Since there are so many common questions, I decided to offer some advice myself, since I have a lot of free time.
General:
Symmetrical pattern: decide witch part of the pokemon is the most important view, the side or the front. Typically for 4 legged pokemon it’s the side, while most two legged pokemon will have a more ‘teddy bear’ pattern with two front belly patterns and two back patterns, with arms, legs and head attached to that. Decide if the head should be attached to the body pattern from the start, or if it makes more sense to build the head separately and attach to the body at a later date. After that, decide on where the plushie needs extra seams/should be fatter. You’ll need a strip of cloth for a 4 legged pokemon’s underbelly and to make the head fatter/rounder (as well as to separate the ears-you don‘t want them coming out of the same seam!)
Unsymmetrical pattern: for teddy-bear like pokemon, this can be easy as making one arm different then the other, such as one bent and one strait. When it comes to 4 legged pokemon, this can be a bit harder depending on the pokemon in question. I would make one side pattern like I did with the symmetrical design and call it side A-but after that I would trace that pattern, reverse it, and change the leg’s positions/shapes in side B. I would then trace each of the 4 legs separately, and draw the pokemon’s underbelly. I would then mark where each individual leg should go on the underbelly, and treat the pattern as normal. A grid really comes in handy here, since then you can make sure that the legs are even in size/length. It’s a bit harder to make a pattern like this though.
Types of Fabrics:
The only real rule for fabrics is that you don’t want a material that will fray easily. For beginning plushie makers, there are three fabrics I personally recommend depending on what you think is ideal. Felt is the easiest to get, and found in most craft and art stores. However, most of the time the felt is cheep, and is sold in notebook paper sized sheets that are so small that it’s almost impossible to make a plushie out of. Fleece is a good fabric for beginners. It comes in a wide range of colors and textures and even the occasional patterns. It’s somewhat common in most fabric stores, and I’ve seen them at some mega markets I don‘t know if I‘m allowed to actually name witch one though.. It’s a somewhat cheep fabric that I’ve seen sell for about 5 dollars a yard. Since a yard is a 36 inch by 36 inch square, most people can make a LOT of plushies with this, or make larger dolls. Fleece is also machine washable, and it’s an ideal fabric if making a doll that you intend to actually play with instead of keeping it on display. The last fabric of interest is fur fabric. Fur fabrics make patterns appear larger, they hide seams and small mistakes, and can really add a bit of depth to your pokemon if used strategically. For example, a long pile fur fabric would be a great mane/tail for a ponyta, or might look good as a mareep’s main body with the rest of him in fleece. However, it’s easily the most expensive fabric ranging from 5 dollars to 180+ dollars a yard depending on weather or not you get synthetic furs or real furs. I personally have no experence with real fur fabric, only with craft furs. Synthetic craft fur is probably the best sort of fur for pokemon. Fur comes in three ‘piles’-Short, medium and long. Since finding fur fabric is difficult outside of fabric stores, your most likely going to see long pile craft fur fabric in the occasional art store. Also, most fur fabrics that I’ve seen are seasonal-whites and blacks are common all year around though you might find more interesting colors around holloween-otherwise dieing fur fabrics might be the only way to get the color that you want for that particular pokemon. It’s also worth noting that fur fabric is extremely messy, and once cut will lead to a lot of small pieces of fur everywhere. It’s theoretically possible to cut the fabric without cutting the threads that make the fur fabric, but for beginners one can expect a mess of sorts.
I hope this helps some people!
Edit: Transparent fabrics should probably be avoided because you typically won't stuff your plushie with just stuffing(*the scraps of your plushie make great stuffing material*). You can also test how much the fabric stretches by pulling at the corners-if the fabric bounces back to its origenal shape and there are no thin patches that you could see though, it's probably a good enough fabric for a plushie. You can test for fraying fabric by also looking at the corners, to see if the threads at the edges come loose easily. If they do, it's probably best to avoid that particular fabric for a plushie.
Also, if sewing a larger pokemon or one with long limbs, Dowel rods can be used for additional support, particularly if you want the plushie to stand up rather then flopping over.