>>58742875It's a bit of both. The games are stylized abstractions, they're not literal. We see materials and textures in some media that is further abstracted in other media. Fur, metal, rock surfaces are often rendered as flat plastic.
Pokken is a good example of Pokemon being presented more literally, but even then it still relies on abstraction. Gengar looks like a carved figure, Scizor's exoskeleton look like chitin rather than metal.
These ancient depictions are abstractions in the own right. They simplify some elements, exaggerate others, but the fur and scales read more as literal features being exaggerated. Something that exists in the world, but doesn't fit the abstract style. Like the invisible items people hand to each other, they're literally visible to those characters, but abstracted. Either as glowing dots, pokeballs, or nothing at all.
