard during the night.