Pokemon TCG Artist Discussion

General
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Hello E4! It’s late at night, I’m looking through my binders, and I think to myself “Darn! The art on these cards is incredible!” Really, when it comes down to it, the art is one of the main reasons I still collect the cards to this day. I feel like my binders are a gallery filled with love and passion that the artist put into creating a congruent TCG set. I hope this doesn’t sound too preachy, but with all of the discussion about PSA, investments, and money, I thought it would be nice to open a discussion that gets back to what I believe is the bare basic of the hobby. Let’s forget whitening, profit margins, and incorrect uses of tape for a moment to look at some cool art!

                                                                  ![](http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/9/9f/XY_Artist_M.png)      ![](http://cdn.bulbagarden.net/upload/8/83/XY_Artist_F.png)

Here are two great recourses for looking at the artists that have illustrated Pokemon cards!

bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/List_of_TCG_illustrators

www.pocketmonsters.net/tcg/artists (Nice visual guide, but not 100% up to date)

If you want to own art books featuring Pokemon TCG Illustrators, check out these! Own both and I can’t recommend****them enough! (I’m linking Japanese since these copies come with promo cards!)

www.amazon.com/Pokemon-Card-Game-Collection-Illustrations/dp/4865540199/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1495590815&sr=8-2&keywords=pokemon+illustration+collection

www.amazon.com/Pokemon-Card-Game-Collection-Book/dp/4865541551/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1495590815&sr=8-4&keywords=pokemon+illustration+collection

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Discuss** (Please feel free to expand upon! These are just starting topics!)

  • Your favorite Pokemon TCG artist

-Your least favorite Pokemon TCG artist

-A certain piece of artwork that is very impactful to you

-Your least favorite piece of Pokemon TCG art.

-A question about a specific piece of art

-A critique of a specific piece of art

Also, just a side note, I consider all digital artwork to be “hand drawn” and CG/3D artwork to be “sculpted” “modeled” and “rendered”. You might see me using these terms in my discussion. As a artist who has worked heavily in Photoshop for years, digital art is 100% drawn with your hand and not something that can be snapped together with a click of a button.

For example, here’s a Rowlet and Pikachu doodle I drew using photoshop.
While a digital piece, I would draw these characters in exactly the same way if I were to draw them on paper. The material may be different, but how I approach the linework would be incredibly similar as well as the color. (I do all of my color work over the linework on a multiply layer for all you photoshop aficionados out there.)
I just wanted to clear this up! While digital art and traditional art are different based on an artist’s choice of media, hand drawn and digital are not different, since both are drawn by using one’s hand.
(Soap’s art rant OVER)

I’m going to post my opinions in a new post so this one isn’t excessive! I hope everyone has fun discussing artwork and artists that they admire and love!

-Pokesoap aka Madison S.

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I’m not hardcore into artists per say but I do like Sanosuke Sakuma who drew my current favorite card: here. It’s just so colorful, it’s simplistic and doesn’t clog up the card, and Latios being cheerful with other Pokemon just hits the spot. Very few pictures can show off its full glory. Also quite fond of these two other cards of his: here and here.

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Good thread! One of my all time favorite artists are Ken Sugimori and Mitsuhiro Arita. I love Sugimori’s water color over white background type simple art and Arita’s color pencil more detailed
style! They both have very unique, distinct and aesthetic art styles that are unforgettable when fully consumed.

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Alright! Here we go! Favorite Pokemon TCG artists! This is going to be HARD, since I have so many that I admire and love! I’m going to jump right into the artists who always capture my attention whenever I look at their cards. I’ll finish by posting a few more of my favorite cards, and then end with my least favorite.

Also, I’m not going to mention Arita in my post, since I want to highlight artists besides his work! Arita is INCREDIBLE, but I personally want to highlight some others!

Let’s start with some favorite artists!!! I’ll only post a few for now, and add more as time goes on. (Most likely to bump the thread)

Keiko Fukuyama!

