Are there guidelines for creating & customising MM3-style monsters?

Question

I've heard that Monster Manual 3 came with an improved design philosophy for monsters (particularly solos), and there are questions about updating pre-MM3 monsters for MM3.

I want to create and customise some monsters for my 4e game, and if MM3 does have an improved philosophy, I'd like these monsters to be MM3-style. The DMG and DMG2 provide guidelines for creating and customising monsters (the DMG2 updating them), but these were both released well before MM3.

I'm aware I could create and customise via pre-MM3 guidelines and then adjust them to MM3 standards, but I'm interested in finding out if there's updated guidelines for creating a MM3-style monster from scratch without this intermediate step. I know at the very least that the guidelines for creating a solo must be very different.

Are there new customisation & creation guidelines for creating MM3-style monsters? If so, what (or where) are they?

I am comfortable with either official or unofficial guidelines, so long as they work well in creating an MM3-style monster — if the unofficial guidelines work well, being unofficial in no way diminishes how useful they are.

Answer 1

The Adventure Tools application offline builder, (aka the free one), is fantastic for this, (you can google a download for it)

the last update to Adventure Tools before going online has updated the math that monsters should be at, and comes with many monsters updated to your needs. If you want to create your own monster, it has the tools to do as such already, (doing much of the math for you).

If you want to do it by hand, though, the Monster Vault and Rules Compendium will give you a good start. The Monster Vault will give you pre-made monsters to reference off of, and Rule Compendium will give you the step-by-step guide in creating encounters.