The idea:
We have always loved the idea of battling monsters from early ideas of Pokemon, Digimon, and even Yugioh in some sense. When you think of each of these you get a certain feel. Pokemon were elemental monsters or special creatures such as Voltorb or Magnemite. Digimon were very strong looking fantasy creatures or monsters quickly evolving and gaining different forms of augmentations. Yugioh pulled heavily from mythology while also playing by its own weird and wacky rules. Each of these were uniquely recognizable from their theming and styles, and we wanted to do the same. As a hard fast rule we fought for with our style was that Animon are “animal monsters” with various elemental affinities. Our goal was to keep this style consistent but unique between Animon.
Being Unique
When developing each Animon we started with an element and a type of monster (frog, bug, dog, etc.) We had to go through many iterations for each Animon to get it to the right feel and style we were looking for. Each Animon would start as a cute beginning form but slowly progress and become more powerful and strong. In the below image you can see a few edits we made and a first attempt at the fire dogs evolution, as soon as we saw this we knew we had to change it. 
Why? If you are a Pokemon fan you would recognize this is very similar looking to Lucario. One of our goals when creating our Animon is to pay respect to Pokemon as one of the founders of the monster battle game category but we also do not want to be seen as stealing from them. Our ideas are our own and we have even scrapped certain ones to make sure we are different. 
Finalizing:
Slowly but surely after working with our artist for a few months we had built up a pretty large library of Animon sketches. We were finally ready to begin coloring the Animon and sharply styling them. From the very beginning we knew we wanted to use cel-shading as our principle means to style them. This style has very stark and cartoonish shading and vibrant coloring.
LEGENDARY!
As we continued to make and expand our catalog of Animon we wanted to make some very special Animon that when people saw them they would say “I have to get that one!” This was when we began working on our different legendary monsters. We wanted each of these to have an imposing presence.
We also wanted to reward players for special activities. In a later post we will discuss events but we have special Animon that will only appear during events as well. Such as the Winter event we have planned. Here is a sneak peak of a few of the Animon that will be in the event:
Finally we are excited that each and every person who participates in the Beta will receive the exclusive Animon name Kilgia (voted on by the community). Keep on the look out for more updates on when the Beta will release. Make sure to sign up as soon as possible. Happy New Years!
