Working behind the screens and having us tally the ballots was honestly nail-biting at the end. Virtually everyone who submitted at least one piece got at least one vote too, which is fantastic. You ALL did such an amazing job with this and we couldn’t be happier with how this turned out.
I hope that TCPI is looking in on this because this brought me back to so many old-school art contests that they’ve done. They better be taking notes.
I also cannot tell you how much appreciation I have for everyone who has been involved in this process. You all did fantastic jobs! Special thanks to @brendantheclayboy and @kingboo64 for kick-starting this idea into a reality. What started out as a fun idea turned into a reality that will be carried out years to come.
Moving forward we will aim to fix a couple of issues and hiccups we ran into during this process circling around:
Concise rules and expectations
Utilizing google forms (or an adjacent) for ballot votes.
Ballot forms finding a middle ground between ranked choice and voting criteria (for fairness).
Anonymous submissions
Potentially longer submission period
Make no mistakes - next year will only be better. Thank you again to everyone for your patience with us. Having never been part of an event like this, it took several hours of planning and months of preparation, late night conversations, etc. As we speak, I’m on vacation but had to see this through to the end.
Thank you all again and we will definitely get to the winners in the days to come regarding prizes!
@azulryu, @brendantheclayboy, @kingboo64 Wanted to say thank you guys so much for organizing this. It was so awesome to see everyones art pieces and make something from passion.
Congrats to all the winners as well. These are all such great pieces that I m sure will also make peoples wallpapers very happy!
and hotdog! thank you everyone that voted for the almighty whiscash. He sure needed some loving in the card department. lol Cheers!
Great job everyone involved: organizers, participants, and everyone who voted! Excited for the next one for sure. Appreciate the votes on my childlike drawing! It was tons of fun.
Thank you for hosting a contest for us to showcase artwork we created : ) Yes, it would be great if TPCI had art contests in the USA (like how they do in Japan).
I would have loved the opportunity to submit my Mewtwo drawing for a full art card.
Congrats to all the winners, and everyone else that entered : )
@gareth , dude. Both of your illustrations are INSANELY good. I could easily see the Ditto being a super valuable illustration contest winner card and fan favorite. And you Caterpie? Holy Moly, I’d buy a whole case of booster boxes just to pull this Caterpie as a Secret Rare. Phenomenal, seriously.
@lyleberr , WOW, I can’t fathom how much creativity, time, and dedication it must’ve taken to create this masterpiece! Well deserved 1st place!
@pokesoap , I don’t really know what I’m looking at material-wise, but I know I love it! Great choice of artwork and incredibly good execution! I bet it was a very close race between you and lyleberr. I can hardly decide which one I find more exceptional.
@neos , your artwork captures both the video game origin and the Japanese spirit of Pokemon perfectly. Your image is so soothing and calming. Something like this would be a great breath of fresh air on a physical card.
@fate , great work on the clay model but I especially admire your creative solution regarding the background. Great work! The trophy card is also worth being made into a real card. In all seriousness, this is better than 90% of all Pika trophies from post 2000.
@moredoom , this, to me, is the single most professional looking artwork of the whole contest. It looks like it’s coming straight out of Skyridge or Aquapolis - and if that was true, this would be one of my favorite artworks in all of Pokemon!
@kurtosisblakeinfini , Kurt, my dude, I expected nothing less of you than this dystopian Pokemon nightmare! Pretty sure this would traumatize most children if it was made into a real card, but I personally love it! I can feel the cold and sense the smell of rotting flesh and hopelessness through the screen!
@defluo , love that Haunter! Perfectly captures its spooky nature and looks really intimidating - not like the rather cheeky style we usually see of it in the TCG. Great work!
@jworth2017 , what can I say about this other than that it’s simply beautiful. Childish, happy Pokemon vibes at their finest. Makes me feel good, plain and simple .
That said, even those that aren’t directly mentioned here have my deepest respect. The average artistic quality level in this conest was insane throughout all categories and all contestants! Looking forward to the next one
Congratulations to all the winners! These wins were extremely well-deserved. I’d also like to say thanks again to all the members who sent in their artworks and to all the organizers who made this event possible to begin with. This is what defines our E4um! This distinct feeling of camaraderie, passion and love for our hobby all bundled up into one event. Love it, just love it!
