A'ight, posting this here so that I maybe get motivation to finish it soon.
Ogres wielding blunt weaponry was something I'd like to make into a design, but didn't get too far since I had little reason to justify what/where the tool would be/come from, Conkeldurr and friends have grown on me but they're not something I'd like to replicate. One day someone brought up the day of a lizard using its severed tail as a weapon, which ultimately led me to what I have now.
During the process, it became less of an ogre and more of a lizard with shedded skin evolving into a caveman (going from four legs to two), but hey, still works as far as I'm concerned. Starts out as Dark and becomes Dark/Dragon. Middle stage took more work than anticipated since I realised I had to make a conscious effort not to make it similar to Croconaw, lemme know how that turned out.
>>36101358This design takes an unusual route. The kappa base already gives the viewer some ideas about where the line will go, and yakuza mobster is not one of them. There are no precursors in the base that would later become the hair/outfit on the second stage (like Scraggy to Scrafty), nor is the base stage general/boring enough to just add anything to it (like Pancham to Pangoro).
If you really want to take a more evol/dark approach, then you could make it similar to a stereotypical devil since it already has the horns and the fire association.
>>36102732I approve of all the animals you chose as the base, but like others have stated, the execution is rather lackluster and the drawing style isn't as close to the pokemon style as it could be since you seem to be more realistic than necessary.
The satyr could probably start on all four which gives the middle stage a nice platform to work with by getting up on two legs, with the final stage showing off the final details. Can't comment too much on the hippo or snake without knowing how their latter stages looks like, just focus on simplifying for now.