I hate 5ban with a passion. They make lazy and boring art
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Some of them are cool and some of them are BS but that goes for every artist, everything can’t be banger.
They haven’t illustrated any cards with Pichu on. 0/10.
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I expect this to be controversial but I really do not get these modern graphics, Its like some techno tie dye. Its like an oil slick paint job that you see on cars
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I agree that the selection here is absolutely not to my taste. This is the sort of thing that discourages my interest in modern. These are not what I want Pokémon cards to look like and I think they look inelegant, noisy, and alienating. Especially those XY cards - I think those are a mess.
I like their tamer cards more. My favorites of theirs are probably from the SWSH era. But there’s just so many cards. They all start to look the same. I think their oversaturation had made them some of the least exciting cards you could pull.
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Yea tbf, they’ve done some wicked stadiums. A lot of average ones, but some are wicked
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They have some really cool cards and some I’m not a fan of. But that’s art, one persons least favorite is someone else’s favorite.
Literally the only reason alt arts are popular and make new sets exciting is because they are alternative arts to 5ban
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I have nostalgia for lots of 5ban cards from the Plasma and early XY sets, as that was the last time I was interested in Pokemon as a kid before it became not cool, lol. I really love the detailed and realistic environments in some of these, and I remember looking at them frequently and imagining what it was like in that world and wanting to go there and find Pokemon. The other cards without much of a background just look super sick, especially with the Team Plasma theming and everything. I’m not even trying to be objective here, just recounting my thoughts as a kid as best as I can remember.
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They have a few good ones, but most seem to be rather boring and generic looking.
After all the shared photos, they do have some very cool artworks. However, there are just too many plain Jane full arts of a computer generated image with no action. That is why I don’t have a positive opinion of 5ban
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BaCk In mY DaY ThE aRT StAyEd iN tHe FrAmE! We DiDnT nEed AnY oF tHeSE CgI FuLlArTs. wE hAd HoLos oNly AnD We LiKeD iT!
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For me it’s not even the 3D that bugs me the most. It’s just that most of these cards are just perfectly on model poses with no environmental context. There have been examples posted here that don’t fit that critique, like smpratte’s instance. But to comment on the Eevee Heroes examples more, those don’t interest me much. I know there’s still artistic merit in taken a model, posing it, applying lighting and background effects, positioning the camera and FOV, and all of that. But at the same time I feel like it’s not that much better than the vintage Topps cards where they are just stock images placed on some background pattern.
The same logic applies to vintage. Something like Arita’s Charmander is so much more interesting than the 3D Electrode. Ken Sugimori base cards would probably get as much critique for being neutral poses on a flat background, but they have the armor of being the first and unique enough for their time. Base haunter is a good example of 3D art done well in my opinion.
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im pretty sure pfm rly likes them
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I’ll be honest, even though I do not like 5ban illustrations in the slightest, that isn’t what bothers me the most about their existence, but rather the percentage of full arts that get commissioned to them in relation to full arts by truly talented artists.
Things have been improving recently, especially with the alternative arts, but I still feel 5ban has been overly represented in the full art department. Who knows, maybe part of why I dislike them or find their artwork bland is just because it is so recurrent.
Maybe in the future we don’t get 5ban for two or three sets in a row and rejoice when a 5ban art appears, but as it stands, I could do with not seeing their art for a year or two.
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They’ve come a long way
Keep in mind that Keiji Kinebuchi created CGI art in 1996-2001, whereas 5ban Graphics did so in 2011-present. If you compare games/movies from 1996 with today, I think the difference instead of similarity is shown…
Greetz,
Quuador
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I like this better than anything 5ban has ever done
(wise, sensibly) All 3D card art is bad.