Kizuki’s artwork always puts a smile on my face. I love ve the style, bold flat colors and positions. I’ve got a goal with kizuki and it’s almost complete. I wish she had more cards in the modem sets
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My all time favorite it Naoyo Kimura. I get an immersive, cozy feeling looking at almost all of his art. The way he draws Pokemon always feels very true to their original design, but not in a boring way. The backgrounds in his artwork also create incredible scenes, which add even more depth to a sometimes simple, true-to-the-original drawn Pokemon. His cards really feel like completed pieces to me.
My others all time faves are:
Kawayoo
Atsuko Nishida
Mitsuhiro Arita, specifically from gens 1-2
Teeziro
Yuka Morii
Lower tier, but still amazing would be:
Hiromichi Sugiyama
Masakazu Fukuda
Mina Nakai
Naoki Saito
Ken Sugimori
Probably others I’m forgetting
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kawayoo has been the one that caught my eye whilst not collecting all these years.
Mitsuhiro Arita is a legend and still continues to produce incredible work.
But these days the sets are filled with so many great artists, just picking some favourites from the latest two sets:
OKACHEKE’s Mantine
Shiburingaru’s Regieleki
Shinji Kanda’s Ariados
Ligton’s Rapidash
aoki’s Regice
Taira Akitsu’s Azelf
zig’s Mesprit
Rianti Hidayat’s Magearna
Most of those doing the alternate arts are hitting them out of the park -
Ryota Murayama’s Charizard
Tika Matsuno’s Vaporeon
Souichirou Gunjima’s Flareon
nagimiso’s Jolteon
Teeziro’s Celebi
You Iribi’s Leafeon
Tomokazu Komiya’s Galarian Slowking
Shibuzoh’s Galarian Moltres
kodama’s Shadow Rider Calyrex
Uta’s Galarian Articuno
Atsushi Furusawa’s Zeraora
chibi’s Empoleon
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kirisAki
She has the rare talent of being about to draw amazing backgrounds, Pokemon and humans. Also she’s very cute.
www.elitefourum.com/t/simping-doesnt-come-easy-kirisaki-binder-collection/33473/1
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Definitly Ken Sugimori and Mitshhiro Arita! Love those vintage artworks they created!
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Man I couldn’t like this thread more if I tried! What a lovely read for a Sunday. It’s a difficult question and seeing as @brendantheclayboy has laid it down so magnificently, I decided to just flick through the binder to see which cards jumped out today:
Himeno - always bringing the warmth, she has a way with pink/orange colours like no other:
Baba - an all time favorite artist; her style is simple, bold and conveys personality in each pokemon:
Umemoto - striking and bright, another unmistakable style that I find myself drawn to:
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Very glad to hear that you and seemingly so many others like the thread! ^^ I value all your opinions so highly it means a lot to see such a positive response, especially to my first thread here. There’s no sense of elitism or gatekeeping or any sense of superiority, everyone seemed to enjoy the idea for the thread and that was more than enough. Didn’t matter how high my post count or how long ago I finally signed for an account to go from someone watching to someone wanting to get involved and join in the fun. Can’t thank you all enough for helping to make me feel welcome. Sincerely I appreciate it.
Ive updated the original post with lots more examples of some of my favorite artists, here’s a few…
Hitoshi Ariga -
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Another vote for Komiya here. His surreal style is so interesting. And lately it’s been looking borderline impressionistic with the amount of color and detail in something that might normally be a simple gradient sky.
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I actually just saw that Tokiya will have her first in person signing in America this July in Jacksonville. I plan to attend.
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almost commented on this with the same thing twice before double checking, but i’ll add onto this by a newly revealed atsushi card. its SO ADORABLE
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Place 1 Komiya for me
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For me, it’s gotta be Keiko Fukuyama. Her work on Southern Islands and the iconic postcards is just stunning. So stunning that it’s part of my wall decoration. I believe she is one of the very few illustrators who puts more species into one artwork. I also like the general vibe of the pictures.
Some of my most favourite TCG artwork is this Onix and Pidgeot:
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Kimiya Masago and Arita are my favorites, but I enjoy lots of art from across the tcg. I’ve grown more appreciative of Komiya and some of the early artists, Himeno being another. I really enjoy the “dark” and “non cartoony” cards. I find that Arita does these the most, but Masago’s are my ultimate favorites. It sucks that he hasn’t done any cards for years, but maybe one day he will make a return. Shinji Kanda is my new current favorite. I hope that we will see more and more of these arts. They are just so well done. I think the diversity in art styles is one of the most important parts of the tcg.
Here are a few of my favorite arts, in no particular order.
IMO one of Masago’s greatest, if not the greatest art he did. Certainly up for debate here. Mewtwo is definitely a favorite amongst collectors, so I’d have to put that one up top as well.
Arita has too many cards to narrow down his “best”. Base Zard is certainly the most iconic, so I won’t mention that one 
My favorite alternate art (so far) is Arita’s Noivern V.
A couple Himeno for you
I really enjoy the old cgi/computer generated cards. They aren’t for everyone, but for me they are fantastic. Ex era has quite a few of them.
And a Shinji Kanda art to close it off
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Ken Sugimori
We’re so spoiled with art today it’s easy to rip on KS as “boring”, but to me these cards were the first impression I had of what a Pokémon was period. I didn’t have cable TV, or magazines, and Gameboy didn’t come until later. To take it a step further, Ken Sugimori HAD to draw the way he did for English/Japanese, otherwise no one would even know what the Pokémon looked like in the first place. You can’t have your first impression of an alien creature be some weird abstract art from a weird angle with dark lighting. You need to build a foundation before you build a tower, and Ken Sugimori is that foundation for me.
Kimiya Masago
Neo Discovery Kaputops/Kimiya Masago changed the way I thought about Pokémon. I started to research artists, different sets I never owned, and languages I had never considered (Japanese). This card made me realize it’s more than my childhood game. It’s art.
Aya Kusube - Honorable Mention
Just look at this beauty!!!
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What’s the best way to search cards by artist? I use a combination of Bulba and Serebii, but it’s sometimes hard to pin down the release date, or Japanese set name (in english). Would appreciate any relevant intel.
You can also use TCGCollector for Japanese cards - their database is not as complete as Bulbapedia but it’s a lot easier to search.
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