Anon05/01/26, 14:30No.7929443
The original Ken Sugimori Gen 1 Pokemon illustrations and designs were so GOATed, and thinking over it as an adult made me realize how the series has really lost touch with that genius more than my own nostalgia.
The limited GB screen space made for a need to emphasize only a few strong, prominent features emphasizing form over details, and the color pallet emphasizes values and contrast, using heavy highlights to give the simplistic figures depth without a need for heavy shadows (which would have limited the amount of "colors" a Pokemon could have on a black-and-white screen) while still reading as having a solid coloring that could easily be replicated.It's genius in simplicity for character design that I'm blown away by and want to eventually replicate in my own work.