Super Mario Boards

There actually exists a sprite of that bandage in the game's coding but ends up going unused in the game's final version. But I get that it's irritating to have fanart of Kooper include the bandage just because it's shown on him in the official artwork but not in the game itself.

I just searched and I can't find any unused sprite showing him with a bandage

That's because the bandage had a sprite of its own rather than being applied to any of Kooper's in-game sprites. I took this from the Wiki's unused content for Paper Mario 64 page.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but... there's no evidence that sprite has anything to do with Kooper is there? It's just an unused bandage sprite. (In-fact, a very similar one is used in the Goomba King battle)

Good point. Perhaps any past speculations regarding the unused bandage sprite being related to the one on Kooper's cheek in his official artwork were just that; Mere speculations, and I could be wrong about the existence and function of the unused bandage sprite all in all.

I'm pretty certain everyone gets this wrong because (A) that picture of him is the most commonly used one and (B) it's on the front of the box. It was kind of inevitable that people would think the bandage is a more important part of Kooper's design than it is because Nintendo made it out to be a more important part of Kooper's design than it is.

E: Also, in finding that box art, I also found out that today is the 24th anniversary of PM64's release in the EU and Australia, so that's pretty cool.

I get the sentiment (and didn't even know there was artwork of Kooper without the bandage), but at the same time, if a fan artist happens to like the look of him with the bandage, it is perfectly valid to include it.

I'm not saying that they can't include it if they want to, heck I never even mentioned fanart anywhere in the original comment. Just that people often mistakingly think the bandage is part of his design.

and in case anyone was curious what gave me this thought, I saw a HD texture mod for Paper Mario 64 which incorrectly gives him the bandage

I figured the "people" you mentioned who "include the bandage as part of his design" were fan artists. See, those mods are made primarily by fans and thus work off of their own personal interpretation of what those characters look like.

It's your right to disagree with them on that, just as it's their right to go with whatever stylistic interpretation they feel most compelled to regardless.

That's your assumption, but not what I meant.

Also there's a stark difference between a fan mod which is supposed to broadly expand/improve upon a game and creations such as fan art, but anyways that's not my point because I don't really care about any of that. All I wish to point out is that people (not specifically artists) often get Kooper's design wrong, which is a fact and there's even a section on Kooper's Mario Wiki page dedicated to that fact.

Okay, I can see this is a touchy subject for you. I'm not here to upset you and I don't really want to get dragged into a lengthy debate about textual meaning and the moving of goal posts.

Thanks for letting me know about the alternative Kooper artwork without the bandage, as I wasn't aware of its existence before. Good luck with everything else.