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I've explained the issue before, but haven't tried repeating the process yet with the recently available Lion and Mountain Lion installers.

From a brief check of the the "InstallOSX.dmg" files they are same structure as the previously available installers for macOS 10.10 Yosemite through macOS 10.12 Sierra, and most of the same rules apply.

You cannot use the "InstallOSX.dmg" file directly to create a VM. The disk image is not bootable. It contains a single installer package, which needs to be run through Apple's Installer application to create the "Install OS X [version name].app" in your Applications folder. The catch: you cannot do that unless your Mac is supported by that operating system. For recent Macs, the upper bound is the usual problem.

For Lion, you can only use the installer package on Mid 2012 or older Mac.

For Mountain Lion, you can only use the installer package on a Mid 2013 or older Mac.

(The lower bound varies: between Late 2006 and Early 2009 depending on the OS X version and model family.)

There is a workaround: the model check is bypassed if the installer package is used inside a VM. That means you can use the following process on a newer Mac with VMware Fusion:

1. Download the installer for the same version of macOS you are running, e.g. via App Store or one of Apple's support pages for downloading recent macOS versions (which does the download via System Preferences for macOS 10.13 High Sierra and later). This places an "Install macOS [version name].app" into your Applications folder.

2. Create a new macOS VM in VMware Fusion, for the version you've just downloaded. Point it to the installer application. When setting up the VM, note that you will require at least 10 GB of free space inside the VM, in addition to whatever it normally needs.

3. Once the VM is created, proceed with installation of the recent macOS into the VM.

4. Once the installation is complete, go through initial setup.

5. Install VMware Tools in the VM.

6. Drag the Lion or Mountain Lion "Install OS X.dmg" file from the host into the VM.

7. Inside the VM, open the .dmg file and open the installer package. Proceed with installation. (It will probably complain about an expired certificate. I haven't got far enough yet to see whether you need to do any tricks like setting the clock back several years to allow installation to proceed.)

8. Once the installer completes, you will have an "Install OS X Lion.app" (or Mountain Lion) in the VM's Application folder. Drag that application back to the host.

9. You now have an install application which might be directly usable by VMware Fusion to create a Lion or Mountain Lion VM.

The reason I say might is that Lion and Mountain Lion predate the introduction of the createinstallmedia utility which was buried inside the installer application starting around 10.9 Mavericks. I don't know offhand whether VMware Fusion uses that utility, or whether it just needs the disk images inside the application. I created my Lion and Mountain Lion VMs so long ago that VMware Fusion may have required creating a bootable installer first, and there was a different process for that with Lion and Mountain Lion.