I can set up a private print link for you, give me a bit and I’ll PM you . Depending on size I think the printer charges $20~ for a 11"x17" (cost is higher for one-of jobs)
Ahhh everyone did such an amazing job, and I’m still blown away by everyone’s entries!!! If we could get an E4 art contest card set, I would for sure buy a whole booster case.
Also, thank you so much for the votes everyone! I really really appreciate that you guys liked my work, it means a ton, and I’m honored to be besides such amazing artists!!!
Thank you soooo much for the kind words on my Imakuni’s Doduo @muk,!!!
If it’s OK, I would love to share some progress photos, since I had a fun time putting this guy together! (If you need me to edit this post and put it under spoilers, please let me know)
I sculpted Doduo and Imakuni? in Zbrush! This is a screenshot from the initial blocking phase.
After that, it was off to printing! I have a Elegoo Mars 2 Pro Resin 3D printer, and I use Chitubox as my slicer. In total, it took this guy about 4 hours to print.
And the finished product! Ta da! Sorry I don’t have a lot of progress photos of the paint job since I was pretty much painting this guy all day Sunday before the deadline lol. I used Mr. Color Lacquer paints and a Platinum Procon Boy Mr. Airbrush 0.2 Nozzle to throw color on this dude. Lacquer paints are amazing, and flow so well from an airbrush, but be warned! They are toxic! When working with Lacquers always have good ventilation and wear a respirator mask! Safety first!
Imakuni is easily my favorite part of the model, I’m really happy with him. All of the details on his face are hand painted using a method called enamel wiping. You lay down a clear glossy coat of laquer before hand painting enamel on top. You can remove the enamel paint with enamel thinner (highly recommend Tamiya thinner) and it does not effect the lacquer paint underneath. So, you can erase your mistakes and achieve pretty fine hand painting!
The final image I submitted was edited in photoshop! : D
My plans for this model are to work more on the construction in Zbrush, adding more stability to the sculpt and adjusting the pegs, running another test print, and making the model available for free download. I want others to be able to print their own Doduo! If you have any questions about any of the stuff I shared let me know! I love building and and painting models, and I hope I can work on more projects like this soon!
Well done to the winners! And thank you for the honourable mention A big thank you to everyone who had a part in organising this contest too! I had so much fun participating and loved seeing everyone’s work! Such a lovely variety of art and joy to look at. I’m so pleased I had the opportunity to participate in the first one and definitely will be up for a second one I’m sure the next one will be even better!
No, @pokesoap , don’t dare put it under spoilers! This is the kind of thing WE wanna see!
Also @muk , wonderfully said! Couldn’t have said it better myself! (Oh and they exchanged the lead for 1st throughout the whole ballot count—the closest competition in fact.)
@moredoom , I LOVE your houndoom. There, I said it.
@muk, thank you for the kind words – and well said, for everyone involved! Already excited to see everyone’s submissions next year
@pokesoap, Holy crap, awesome. Thank you for sharing your process; I really admire your creation – it’s amazing, how many stages it went through from start to finish. If you ever have any interest in making more of those or selling the one you have, I’d happily pay for it! (I also have a soft spot for Imakuni? art, hehe.)
Huge congrats to the winners and everyone participating in this event!
Also a big thanks to everyone involved in organizing and making this competition possible; it was a lot of fun and very encouraging to see everyone give their best with their submissions.
@muk Thank you for the mention, doing the Cleffa comes from wishing there was a bit more variance on trophy cards; originally I thought of making 1st place Trophy and have a couple of drafts for 2nd place too.
This contest gave me the necessary push to go ahead with one of the designs that otherwise wouldn’t have left the draftboard for much longer.
Thank you again and hope to see you all making art on the next one!
First, Thank you to the organizers for setting this up and putting in time to make it a reality.
Second, thanks to all the participants who put in serious work and thought into their drawings. Whether you found some crayons or went all in with 3d resin printing (Holy cow @pokesoap), it takes effort to put something up for people to vote on so great job everyone.
Next, thanks to all the voters! Wasn’t expecting to get 1st but its really appreciated and I’m glad you all like it. Amazing to see all the other artists who’s work was enjoyed as well.
Now for what Ive been dying for, a quick critique of some of the submissions, everyone deserves to be mentioned but then this post would be forever long so I’ll just try being brief with ones I have comments on:
@liron, This marril is great and I really like how happy it feels. The multiple colors for shading and the lack of perspective for if marril is on water or in water is really childlike. @khairis, The color blending is great between all the different colors and shades, personally it looks too good for a child drawing but maybe if it was an older child who was good at art? Awesome job. @imakunizauntie, Congrats on the win, the colors and expressions look awesome with a fun unique style.
