I'm walking down the nature trail and what's that I see? A tiny little Nidoran in the greenery.
If you'll excuse the Mega Man paperbacks, I had to prop Nidorino up with the closest, solid, not-too-intrusive thing I could get my hands on, and a stack of comics works well. Nidorino has the cutest face, my God, look at him! You know, I get that part of Nidorino's appeal is that he looks, or looked rather (back in ye olde days), kind of hectic. But if all of a sudden, henceforth this became the new design for Nidorino, I wouldn't be mad. It's on its way anyway, Nidorino no longer looks as threatening as he did in his early promo art, and Bulbasaur took a dip into the fountain of youth (or the fountain of cute, as it were. Perhaps both) itself, setting some precedent. This is also probably the closest AU Nidorino might look under an official lens, too, which says a little something about his softer design.
I don't have any props more fitting for a female, but hey. I think I may be having too much fun taking some of these pictures, I don't know. You know, looking at it, I'll mention I like that they gave her Maria's eyelashes from the Pokemon anime.
My poor Nidorina is so stomach heavy that she can't sit up correctly, there's nothing flat to rest on. *sigh* Oh Nidorina, why you so fat?
One thing I want to point out is Nidorina's second bootleg flaw, which until now you wouldn't have noticed. She never had any nostrils! Being the industrious individual that I am, I tended to this emergency right away (or a week later, not like she needs to breathe or anything) and sewed in two nostrils for her using embroidery floss. Not too bad! She actually looks a bit better straight on because you have something of a focal point now. I just wanted to mention that for anyone planning on purchasing. You'll have to sew your own nostrils or just leave her to forever be a mouth breather.
Life imitates art, as the saying goes. Could you imagine what it would be like if Pokemon existed? I could see having these extra little personalities walking, or in this case, flopping around, kind of like a cross between domestic pets (for non-human qualities) and babies (for personalities, emotions, intelligence and all the other things that make Pokemon more 'mon' than beast at times). I don't think I could resist giving hugs to Nidos every day, even if that all too real poison is a threat. Nidorina being pudgy works to her huggable advantage and Nidorino, look at that doll again and tell me you wouldn't hug a real life version of that, especially if he gave you the eyes. ◕︵◕
Alright, let's go down the checklist here... three ear points, three foreclaws, three hindclaws, three spots on each side according to latest Sugimori art, three back spikes, and a tai-three back spikes? Three back spikes? For Pete's sake, you bootleggers only had ONE job. As you can see, this is the downside to not having official products, though, for Nidorina, this is the second worst of it, and this is easy to ignore as long as you don't use it for a literal drawing reference. Not nearly as bad as two side mouths. Also, in fairness, I could actually buy this design. In fact, it would have really driven the point home that all the pointy ends of Nidorina comes in threes. In fact, I dare say it would've been clever intentional design, but we got four, and four is what we got.
I wanted to get more of a picture to show off his back spikes. His big floppy ears are in the way, so you can't see the final one very well, nor his side spots. Trust me, they're there. I wanna pinch his cheeks, whatta cutie! Heh, never thought I'd say that about a Nidorino.
For a bootleg, this is well made, and I say that also owning other bootleg plushies including the entire 1st generation Eevee family. He's very accurate, too. Two ear points, five back spikes, three foreclaws and two hindclaws, I mean, these are details some academically trained fan artists don't even get right, I wouldn't have expected it from dubious guys mass producing fakes for money. The spot count is arbitrary, I never worry about that in that I'd assume it differs from Nido to Nido in that real world, but he has them. A quick glance at the newest Sugimori art for Nidorino, though, the spots are in the right place regardless of the number.
Who let you in here? Go away and mingle with all the other Pokedolls I don't take pictures of. In all seriousness, though, Goodra's also a bootleg, and it's amusingly smaller than the Nidos. It isn't as cute seeing as the bootleggers goofed up giving it two side mouths, but for now it'll do. I do fully expect TPC to produce a Goodra plushie, though, and I guarantee it'll be cuter, and I will definitely need to add it to my collection.
I've had dreams about obtaining dolls like these, and now it's finally real! Large scale Nidorina and Nidorino plushies! The bad news is, these aren't official and are Asian bootlegs. However, the good news is, if you don't care about how official something is, these aren't too hard to obtain so long as you're able to buy online, and they're cute and huggable so they have that going for them, too. It's a take what you can get situation, but I can't imagine a better Nidorino plushie, specifically.
