That first art did NOT age well... what the hell happened to the limbs? They're not nice and clean, and so they look like sausages like they're twisted in weird spots.
Just looks like a bad modeling job to me. Even on his face it kinda looks like someone couldn't quite get it to smooth out. That and the dirty shading they used.
Scratch that, I shouldn't say bad... it's better than I can do... "unrefined."
Except maybe I take back the part about the bad modeling job because on this one the old one is very smooth. I think maybe Russian Baby Luigi is right. An attempt at cloth imitation.