Arita has altered artwork in the past, but he probably has stopped doing it at more recent events. It’s kind of been known he hates coloring in artwork, but he has been known to do it in the past.
My assumption is he stopped coloring in artwork or does it very rarely depending on his mood at certain events.
Correct, he doesn’t color in any zards - maybe he has done one or two in the past but they would be older autographs and won’t have personalisation or dates.
Anything that does is modified after his autograph.
The Squirtle for example was sketched by “Moduwa” at the TCG Gala Cologne event and then signed by Arita - I’m very open about that and I asked Arita of he was cool about it.
It’s not like I’d be selling this considering it’s got my giant name written on it!
Honestly tempted to ask Moduwa to sign it now.
Ah sorry for the confusion! We actually discussed it abit as it was made clear by the translator that he will not be drawing on the pokemon itself- we didnt ask why but the general consensus among the bunch of us getting signed as well as a few veteran vendors was that pokemon heavily frowns on messing with the image of the pokemon itself..and i can understand why from an IP perspective as if they normalize drawing on the image others can add anything and say they(the artist) did it, esp if its something that does not fit the wholesome pokemon image..best not to do it at all i guess?
Hahaha and squirtle turning into raph wouldnt be something we (as a community) would get pissed about, heck id go as far to say we would love it..but turning a regular zard into a “shiny” with a sharpie is a real team rocket move..and we for sure hate that..