>>34866484>>34866165Surely the comparisons should line up more like this?
With the circular, "cutesy" eyes lining up up with the more rounded, cute-mon eyes of Gen 1; and the triangular, more threatening/serious Pokémon eyes lining up with the slightly more angular eyes of the later generations?
Obviously those images are meant to present some bias, and I'll admit it's a shame a lot of Pokémon lost some of their original colouration and design elements after Gen 1 - 2 what with the new found ability to present Pokémon in extremely vibrant colours with far less limitations to the colour palettes.
But things change with the times. In a perfect world the Gen 1 Pokémon would still look how they did back in the 90s (and I am by no means saying they have the best designs) but I guess GameFreak thought it would look more modern to update their colour schemes and adjust a few design elements (eg. Venomoths wing spots, Vaporeon's fins).
I mean, it is entirely possible that the bright pink colours of Mew and Clefable and Chansey and the like were meant to be the original type of colours they went for, just Sugimori's original watercolour-style was not suited for bright colours like that? I don't know, this is just speculation.