 Keiko's cards in my opinion are some of the cutest cards in the TCG. I think it's the willingness to stay on model with the Pokemon, yet push certain aspects of a Pokemon to make them more appealing is what makes Keiko's cards stand out! There's also a drive to add tons of personality into these cards, creating a lovely lighthearted mood in each piece.

Some of my favorites:


Aya KusubeAya Kusube’s handling of linework, lighting and hatching in their art is incredibly admirable! While not always staying on model with Pokemon, they do so in a way that makes a Pokemon very stylized and appealing! Choices of colors are also very strong on these cards, creating a strong sense of light and environment.




TOKIYA

Tokiya is just incredible! An awesome handle on digital painting and a usage of very appealing angles and movement always make this artist’s work stand out! Some of my favorite card arts of all time! Very dimensional, great use of color, and very defining of the HGSS era.




Kouki Saitou

Kouki’s Pokemon drawings are very on model, but yet incredibly expressive and dynamic. There is a clear knowlage of form and how to turn the designs in space in Kouki’s artwork. With over 400 Pokemon card illustrations under his belt, he’s no stranger to the Pokemon TCG! He’s illustrated some of my all time favorite cards!


Other favorite card arts! These are the first ones that came to mind. I’ll keep this up to date!





**Least favorite!**Let me just start by saying I love Stunfisk. It’s such an oddity of a Pokemon, and that is what makes it so much fun! With a really fun range of expressions, there’s so much you can do with Stunfisk! This Stunfisk card is an example of how you should NOT handle Stunfisk!


Looks like a poor early render. The expression looks dead and void of emotion. The lighting and treatment of the grass is very strange with the grass suddenly becoming lighter on the bottom half of the image. Is it throwing the mud is it about to get hit? It’s hard to tell from the pose! And what’s with the weird glow on the lips? In my opinion, not an appealing card, and a bad way to handle Stunfisk, especially when you can have expressions such as (I love these cards BTW!):

I hope you enjoyed reading my opinions! I look forward to hearing your favorite cards and artists!

-Pokesoap aka Madison S.

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I’ve always appreciated the work of Kagemaru Himeno. Another water color artist who has evolved since her earliest work in 1996.

The eerie softness of her Arceus Charizard has long been a favorite. The iconic Birthday and Natta Wake Pikachu’s are amongst the most recognizable and desireable in the collectible hobby. Getting that extra 50 damage on a coin flip on your birthday was an idea ahead of its time. Unfortunately, it was never allowed for tournament play.

With well over 500 card arts to her credit, she’s also one of the Pokemon worlds most prolific artists.

I understand she was under appreciated in the early days compared to the male artists but Glenn could debunk that.

One of my favorite collectibles is her signed TMB name badge.

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I will be completely honest, I’ve never looked a lot at the artist names of cards, unless there are some very similar ones in a single set; so when it’s obvious they are made by the same artist.

But since this topic has been brought up (great posts btw @pokesoap ! Both of them), I will of course join in.

So, I’ve looked at some of my favorite cards regarding artwork, and then looked at some other cards these artists made:

Naoyo Kimura:

Let’s start with my favorite Pokémon artwork of all time:


And I can quote my post in @charchu 's give-away with the reason why (it’s just amazing!! :grin: ):

Some other great artworks from this same artist:


The calmed yet serenity way the Pokémon have been drawn is amazing. All of them are majestic, fearsome or cute in their own way, and a lot of them (like in the examples above) look like they’re having a great time. Certainly an amazing artist.

Kouki Saitou:

Then my second favorite artwork, and my favorite Pikachu artwork:

It looks so happy, and the waterfall and tree in the background is really want makes this card, which is also why I like it so much.

