Saw this on Tomokazu Komiya’s Instagram. Such a great image for the song. Clair de lune, Claude Debussy!
15 Likes
Found out recently that satoma was a quarterfinalist in the 2022 Illustration Contest, this is their entry
12 Likes
Where is this Dratini card from? It’s beautiful
3 Likes
It’s from the ex Start Decks releasing this Friday, so it’ll probably be part of Obsidian Flames.
4 Likes
How exciting, thanks for the info
3 Likes
With Ash leaving the Pokemon series recently, I was thinking about Ash’s Pikachu Lv. X.
Really unique holo pattern.
Side note: Never noticed that the Illustrator for this card is “Pikachu Project.”
7 Likes
Gottem
11 Likes
Who’s the artist?
4 Likes
i have no clue. wasnt marked when i found the upload
4 Likes
Think it’s them - tees0nline
5 Likes
Anybody here sophisticated enough with the visual arts/drawing to explain to me the difference between Kizuki and Umemoto? Or how to differentiate their artwork styles? I can never guess which of them did an artwork.
3 Likes
Depends on whether you mean old or new
Old Kizuki:
- Majority is very easy to distinguish, very typical thick charcoal like line work on both the mon and background elements.
- Alternatively, a style with basically no lines at all, as if you put construction paper cut outs together collage style.
- And then there is sort of mixed media style between the two / good old standard illustration, but still very much employing his characteristics above, and adding that elements are abstractly drawn, warped, embellished, dreamy, etc. Sometimes it is like comic book art, others like animation cartoon aesthetic, but always different enough from Umemoto, as will be explained shortly. But keep in mind almost every good artist in the tcg at some point or another does something really outside their own box and nearly anyone with a great eye for the stuff might find themselves surprised to see who it is. But I don’t think that’s what you’re trying to do, but rather just get the general sense down pat. Example of #3 here.
Old Umemoto:
- Essentially rarely deviates from his style of a very consistent, uniform line work. Meaning, look at the lines, they will almost always be that same thickness, a thin soft line. But a steady, uniformly formed line. In addition to this, they very commonly use geometry in the work, or repeating patterns. But the biggest giveaway is going to be that line uniformity. Even when the background lines are a different outline color, they are the same line appearance as the subject. On occasion it won’t be this cut and dry (like p promo growlithe), but those background elements will be strikingly Umemoto. Their work very often feels very 2D, purposefully.
Another example, the most typical Umemoto one may find:
Now, as for newer stuff (say 2012 and later), I’d say Umemoto changed far less than Kizuki, but it did become harder to distinguish. But since Umemoto stayed pretty in line with their style, it is easier to use their work as the comparison/starting point, rather than Kizuki. Some of the newer stuff, even up to 2020’s, employs the same exact style. For the harder stuff, examples here, they’ve become more polished and digitized if you will, but when you look carefully, you can see it was the same hand that made these lines. Even on what I consider one of the hardest “inside the box” works they ever did, the koffing.
Whereas new Kizuki:
Totally changed their original style (and quality in my opinion), and with the occasional exception return-to-roots cards, they departed almost completely. In that transition period, before the complete change in style, let’s say here in '07 to '09, they have work that at first glance might look like Umemoto. But those now-thinned lines still have that gradient to them, that airbrush charcoal texture look to them, when looked at closely, that you will not see in any Umemoto. Think of it as imperfect, blurry and non-uniform lines, vs Umemoto fine, perfect lines. This below is still very distinct from Umemoto, and goes across those middle years.
Then once the departure from old Kizuki is manifest, you have stuff like this:
Finding out who did this artwork is an endeavor in of itself, but fortunately this is an exercise in distinguishing the difference between Umemoto and Kizuki, so with those kinds of cards, you still won’t have trouble telling if it is Umemoto or not!
26 Likes
Hell yeah!!! These posts are what e4 was built for!
13 Likes
I love when artists show growth and experimentation with new styles. As an artist myself, I have to respect the artistic spirit, and I love to see the attempt, even if it’s not great (especially for performers, it’s just a necessary part of things. None of us live in a vacuum, and I’d expect our art to grow as we do.
7 Likes