First, before developing my question, I want to say that it’s my first time posting on this forum, and my English isn’t great (I’m from Belgium). I’ll probably use a translator for this post, but I’ll try not to use one in my responses to improve my English. So if you don’t understand what I mean, don’t hesitate to tell me or correct me.
Ok, so, my question is if Ken Sugimori designed himself the cards that named him ?
If we get intersseted in Ken Sugimori’s cards we can clearly see that the majority of pokemon illustrations are officials artworks there were used on many others pokemon derivate products, so im a asking if pokemon compagny (or gamefreak, mediafacory ect…) used his artworks to make pokemon cards or he created the cards by himself ?
I also want to verify some information given to me by a member of the French community, I think this person is very well informed about the illustrators of the TCG and he said clearly too me that Ken sugimori “didn’t participate in 99% of the cards that named him” and “He was probably not even aware of the cards that were created with his illustrations.”
Also the same person asked Mitsuhiro Arita “What are relations betwen card pokemon illustrator ?” and Arita asked him that for exemple he saw Ken Sugimori only one time in his life and he didnt know a lot about him and that information shocked me.
Voila, I hope my question was clear, (finally I didnt use a translator haha i hope its ok ).
Thanks for your help
growing up, i found ken sugimori cards to be the worst.
generic artworks slapped on a generic background really didnt do it for me, and honestly, they still dont.
i preferred MA arts or even Keiji’s cards cause they were 3d art.
jungle brought in a new wave (including my all time fave artist KH) of artists that kept expanding.
This hasn’t been confirmed one way or another, at least I haven’t encountered anything definitive. It could have been him or someone at Creatures/freelance designer etc. But he has been invited by Creatures to illustrate on many occasions, most notably for trainers.
Keep in mind, he was extremely busy during early years of Pokemon, working on R/G and G/S immediately afterwards. If you read this first question from a 2014 interview, he mentions he saw a sample of tcg before its release so perhaps he was never involved. However, imposter professor Oak first appeared in base set. Was that illustration intended for the games or the tcg, in which case he must have been involved to some extent.
This probably refers to the Sugimori stock art cards like these:
Most of the cards which are credited to Sugimori just use the stock art that he has created, so I would probably agree with the idea that he isn’t actually involved in their creation. I doubt Sugimori spends his time in Photoshop putting together backgrounds and his stock art.
However, Sugimori is absolutely a real TCG illustrator. There are many cards he has done that are not stock art and are entirely designed by him. Many of these are highly desirable and memorable cards with beautiful illustrations. For example:
Yes, he is a real illustrator even if he wasn’t the sole contributor to the artworks he drew some artworks which by definition makes him an illustrator
I understand your opignon but as a huge fan of KS I think he was was realy cappable of creating awesome artwork and easily compete with Arita or Himeno.
It’s really a shame that they didn’t hire him as an illustrator.
wow thank you !
I think you answered part of my question.
If I remember well the imposter professor Oak was a concept caracter created for pokemon gold and silver so its was probably an illustration intended for the games
Oh i have no problem with him, he is iconic to the creation etc of pokemon.
I just hated his cards with their windows 95 backgrounds on them. It was just plain lazy on wotc/pokemons behalf
I wonder if imposter Oak was originally intended for Tajiri’s build of G/S?
As for your second question, the majority of illustrators are freelance artists contracted by Creatures. So I believe there is little reason for them to collaborate between each other. You might expect more interactions between the freelance artists in the early years such as Arita and Himeno but I would expect less frequent interactions between Creatures and Game Freak (although both offices are in Tokyo).