Some other great artworks from this same artist (I just realize he’s also responsible for my favorite Pikachu Jumbo. And he’s also responsible for the Pikachu Outbreaks, all Poncho-wearing Pikachus, and a bunch of other Pikachus):

And some other examples:

The majority of the artworks I really like are made by Kouki. :grin:

**Sanosuke Sakuma:**Sanosuke has a lot of colorful artworks. What I also like about them, is that they usually tell a story or scene. Here are some great examples:

Oh, and I also really like this artwork, but I have no idea who the artist is (since it’s covered…):

As for an artist that isn’t really my kind of style:

Yuka Morii

Every artwork is a Pokémon made out of clay. First of all I want to say that they are very well done, and I can definitely give the artist credit for that! But personally I prefer drawn or even CGI Pokémon over these clay figures. Here are some examples:

Sumiyoshi Kizuki:

This is a bit of a weird one… The artwork-style of this artist are all over the place… :confused:

Personally I’m really not a fan of these kind of drawn Pokémon with thick lines, and unrealistic artworks; the kind of artworks that actually look drawn, instead of a photo of the Pokémon in their natural habitat:

But this same artist also has some pretty good artworks like these:

And also some artworks that are kinda in between:

Almost as if this single artist are actually three different persons. Pretty weird. Oh, and I personally prefer the second style out of the three for sure.

@smpratte I guess you’ll add a nice story about Kouichi Ooyama’s artworks, Scott? :wink:

Greetz,
Quuador

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Shameless plug of my youtube channel:

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Are we allowed to link to outside websites? Oh yeah…this isn’t eBay;)

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I absolutely love art of the TCG and I’ve got quite many favorite artists. Besides of my favorite Pokemon, I collect cards with artwork that I like. I’ve noticed I seem to like cards with vibrant colors the most but I do like artists with different styles too. So let’s have a look :blush:

Masakazu Fukuda

Known as the artist of the Gold Stars, Masakazu Fukuda’s style is exactly that vibrant and brave coloring that I love a lot. He usually places Pokemon on cool poses and backgrounds as well. It’s hard to think a card made by him that I don’t like and I spot his style straight away. Here are some of my favorites from him:



Kouki SaitouAnother long-time favorite of mine. I’ve noticed he has basically done an artwork of every single favorite Pokemon of mine and I love them all so that’s awesome :blush: He’s also the illustrator of pretend Pikachus and I think he does amazing job with them. He also did all of the PokePark Blue arts.


Ryo UedaRyo Ueda is artist of some of the most amazing old school ex cards. Who doesn’t love Suicune ex or Ninetales ex?! Even some of the new modern Full Arts have his awesome touch on them such as Gardevoir EX FA from Primal Clash


Hikaru KoikeSadly I haven’t seen any of his / her (not sure but Hikaru sounds like a female to me) artwork on the TCG for loooong time but he / she made some amazing ex cards *-*


Mitsuhiro Arita

Obviously! One of the legends of the TCG with a wide variety of awesome artwork. Dragonair from Base Set will always be one of the most amazing illustrations from him. And who doesn’t love the Base Chard too? On the most recent set the Salazzle artwork he made blows my min

Atsuko Nishida

Gotta love her work! *-* She usually makes cute, beautiful and “soft” art which really appeals to me.


Special mentions go to Shin Nagasawa and Naoki Saito who both are fairly new favorites of mine. Not to forget Kagemaru Himeno, Hajime Kusajima and many more :blush:

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This thread is too hard to choose!!! OMG!
These are some artworks which i can just remember off the top of my head always as i like them.

I like overall sets as well, and how they have come together aesthetically with different artists. Fav era’s is vending series, ex rocket returns, and e series artworks. As well as some neo 3,4 and wotc, but the first three are standouts.

AYA KASUBE ^^^

NAOYO KIMURA


Kouki saito :blush:

Atsuko Nishida , i think this Umbreon is still one of my favourite cards of all time. The holo pattern works well with the night sky. Heavy ethereal tones in a Dionysiac mannerism, it’s PERFECT!!! ^.^""" =x

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