These back sprites made me cry. RIP Charmeleon and Venusaur :'(
Charizard's back sprite. It is comfortable the worst thing I've ever seen, and is legitimately terrifying! It looks like a freakin skeleton angel thing!
For me, it's a toss-up between that terrible Mew sprite in the opening post (I couldn't figure out what it was the first time I saw a picture of it) and Golbat (who I find exceptionally creepy in its original form).
It's interesting how normal Mew looks in its Yellow sprite. I'm always amazed by how it transformed from RB to Y. That goes for some other sprites, too (some of which I like better in RB, some in Y).
There are also a lot of sprite in gen I that really don't look like their character art (e.g., Koffing's skull and bones in the wrong place), something that you don't see nearly as much of in later generations.
In fairness a lot of those were based on their really early art seen in these cards
https://unrealitymag.com/video-games/the-lost-official-pokemon-art-that-no-one-ever-saw/
Which kinda explains why Mew looks so painful
I hadn't realized that some of the sprites were based on alternate artwork, but some of those images do explain why the sprites might have turned out the way they did. I just figured the spriters only had a vague idea of what they were supposed to be creating, or the designs of the Pokemon were still in flux a little. Which I guess they were, if there were two sets of art made by Ken Sugimori. Any idea when the alternate art you linked to was designed vs. when the "classic" art we're familiar with was created?
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Hahaha. I love Golbat, but geez come on!