Early art of Vileplume? My favorite?! I'M SAVING THIS! :D

Though what is up with the black background and iffy borders?

I believe the artist responsible is Ken Sugimori, I love the guys style. His pastel coloured pics in particular are so pretty and seriously nostalgic for me.

am I the only one who thinks Vileplume should be permanently renamed to NUPTUP!

So why did you do a shitty magic wand cutout of those pieces and put them on a hideous black background?

Early pokemon art? There's new pokemon art? This is the only stuff I know.

Xan Krieger:
Early pokemon art? There's new pokemon art? This is the only stuff I know.

Yeah, this is art of early Pokemon. The title is misleading, this stuff is actually the newest official art you will find of these Pokemon. This is Sugimori's art from FireRed and LeafGreen. Early art looks like this:

I wonder if the OP got paid for this...

Headsprouter:

Xan Krieger:
Early pokemon art? There's new pokemon art? This is the only stuff I know.

Yeah, this is art of early Pokemon. The title is misleading, this stuff is actually the newest official art you will find of these Pokemon. This is Sugimori's art from FireRed and LeafGreen. Early art looks like this:

I wonder if the OP got paid for this...

And even that's not /early/, it's just what the official artwork looked likce circa gen II. I was hoping for some actual concept art, maybe something from back when it was still called "Capsule Monsters," or barring that, some production concept art from Red and Green. I've seen examples of both, and the really early stuff doesn't look like the stuff in the article at all. The basic designs were different, let alone the style they were painted in.

Edit: Gen I, actually. I scrolled past the picture too quickly and thought it was Gold riding Ho-Oh, not Red riding a Pidgeotto.

Edit Edit: That second picture is interesting. I wonder how late it was? The pokemon designs were in their final form there, but it still shows green (the planned female protagonist for Gen I). How late into development did she make it? I always thought she got dropped really early for size reasons.

Owyn_Merrilin:
Edit: Gen I, actually. I scrolled past the picture too quickly and thought it was Gold riding Ho-Oh, not Red riding a Pidgeotto.

Edit Edit: That second picture is interesting. I wonder how late it was? The pokemon designs were in their final form there, but it still shows green (the planned female protagonist for Gen I). How late into development did she make it? I always thought she got dropped really early for size reasons.

Funny thing, actually, the bird in the image more resembles Pidgeot. Nor Pidgeotto or Pidgeot or called "Pijotto" in Japanese. Rather they're called "Pigeon" and "Pigeot". Even so, the bird in the image looks like it has a combination of both Pidgeotto and Pidgeot's plumes. Actually, now that I think about it, given the name resemblance, this is most likely pidgeotto...

EDIT: But then again, it's so chubby! It MUST be Pidgeot! You see, THIS is the type of image that should have been posted in this gallery, one that sparks debate and speculation!

And I would expect early artwork that most kids would have seen back when Pokemon came out. I thought the intent of this thread was to get people all nostalgic.

Aww, I was hoping for concept art or something :( I guess it's still nice to see the Gen I Sugimori art style though - Vulpix looks awesome in that one :)

Headsprouter:

Owyn_Merrilin:
Edit: Gen I, actually. I scrolled past the picture too quickly and thought it was Gold riding Ho-Oh, not Red riding a Pidgeotto.

Edit Edit: That second picture is interesting. I wonder how late it was? The pokemon designs were in their final form there, but it still shows green (the planned female protagonist for Gen I). How late into development did she make it? I always thought she got dropped really early for size reasons.

Funny thing, actually, the bird in the image more resembles Pidgeot. Nor Pidgeotto or Pidgeot or called "Pijotto" in Japanese. Rather they're called "Pigeon" and "Pigeot". Even so, the bird in the image looks like it has a combination of both Pidgeotto and Pidgeot's plumes. Actually, now that I think about it, given the name resemblance, this is most likely pidgeotto...

EDIT: But then again, it's so chubby! It MUST be Pidgeot! You see, THIS is the type of image that should have been posted in this gallery, one that sparks debate and speculation!

And I would expect early artwork that most kids would have seen back when Pokemon came out. I thought the intent of this thread was to get people all nostalgic.