@muk, This is such a great concept and really cute. @raichuforyou, This looks like a fun promotion for something, “Try the new Pokesnacks! Theyre Raichu approved!” @liron, This one is really impressive, it looks awesome and a great twist on the original. The watercolors look great, the linework looks great, the style is a great match!
@pokesoap, I thought it was clay with a bit of photoshop but holy cow did you put work into making this. It came out amazing, thank you for detailing the process. @fazool, The face looks great, overall looks really good with the clay. @fate, I thought this one got the spirit of the originals colors right in a fun unique way. I appreciate you sacrificing your house to glitter for this though. @kurtblakeinfini, No offense but the style is too dark, chaotic, and murdery for me but I absolutely loved the bottom border with the original pokemon sprites, great detail!
@pokesoap, Such a fun looking piece, I could see this being a card. Its so dynamic and fun with the action and the colors. Just fun to look at. @thebackroom_Collectibles, That shading looks really good! @defluo, Im sorry, I keep seeing this and I know its Haunter eating a dream but my brain tells me Haunter is eating a dying Pikachu’s soul. It looks awesome and has such an intense feeling to the Haunter. @dreamtech, The colors are great, the symmetry is awesome, but am I not seeing Rayquaza and Suicune? They probably would have thrown off the symmetry so still put me on the list of “I’d buy this print”
@fate, I love this as a trophy card! Cleffa sucking on a lollipop while teary eyed looks adorable as well as the tiny Swablu. @moredoom, It looks great. Your shading and watercolors look really good and the poses are wonderfully well done. You are quite talented. @dunsparce0p, The sableye and the rocks have a style that looks like its from a childrens book. Really pleasant to look at. @flukoluko, Great concept and great looking action. Very reminiscent to me of how the anime portrayed them as being more interested in fun with some mischief.
Again, thanks to everyone who participated in some way.
More about making Shining Gyarados:
Ive been wanting to try something new for a while and I’ve seen some really nice looks from a style called Quilling. Its taking thin strips of paper and curling/folding them and placing and gluing them down to create an image. Many times they are curled into tiny little rolls but I wanted something a little more flowy. Bought a starter kit, watched some youtube videos, and decided to get started… its harder than youtube makes it out to be. Also, theres only like 1 other person out there who’s done Pokemon in a similar style and only with a couple pokemon in basic poses. So it was a bit of a challenge sketching out shining gyarados with some swirl designs to try following to not make it overly busy but not make it too empty. Overall, I think I took a week of working on it in the evenings (Since it took a bit to get material in) and even though it started as a test run, it was taking longer than I thought so I had to scrap a few more of the details like the person on the raft and the water running down Gyarados (which would have been done by cutting some placed slips and running some blue down between the cuts and also by cutting some small blue strips and placing them between inplace swirls , using both ways would hopefully give it a bit more depth and mostly not let it look so deliberate), and make it the real thing, no time for a practice run.
The cool thing about it is that since it exists in 3 dimensions, the lighting and angle can make it look more interesting or way worse. The scans really gave it a nice look with the colors being clean, but it did take out some of the color that is seen in person. Ive added a few photos from different angles to show what I mean.
Now that I have everything for this, I’ll probably try a couple more pokemon card designs (GB promo Dragonite I think would look great) and see how they turn out. Also, since I wont be in a rush (cough, @azulryu, cough), I should be able to make things look a bit smoother.
Sorry for the long post, but Ive been excited since I saw everyones art and kept looking at them and couldnt wait to comment once voting was done.
Thank you so much, everyone!!! I really appreciate it!
@gareth I definitely plan on printing more and working on the model a bit more! I don’t know if I plan on selling any other pre-painted models yet, but I’ll definitely make the file available if you want to 3D print one!
@raichuforyou, Thank you I appreciate it!! Unfortunately this copy is not for sale, ha ha.
@lyleberr Thank you so much for the kind words! I love your Gyarados! It’s really interesting seeing the piece in different angles, it looks like a textured full art card!!! So cool!!!
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. Depending on size I think the printer charges $20~ for a 11"x17" (cost is higher for one-of jobs)
