Forza Horizon 5 creates epic Pokemon decals & explains how to do it

Players react to crazy Pokemon decal in Forza Horizon 5The Pokemon Company/Playground Games

Forza Horizon 5’s livery system has churned out some impressive designs already but this Pokemon decal is so good that players are having a hard time believing that it’s even real. 

It’s not often that a singular piece of art transforms how someone views an entire game but that’s exactly what has happened with a new Pokemon-inspired decal in Forza Horizon 5.

While there have been loads of impressive decals in the game so far, this one sets the standard for what can be achieved in the game’s custom design workshop and it’s got the community desperate to figure out how it was done.

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Epic Pokemon decal in Forza Horizon 5

The livery in question features a painstakingly accurate Charizard on the body of the car,

Reddotpr ‘mawrTRON’ showed off their design via a step-by-step timelapse that shows how the entire piece was constructed.

It was hard for some players to believe that this kind of art was even real, with one user commenting: “Before I saw this, I thought people just modded those vinyl groups into the game somehow.”

Mystery Machine Forza Horizon 5.STrooper501
There are a variety of Mystery Machine vans in-game, but the GMC just looks the best.

When discussing the technique that goes into creating something like this, u/Adolfo42 explained that third-party software is often a big help in making detailed art like this: “People on PC (including myself) use glass2k. It allows you to make any window (in this case the game, windowed) transparent.”

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This kind of transparent window allows players to overlay the game client with any reference of their choosing, making it much easier to get the general shape of an object exactly right.

Another user offered up that even Xbox players can theoretically take advantage of this with the right setup: “When I was on Xbox, I screencast my Xbox screen to my laptop, and did it that way. Now I’m on PC it’s way easier. I also find identical logos in the storefront, and just trace them.”

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While the sharecode for this design is shown off in the video, users should be careful about taking this one online. Those 8000-year bans are still being handed out and copyrighted images could put you directly in the game’s crosshairs.