>>49996700>Muh fire/fightingI dislike that too, but I'm talking about the design, which is great.
The head being on shoulder level is to put emphasis on it's tanky, physically inexorable presence.
Arms being large is a natural continuation of this; They're muscular and powerful. They look like one fucking punch could wreck a fucking truck. Flame placement is kinda correct; It could be better or it could even be absent, but at the same time, I get they were going for a bit of a collared look there, which I get. It doesn't bother me personally, but I get why it's something someone would disagree with.
Your examples do some things to improve the design; I like the upper one's belt design with more prominent steel-like decoration, while the lower one's fire placement is better. Still, overall I think both are just worse versions of Emboar.
But anyway, I think that Emboar is a great design despite it's flaws. It's tanky, intimidating, physically powerful and a definite chance of pace when compared to previous fire starter evolutions, who in general have been sleek, frail, aerodynamic etc. Again, I love Infernape, Blaziken is kinda retarded, Typhlosion is OK even if a bit boring and Charizard is the most overrated generic design of all time. Among all of them, Emboar is pretty top tier, and my personal score is 4/5.
What makes it stand out even more, though, is Serperior and Samurott:
Serperior is a bland design that would work as an individual random Pokémon with no evolutions, but as a starter evo it's just disappointing, and then there's Samurott, who, again, was hands down the shittiest starter design until 8th Gen.
Emboar is good, but next to it's generational fellows, it's fucking amazing.