So /that's/ why I initially wrote down Pidgeot XD

I really did, too. First I had Pidgeot, then "Pidgeot (or is it Pidgeotto?)," then I saw the text at the top and went with Pidgeotto. That really is a good, if subtle, example of how the actual early art was still being worked on and the designs in the process of being hammered out. For that matter, Charizard isn't even shaped right here -- the face looks a bit more like Charmeleon's than the final design does, and it's not just Sugimori's art style, since even his drawings of Charizard don't usually look like that. The pictures from the OP were just your standard final designs.
Edit: Sugimori's early art style, that is. Gen I in particular was kind of boxy and Akira Toriyama-inspired, which was fitting for Pokemon, since the games are heavily Dragon Quest inspired, and Toriyama did and does the designs for that series. Staring with Gen II, things got skinnier and smoother -- more pointy, yet somehow less angular, and with the rounder designs being sinuous and flowing, instead of, well, circle-like. It's hard to believe he even worked on Gen III onwards, the style has changed so much.

Headsprouter:

Owyn_Merrilin:
Edit: Gen I, actually. I scrolled past the picture too quickly and thought it was Gold riding Ho-Oh, not Red riding a Pidgeotto.

Edit Edit: That second picture is interesting. I wonder how late it was? The pokemon designs were in their final form there, but it still shows green (the planned female protagonist for Gen I). How late into development did she make it? I always thought she got dropped really early for size reasons.

Funny thing, actually, the bird in the image more resembles Pidgeot. Nor Pidgeotto or Pidgeot or called "Pijotto" in Japanese. Rather they're called "Pigeon" and "Pigeot". Even so, the bird in the image looks like it has a combination of both Pidgeotto and Pidgeot's plumes. Actually, now that I think about it, given the name resemblance, this is most likely pidgeotto...

EDIT: But then again, it's so chubby! It MUST be Pidgeot! You see, THIS is the type of image that should have been posted in this gallery, one that sparks debate and speculation!

And I would expect early artwork that most kids would have seen back when Pokemon came out. I thought the intent of this thread was to get people all nostalgic.

Yep, it's Pidgeot. :)

Yeah, the title can be misleading if you're instantly familiar with each generations official artwork. I read the title thinking it would be Gen I pieces, like the examples you posted above.

8 pieces of "concept art" that can be found on all sorts of promotional material, merchandise, and the official TCG, that everybody over the age of 18 has been seeing since they were five.

Great article. Professional Game Journalism.

loa:
So why did you do a shitty magic wand cutout of those pieces and put them on a hideous black background?

Fits in with the standard of this series, sadly. Google Image search + small amount of Photoshop Skills, and then the captions written by whichever intern looked the most bored.

On the plus side, this time they actually include the names of the things pictured, which is not always the case

JPArbiter:
am I the only one who thinks Vileplume should be permanently renamed to NUPTUP!

I get it! :D

None of this is "early" or "concept" art. It's official art that is still used today. What the hell kind of article is this, haha?

Guys check out this Mass Effect early concept draft: http://static.giantbomb.com/uploads/scale_super/13/132970/2175147-mass_effect_3_hd_wallpaper_3.jpg

Really nice article.

Reminded me of some Mass Effect early concept art I found a while back

PunkRex:
I believe the artist responsible is Ken Sugimori, I love the guys style. His pastel coloured pics in particular are so pretty and seriously nostalgic for me.

He's still in charge though. Even in the newest games he finalizes all the designs by redrawing them in his style.

He has a blog as well...granted it's really an extension of Gamefreaks' blog.

This...isn't really early concept art.

That's official art Pokemon art Ken Sugimori drew and was used in multiple mediums like walkthroughs and the likes.

I was expecting something like his actual water color pictures, which were really well done.

Either through company policy or his own sense of privacy he keeps a lot of his early concept work under lock and key.

Which I guess is understandable. From my understanding I think a lot of Pokemon designs that don't make it into current games get sent over to their next games.

For instance, on Bulbapedia they found a scrapped sprite of Gastrodon in the Ruby and Sapphire games, yet the monster officially "released" in Diamond and Pearl.

Well, uh. I do love this art, that's for sure.

I think the problems with this article have already been pointed out, so I'm not really going to add much. It's still a joy to look at Sugimori's work, though.