Pokemon fans are more creative than the developers.

You see those abominations there? Those are the new starters for Pokemon Black and White. I know, right? We've got a snobby lizard thing, a pig-rabbit, and my personal favorite: a clown-otter with a snowball for a head. Yes, these guys are awful, just awful. Worse than I could have imagined. Worse than a lot of people imagined, actually. You see, when this image was released a few days ago, it sent the Pokemon community into a mad frenzy trying to decipher what they might look like. And guess what, the fan's creations are better. Here's an idea Nintendo, for the next Pokemon game, how about you let the fans design the monsters? My favorites of the fan monsters are below.

We'll start out with the crazy otter thing. This first one's a bit out there, but it's still pretty awesome:

It's some kind of war veteran who's lost its eye and uses a seashell for an eyepatch. Pretty badass. Too badass, in fact. So we'll move on to more Pokemon-y things.

A little simplistic, but not bad at all. Still leaps and bounds better than the real thing. At least they got the face right.

This is probably the best standalone image I've seen of this one (most of them are grouped). Really captured the look of an otter mixed with a platypus.

The same guy also did a picture of the pig thing:

Pretty good. Still better than the final version.

Wile we're on the subject of that guy, I thought this one was really creative. It showed that the silhouette may not be as obvious as everyone thinks. Unfortunately, this guy was thinking too intelligently. It turned out to be more like his second doodle. Still, the second doodle is pretty good. 

While this next one is close to the final product, I find it a bit more interesting.

Everyone seems to have had a field day with the lizard guy (do the Pokemon guys not realize they already had a lizard starter?).

The common conception was that this thing was either a lizard or some sort of bird. This one is an example of the bird senario. 

Next, this one is close but, again, more interesting than the final.

This guy returns with another solid design:

The most creative, though, is this chameleon one that gives him a spiked head rather than a beak:

Now lets look at some trios:

These three have some pretty decent designs. I like the horn on the lizard and I also enjoy the platypus design of the water starter. The stupid pig guy is pretty lame any way to make him.

I must say that out of all the designs, these three were probably the most plausible. The lizard, of course, has a much better design here, the pig thing can't be helped (though it looks like more of a cow here), and the otter guy... well it's just as strange, although I'm pretty sure I like this one better somehow. Obviously, these were made to look pretty official.

These three are pretty nice overall. Whoever made this came up with probably the nicest design for the lizard guy and also succeeded at making the hideous pig creature look normal by making him into some sort of fox thingy. And we've also got a platypus look for the third guy as well.

That being said, these three are also decent. Lizard guy is alright, pig thing is normalized, and this time we've got a raccoon.

This trio is also well done. The lizard is a blatant ripoff of the one two pictures above, probably because it was so well done. Either that, or a very strange coincidence. The pig is kind of cool in this one, and the otter I can deal with.

  This one turns the lizard into a bird, and the pig into a hamster. It's rather cute, actually. The third thing is, well, it's a plausible Pokemon design.

Last but not least, the most original designs of all. We've got a peacock with a large plume on its head rather than a lizard, a frog (I like it!) instead of an otter, and a rabbit thing. Not a bad attempt at all.

And just for fun:

Turtwig's revenge:

I heard you like Mudkipz...

This... thing...

The classics:

I just like the names here:

And... yeah...