My personal MtG x Pokemon crossover - got some Magic the Gathering artists to draw Pokemon versions of their cards!

[viridian]

Here’s another update!

Irina Nordsol with her intrepretation of Cubone and Marowak, based on the art of Nurturing Presence. I like how she made Cubone look like the cempasúchil flower version in Pokemon Go :)!

Mewtwo has always been somewhat special to MTG and Pokemon, since it was the only ever official crossover with Christopher Rush. I wanted to do a different take on Mewtwo with an armored version. I sent Johann Bodin some images of Armor Mewtwo but he did his own Phyrexianized take on it! The phyrexians in MTG lore are an evil machine race that tries to turn all living beings into half-machine beings. It would be pretty terrifying if they control Mewtwo!

Hurkyl’s Recall is a spell that returns all artifacts to an opponent’s hand. It can be devastating for opponents who rely too much on artifacts. Artifacts are traditionally machines so I decided to show a Magneton getting dissolved by the spell.

Jesper Myrfors is actually a really important person in the world of MTG Art. He was MTG’s first art director in the 1990s and painted many iconic cards from the first few sets of MTG. He also had a hand in the creation of the whole idea of giving artists 50 blank ‘artist proofs’ for each artwork. So I was really glad to get a sketch from him. He doesn’t draw copyrighted characters, but his wife Julie ‘Spoops’ does! So this was actually a collaboration between him and his wife, who drew the Pidgey line

This visually stunning set of lands comes from Jeanne D’Angelo, who drew a secret lair of lands based on the zodiac signs. The Forest is actually supposed to represent Taurus, but the horns really reminded me of Pinsir, so I had her do that There are also not many artists who have drawn pitcher plants, so she was a natural choice for Victreebel. (that card represents Scorpio by the way, with Gligars )

There’s not many cards in MTG depicting a kick, so naturally I chose Hitmonlee. I like Evyn’s Pokeball signature!

Lastly, we have this sinister Mr. Mime from Jesper Ejsing, fittingly on Jester’s Cap. It sure reminds me of the Detective Pikachu Mr. Mime!

[azulryu]

Holy shitfuck that Mewtwo is insane!

[mrbubbles]

Wow, what an insane update. That Mr.Mime is sinister looking and the Cubone is just so well done. Also, was paying close attention to the actual autographs on the cards, they are so bold and beautiful. They look superb and each has its own unique characteristic. Thanks for sharing the update.

Cheers!

[eievui]

This is one of my favorite threads on the forum. You should try and get every pokemon turned into a magic card over time from different artists!

[viridian]

I want to! That would be an expensive goal though . I’m focusing on completing the original 151, and then possibly Johto. After that point I’d probably just focus on Pokemon that I like or that really fit a card art well.

[joponnes]

Always exciting times to see new posts in this thread, wonderful additions! Even if the horns would represent tauros more pinsir really fits the mood of the card way better. Cubone and mr. mime also couldn’t be more amazing ones. I’m so glad this thread keeps on giving

[viridian]

Big update today with many bangers! Was able to get many new ones in after visiting SCG Dulles.

Starting off with a Gencon commission that finally arrived, we have this nice Graveler by Aaron Miller. He looks so tough, I feel he should be smoking a cigarette.

Next is a card that’s been in MTG news a lot lately after it caused much outrage for being
banned, Jewelled Lotus. Even though it’s banned, I’m still going to treasure this one.

I was grateful for Matt Stewart’s help on this Befriending the Butterfrees! I didn’t even ask for a Pink Butterfree but Matt knew where I was going as he recreated this iconic scene from the Pokemon anime. Matt also drew Tangela for me earlier (and he’s very well known for drawing a popular version of Mana Crypt, another recently banned card).

Exeggcute evolves with a leaf stone, so I got Phil Stone (yes that’s his real name) to help draw this awesome sketch. He was very fun to talk to and I love how he gave each egg a different face!

Margaret Organ-Kean is well known in MTG for drawing Lion’s Eye Diamond, though that proof is now very expensive and rare. I was happy she still had a few copies of Spore Flower. She also doesn’t come to many conventions so I was lucky to find her. Careful touching those Parasects, miss!

