Development of a Typical Gen 1 Pokemon (Patreon)

Made a shorter version of this to post on Twitter, thought I'd post the longer version here:

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Development of a Typical Gen 1 Pokemon:

1. The Pokemon's beta sprite is hand-drawn.

2. The beta prite is revised and programmed into Red & Green. Some Pokemon are programmed directly into the game as sprites without ever having been hand-drawn.

3. Finally, Sugimori interprets and revises R&G sprite into the officially released artwork.

This whole process often took several years' time. Artwork was usually the LAST step. So when you see weird old sprites, it's not that they're poor representations of the artwork. The artwork was made AFTERWARDS, and is an improvement and revision of the design seen in the sprite.