The evolution of the Infamous Lizard

Here is some appreciation of the artwork from Charmander up to Charizard…

Controversial opinion: Charmeleon art > Charmander art

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Imo Charmeleon’s face is proportioned kind of weirdly… And the way the artist drew the body just looks very stiff to me. It’s like they weren’t very experienced in drawing Pokemon in general and had trouble drawing it in motion. I find Charmander and Charizard both to look much less stiff. In fact I would even say that if you look closely at Charizard, the artwork looks kind of strangely stiff too. Like just look at the neck and stuff closely. Charmander is the only out of these that looks like it’s making proper motion as it’s looking at its tail and it doesn’t look nearly as stiff as the other two.

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Is today Charizard appreciation day or something?

Charmander is actually really nice, its natural and fun. I do like that Charmeleon has lots of colors though. Charmeloeon is just swiping at stuff, I think the Charmander art is playful.

I just felt like showing my cards lol. :grin:

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Seems like a good reason to share lol. That shadowless Zard is really nice.

According to the Pokémon Company, EVERY day is Charizard appreciation day… :slightly_smiling_face:

That Charizard VMAX is going to be so expensive in its rarest rarity. And they’re definitely making 3 versions of each V card again :blush:

I like the Charmander one a lot. If you look at these closely, my point is that in each one the artist tried to draw some kind of motion, and at least the way my eyes see it, only the Charmander actually looks like its body is still properly drawn while it turns its neck to its tail to look at the fire I guess.

Like in Charmeleon, first of all the proportions of the face are drawn a little strangely. It looks flat and like the other side of the head wasn’t being considered. The left leg also looks weird, and its posture in general for the swipe that it’s making is just kind of stiff and flat looking.

Charizard is probably the most detailed of these three, but look closely at its artwork.

Charizard card

It’s good overall, but its neck is kind of drawn weirdly. It looks too long almost for how long the neck is really supposed to be. I can’t even tell what about this one exactly is off, but it does look a bit off. Also if you look at its head closely, you can see that again for this one the existence of the other side of its head wasn’t being considered much. It looks a little bit flat.
Disclaimer: I love all 3 of these cards and the artwork of this era, in my opinion you can see though that the artists still had to get used to drawing Pokemon as there weren’t enormous guidelines and lots of reference for how it should look.

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As well you should. Very well done:)

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Considering the artwork on the Japanese Base Set box, Charizard appears to be designed incorrectly, with only one horn-like structure in the middle of its head.