Mark Tedin has drawn many of MTG’s iconic cards, so his line for sketching was super long. I waited from 9am to 2pm in line for him to draw this Articuno! The card is Winter Orb by the way, an iconic (and sometimes reviled) MTG card knowing for slowing down games to a freezing crawl.

I already have an excellent Magikarp by Drew Tucker but I couldn’t resist getting another one, at the very end of the con. I really like Mark’s shading and details here.

Lastly, we have 2 iconic cards from Mark Poole! The first is on Birds of Paradise, who I turned to Ho-oh for his colorful plumage. Maybe that’s Navel Island in the background?

Here’s Alakazam cosplaying as the wizard from Ancestral Recall. Ancestral Recall is probably Mark’s most famous card, a member of the Power 9 known for being able to draw 3 cards instantly for a single mana. It’s MtG’s pot of greed, and I was happy to replicate it on a (much cheaper) proof of Brainstorm.

That’s all for now! It may be a while til the next update as I have to get a new round of commissions started, but I’m now at 100 out of 151. Making progress!

[thsigma]

I love this thread so much

[joponnes]

I probably use the same words after every update of yours but such a gorgeous set of cards! I keep adoring both the artworks and your creativity to come up with the ideas for these cards. It’s another absolutely top tier update but my favourites might be graveller and those butterfrees!

[eievui]

Ive already mentioned how I love the art, but the typography of some of those autos are awesome!

[viridian]

No problem, I always enjoy reading your feedback also! You have good taste for favorites

[mrbubbles]

100% this. The artwork on the back is well thought of as is, but those autographs by Matt and Alayna are just They are simply gorgeous. Thanks for sharing again @viridian and I echo the sentiment shared by many that this is really a special thread. Thanks for sharing the updates.

Cheers!

[orannge]

It is incredible to see this fusion of Pokémon and MTG, especially since it seems unlikely that WotC will officially release a crossover — even though they have significantly expanded their crossover collaborations over the years.

I could go on praising every one of the sketches, but the fact that you actually got Mark Poole, and that he then drew Alakazam cosplaying (!), is just sheer insanity. I love Mark Poole’s art, especially his Urza Lands, as a former long-time MonoU Tron player. Seeing this, along with the rest of the thread, is incredibly exciting.

I dare say that once you complete the 151, you will have made history in both Pokémon and MTG art!

[viridian]

Thank you! The Urza Lands are pretty iconic from Mark Poole. I was very excited to get his art also, as it’s a bit tricky to get sketches from him these days. He only does them at smaller events where there’s not too many people, and even then it’s not guaranteed.

I was able to converse with him about MtG, and we talked about the inspiration for his Ancestral Recall piece. Back then WotC didn’t give the artists any prompts. All he knew was the card would be called Ancestral Recall. He was eating in a (I think) Mexican restaurant near his house when he saw some art there and was inspired to draw the guy with hands on temple in front of a pyramid. lol.

Anyways here’s a pic of him with the art he drew!

[viridian]

We interrupt our normal MTG artist proof programming to bring you 2 special guest MTG artists…from the Pokemon world! Yep, at New York Comic-con, I was able to have some interactions with Midori Harada and Mitsuhiro Arita!

Harada had a booth again at NYCC this year. Unlike last year however, she was not signing any Pokemon (maybe related to the incident I reported last year). She was again however, very happy to draw MTG for me! I wanted to give her a bit more complex of a picture, so went with the MTG classic Timetwister! I think she did a great job!

I chatted with Harada a bit as she drew and she mentioned to me that she also wanted to do an MTG card in the future. (Maybe she saw Arita’s card?). I told her I hoped Magic would be able to feature more Pokemon artists soon, and mentioned that Magic has quite a bit more artist freedom than Pokemon does. At the end of the sketch, she gave me this little metal thank you card

Our second guest drawing MTG today is no other than the legendary Mitsuhiro Arita! I was shocked when he announced he would be coming to NYCC only 2 days before the show started! Indeed, on the first Thursday he was there, it seems people didn’t really realize it yet. He had almost no line for autographs. I walked right up to his booth without any wait time.

