Without a doubt, one of the biggest driving forces behind the popularity of Pokemon cards is the beautiful artwork. It's what made everyone on the playground want that illustrious Base Set Charizard, and it's what makes old fans look back fondly at their collection. Quickly scanning 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon TCG online communities finds that t💧his is still the case.

Despite the series onꦚly starting with three illustrators (four if you count that one-off Porygon by Imakuni), they were talented enough to produce art that struck a chord with thousands of fans. The number of illustrators began to increase — more illustrators meant more fantastic art styles, which meant more beautiful cards to collect. Here are the best illustrators in the TCG.

Updated on January 9, 2024 by Casey Foot: With the launch of Pokemon TCG Pocket, more and more people are appreciating the wonderful art found in the Pokemon TCG. A lot of fantastic illustrators contribute to the art of the TCG, but these are the best of the best. We've added a couple more artists who deserve recognition for their work in bringing the Pokemon world to life.

18 💎 Shinji Kanda 𓆏

Shinji Kanda has been an asset to the Pokemon TCG ever since their debut. Their detailed backgrounds and u☂se of vivid colors create illustrations that instantly ca𝕴tch your eye. While the full art cards are the main event, even the standard cards have gorgeous illustrations that are worth collecting.

Kanda is most famous for their full art Giratina card, which is heavily sought after by collectors and sells for a lot of money second-hand. The elaborate background of the illustr💃ation complements Giratina's otherworldly design, creating a one-of-a-kind card.

17 Tika Matsuno ⛄

Tika Matsuno's whimsical and pastel art style is perfect for the Pokemon universe. Matsuno's art captures the cute side of Pokemon, with all their cards showing the Pokemon smiling or just generally being adorable. The backgrounds also add to the atmosphere, such as with their Ralts card, wh✃ere it's looking around in awe at the academy in Paldea.

Matsuno's Fidough card is one of their best, if a little existential, showing the Pokemon looking at pastries in a bakery window that look ju𓂃st like it. Fidough looks as sweet as ever, and the card conveys a simple concept well.

16 ཧ Hyogonꦜosuke

Hyogonosuke's art style is very pleasing to the eye, with an expert use of lighting and an almost line-less style. Hyo⛎gonosuke's cards of the Lake Guardians are particularly pretty, with sunset landscapes as the backdrops and sparkles surrounding the Pokemon, as if they've just splashed in the lakes.

While all of Hyogonosuke's full art cards are excellent, two stand out for being different from their usual art style: the Koffing, where the entire card is just purple, black, and white, and the Moltres, Zapdos, and Articuno 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Tag Team card, which uses a stained-gl🐻ass style to capture the legendary birds.

15 𝓰 Akira Egawa 🌠

Akira Egawa has been illustrating for the Pok💞emon TCG since Sun and Moon in 2019. Their cards are characterized by Egawa’s incredibly detailed art style, with the Pokemon they illustrate being captu🐼red in dynamic poses that convey majesty.

Egawa’s illustrations truly shine in their 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:full art cards, as the vibrant colors capture the scene and help bring the Pokemon to life. For example, Egawa’s Zekrom card does an excellent job of depicting N flying on the back of Zekrom through the skies, with motion blur to𒅌 ꦆshow how Zekrom is cutting through the clouds.

14 Sa💛chiko Adachi

Alongside Yuka Morii, Sachiko Adachi’s cards are some of the most unique in the TCG, thanks to the clay-like appearance of the Pokemon depicted. Adachi’s technique produces excellent cards as the juxtaposition between the clay-like Pokemon against the 2D, cartoony backgrounds makes the Pokemon mod✅els stand out. This makes for a charming effect, similar to a children’s pop-up book.

Adachi’s cards blend the clay look of the Pokemon with the cut-out appearance of the environment and props, such as in the Remoraid card, where Remoraid is releasing a burst of water that looks like a piece of paper stuck onto the Pokemon’﷽s model.

13 Miki Kudo

Illustrating for the Pokemon TCG since Generations, Miki Kudo’s adorable art style makes their cards stand apart from others in the TCG by offering stylized in🌃terpretations of the Pokemon depicted. To achieve the cutesy style, Kudo avoids using black outlines, instead favoring soft colors.

Kudo’s art style is perfect for Pokemon such as ༺Chansey; however, it also works for less typically “cute” Pokemon such as Aegislash and Dusclops. Their use of shape excels in the Alolan Marowak card, as the Pokemon resemble artwork found in ancient civilizations.

12 Yuu Nishida 💜

Yuu Nishida has been an illustrator for the Pokemon TCG since 2019 and won the first Pokemon Card Game Illustration Grand Prix. In a conversation regarding the illustration contest, Nishida said that, as an illustrator, h✤er goal is “.”

This warmth is definitely apparent in Nishida’s illustrations, as her use of vibrant colors brings both Pokemon and Trainers to life. Nishida’s Dedenne card is an excellent example of this, as the flora in the background complements Dedಞenne’s orange fur while creating an almost whimsical scene.

11 Asako Ito

An illustrator ♊since Sun and Moon, Asako Ito’s cards are incredibly unique, as instead of depicting the Pokemon through traditional means, Ito creates amigurumi (3D crochet) versions of the Pokemon.

Ito’s 3D creations pop out in their respective environments, with even the backgrounds being created using felt, wool, and other materials. When looking at I𝐆to’s cards, you can see the hard work that went into every stitch, especially in minor details such as Poliwag’s swirl and Munna’s pattern. The use of amigurumi is a great way to make Ito’s cards stand apart, as the pieces have a tangꦏibility that can’t be recreated in 2D art.

10 ꦓ Hitoshi Ariga 🤪

Hitoshi Ariga is a man whose talents stretch farther than just the TCG. In fact, his art has been featured in a vast range of media. Ariga has illustrated several of the Megaman manga (and designed a few robot masters in Megaman & Bass), a Klonoa manga, provided art for many SNES classics, and is responsible for designing some fan-favorite Pokemon such as Tyrantrum, Corviknight, and Pangoro. This isn't🌊 an exhaustive list, mind you.

His work is extremely well-poliꦿshed; the intense scenes and beautiful lines in his card art really give away his background in manga illustration.

9 💛 Aya Kusube

As a children's illustrator, Aya Kusube’s art style makes the Pokemon depicted look as though🍰 they wouldn’t be amiss among the pages of a fairy tale. Kusube began delivering as soon as she joined the illustr𝓡ation team — some of her earliest cards are, without a doubt, some of her best.

T𝓀hese cards were for the Japan-exclusive Vending series and followed a pattern of beautiful landscapes with small Pokemon𓄧 used more as accent pieces than focal points. And it works — it really, really works. As production continued, the quality never dipped, even to this day.