Gyarados Biology Variations in the TCG

General
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This post is dedicated to my good friend @azulryu and to any other Gyarados collector, the purspose is just to chill and enjoy these creativity/interpretation differences that each artist made. Notice I won’t include example pics for these cos I think it’s more fun to go and check your own collection and maybe discover new patterns to add to this list!

General Anatomy therms:

Body lenght (in segments)
-11 (Base Set)-13/15 (Normal, most of them)-16 (Misty’s Gyarados, Lance’s Gyarados)->20 (Skyridge)

Body pattern
-Normal (yellow belly dot and both sides from 1st body segment to tail) (most of them)-Mono blue body segment x1 (EXHolonPhantoms 8/110, Clair’s Gyarados, HiddenFates 16/58)-Mono blue body segment x2 (Misty’s Gyarados, Lance’s Gyarados)-Mono blue body segment x3 (Dark Gyarados 8/82)-Yellow belly body segment x1 (Stormfront, HeartGoldSoulSilver, AncientOrigins, EvolvingSkies 028/203)-Yellow belly body segment x3 (HeartGoldSoulSilver 123/123)-Yellow belly on head segment (HeartGoldSoulSilver, AncientOrigins, EvolvingSkies 029/203))-Double belly (Giovanni’s Gyarados)-Mono blue body segment in tail end x2 (Dark Gyarados 8/82)

Number of body fins
-4 (Normal, most of them)-5 (Base Set, Dark Gyarados 8/82, Giovanni’s Gyarados, Misty’s Gyarados, Lance’s Gyarados)

Position of body fins
-Fin on top of head segment and 1st body segment (Normal, most of them)-Fin on 1st and 2nd body segment (Base Set)-Double tail (Base Set, Dark Gyarados 8/82, Misty’s Gyarados, Lance’s Gyarados)-Extra on the head (Giovanni’s Gyarados)

Shape of body fins
-Triangular sharp points (Normal, most of them)-Vestigial 4th point (LegendaryTreasures, HeartGoldSoulSilver, RebelClash, Giovanni’s Gyarados, Gyarados Goldstar, GPlatinum, EvolvingSkies 028/203, 029/203 and 171/203, HiddenFates SM212)-4 points (Dark Gyarados 8/82)-Triangular square points (EXDeoxys, EXHolonPhantoms 8/110, DragonsExalted, MysteriousTreasures)-Irregular (Stormfront, Misty’s Gyarados, Claire’s Gyarados, Lance’s Gyarados)

Shape of head fins
-Square point (Normal, most of them)-Triangular sharp points (Base Set, Stormfront, DarknessthatConsumesLight)-Irregular (Lance’s Gyarados)

Number of horns at the sides of the head
-2 (Lance’s Gyarados)-3 (Normal, most of them)

Horns on body-None (Normal, most of them)-On 1st body segment (HeartGoldSoulSilver 123/123)

Tail shape
-Irregular border (Normal, most of them)-Balls on base (Skyridge)-Regular border (Stormfront)

Eye color
-Red (Normal, most of them)-Purple (EXDragon, Snap Gyarados, Claire’s Gyarados)-Black (Base Set)

Whiskers/Barbels

-Blue/red*(shiny)* (Normal, all of them are male)
-Light red (Base Set) By @quuador

14 Likes
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This is super cool and we’ll laid out! I know there are minor variations with ninetales too.

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Thanks a lot! It’s fun to imagine these as biology variations, reminds me of those weird anime Pokemon versions that fueled many myths during the gameboy golden age.

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Well done! I didn’t knew there were that many differences between all the artworks of Gyarados. When I was working on my National Index collection including all forms and shiny Pokémon I was including minor artwork differences as well (see “Unofficial / Artwork Errors” sections), but apparently there are a lot more when you take a much closer look. :grin:

Btw, the color of the whiskers of Gyarados is actually another one that’s different for the Base Set. Male Gyarados have blue whiskers (which is true for almost all TCG cards); female have white whiskers (there aren’t any TCG artworks of Gyrados with white whiskers*†*); but the Base Set artwork has light red whiskers.

†: Male Magikarp have yellow whiskers and female Magikarp have white whiskers, so the Base Set Magikarp is female, and every other Magikarp TCG artwork is male. :blush:

Greetz,
Quuador

2 Likes
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The eye thing is cool. Purple seems to be the one used the most in the Anime and by Sugimori.

I prefer the black eyes from Base.

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you may not like it, but this is what peak gyarados looks like

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Yes I loved that thread of yours, and I noticed the whiskers but as I did’t know the english therm for them I didn’t include them in the list haha, I guess Base Set is the exception with those red ones, I will check other arts and add that detail to the list with your name as contributor!

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Hahahahaha actually I do like that they make Charizard look like crap when he faced GyaraGod

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Is this a screen grab, or did someone photoshop this…

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@davie, it’s a print screen, why?