Another creative fan from the Pokemon community shares some brilliant artwork featuring their own regional variant concepts for Sandshrew and its evolved form, which takes inspiration from geodes along with a real-life species known as the pink fairy armadillo. With the full roster of Pokemon in the Pokemon world now exceeding 1000 different species, fan artists devoted to the franchise certainly have no shortage of material to work with, especially when taking into account the different forms and regional variants that some of the critters have.
Regional variants in particular have introduced a wealth of new creative possibilities for existing Pokemon, and are a relatively new feature seen in the games. First seen in Pokemon Sun and Moon, regional variants are Pokemon that sport different appearances and typings than their usual forms as a result of the environments that they have adapted to. The carefully-designed regions introduced in recent generations of Pokemon games have allowed for the concept of regional variants to be heavily expanded on, with certain regionally-exclusive forms of Pokemon even having their own unique evolutions.
A talented artist by the username the_elastic_band on Reddit shared their art with the Pokemon community on the site, which features their drawing of a Rock and Fairy-type regional variant for Sandshrew and its evolved form, Sandslash. These unique forms for the Pokemon sport pink, along with a crystal-like shell which puts the rock in the Rock-type regional variant. According to the artist, their concept was inspired both by geodes as well as a species known as the pink fairy armadillo, a real-life animal that is also the smallest species of armadillo on the planet. As this species is found in Argentina, many fans of these adorable Pokemon designs suggested that they would work well in the Pokemon world if Game Freak ever creates a region based on a region in South America.
With many other creative fans in the Pokemon community, there are plenty of other pieces of artwork to be found which bring similar concepts to life. The same artist that created this adorable Sandshrew variant has also produced many other concepts of regional variant Pokemon. Furthermore, the latest entries to the series, Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, have introduced over a hundred new Pokemon to the world which has sparked countless new creative ideas in fans.
Although regional variant Pokemon have done much to expand on some already-existing Pokemon and the new regions that they live in, many Pokemon fans have complained that obtaining these regional exclusives can be overly difficult in the latest games. While some players have suggested their own intuitive solutions of how these rare Pokemon could be obtained in Scarlet and Violet, it seems that fans are primarily going to have to rely on using Pokemon Home to transfer these Pokemon once it becomes compatible with the most recent titles.