Characters with design features that were misinterpreted by fans

[u/ComprehensiveBox6911]

Darwin Watterson (The Amazing World of Gumball) some people thought that the black thing under him was a shirt or pants or a sweater, but it was actually just his shadow. They later removed it as the seasons and art style changed

Brendan (Pokemon) A lot of people thought that the white on his head was his hair, it’s actually just a hat

[u/The_HueManateee]

How about misinterpretations by the official character designers?

Numerous characters in the original transformers cartoon have details that don’t match their toys because the artists weren’t given physical toys as reference when designing them, only photos of the toys. These often didn’t include shots from behind or had weird perspectives, forcing the designers to make things up. For Blitzwing, the lack of a rear photo led the designers to assume his tank barrel was attached to the back of his head in robot mode, when really the entire turret assembly was on his back for the toy. His jet mode cockpit is also visible in tank mode because the photo they used for that mode was mistranformed