Here he is autographing my copy of Lumra, Bellow of the Woods! This is the only card he’s drawn for MTG so far. Artists proofs of it do exist, but he mentioned that he perhaps wants to auction them off pre-sketched next year. (Definitely no Pokemon sketches on APs from him! lol)

As an aside, I was very happy to find a copy of Lumra, it was also nearly impossible to find before the con, as it’s a mythic rare and everyone wants him to autograph it. I ended up going about 40 min away to find a card shop that had it.

He also autographed a Lumra playmat for me.

His pricing for MTG signatures was very reasonable, starting at $30 for a basic sig, $40 for a shadow signature, and $80 extra for a sketch. It felt like another world compared with Pokemon.

Because he was so free on Thursday, I ended up talking to him for nearly an hour on various topics. These included what he thought of New York (liked it very much, it’s his second time here); his favorite Pokemon (Mewtwo in general, not specifically Mewtube); his favorite anime (Jojo; he finds Golden Kamuy amusing also);), and the difficulty of him signing cards these days. It was just really cool to talk to one of my favorite childhood artist for almost 50 minutes.

He also mentioned that the freedom that MTG gives him is quite refreshing. In his opinion, they treat the artist very well. He’s happy that Lumra is a relatively competitive card that sees play. He would like to do more cards for MTG, but its mostly not up to him, as the bidding process to draw new MTG cards is very intense in every set.

I showed him some of my Pokemon MTG artist proofs and he laughed, as he found them quite funny. He was particularly impressed by Mark Tedin’s Magikarp.

On the second day of the con, I got Arita-sensei to do a sketch. I was only allowed to give him a paper with 5 words on it, so I wrote, black, lotus, frog, pond, lily. This is what he drew!

So there we have it ladies and gentlemen, Christopher Rush drew Mewtwo, and now Mitsuhiro Arita has drawn Black Lotus. Is that maybe a Poliwhirl peeking under the lotus?

Lastly, I was finally able to achieve a childhood dream of getting a few cards autographed. Til the next update!

[orannge]

Your post, and this entire thread, are not just a well-written account of your interactions with the artists, nor just a personal journey or the presentation of a fantastic art project. It is, quite simply, now a part of MTG’s and Pokémon’s shared history. Thank you so much for this signifant effort. (And congratulations on getting your beautiful 1stEds signed! )

Best,
orannge

[viridian]

Thanks! I know it’s just fan art, but I’m glad that some kind of collaboration can happen. It would be really cool if Arita can get more magic cards or more Pokemon artists get to draw for MtG, so we can all get easier access to sigs!

[joponnes]

This was a wonderful read, sounds like a great experience getting so much time with the artists and even showing them what you have shown us here, extremely interesting to hear also some information behind the curtains about mtg artists and the process. Also just casually throwing in a photo of three signed 1st ed base set holos, including the zard

[viridian]

Thanks! Haha it was primarily an MTG thread so I didn’t want to take it over with 1st Ed base. I was pretty happy about it tho

[viridian]

Updating with a few that I received in the mail.

Zabaz the Glimmerwasp is sometimes used in Hardened Scales, a popular modern deck. There’s only one wasp in the first 151…

Not 151 related but I thought the recent series of animalized Planeswalkers were too good to pass up. Many of them look like Pokemon anyways!

I had an idea for Ash and Bayleef based on the art of this card, which depicts a human and his dinosaur companion.

Ash did fall a bit into uncanny valley , but the artist did tell me anime is not really his style, so I appreciated his effort to do this. Actually, he turned down the request but spontaneously emailed me a month later saying it was done!

Evyn Fong is a newer artist who works in a more cutesy style. One of her arts is a planeswalker Tamiyo who lives in the moon. So I paired Tamiyo with another moon Pokemon. Evyn likes Pokemon a lot and told me she actually wants to enter the Pokemon illustration contest next year. I hope she does well! She even gave me some free sketches with my order.

For the below card, there were a few ‘happy accidents’, as Bob Ross would say.

The artist, Ryan Lee, accidentally drew Clefairy instead of a requested Clefable, but he also, without me asking, turned the Eldritch monster Emrakul in the art into a Tentacruel, all of his own accord! I was really shocked when I got it. But it ended up becoming a great piece I needed someone to draw Tentacruel anyways. His art style is fantastic, and I’d like to get another one from him soon.