The Process of Drawing a Pokemon Card

have you ever wondered how a pokemon card is created with so many new cards releasing every year and 898 different pokemon in existence the pokemon trading card game has established 25 years worth of different illustrations but who decides which pokemon becomes a pokemon card where do the artists behind each card come from and what's the process of taking a card from concept to the final illustrations that we appreciate every day well naturally there's a process an extremely interesting one too it's not as simple as just picking a pokemon and then having an artist draw them there's a lot of thought care and coordination involved in bringing these cards to life as explained by esteemed artist corki saito an extremely experienced illustrator who started his career contributing works for fatal fury and super robot wars until he made his debut with pokemon in 2002 working on umikara nokaze known in english as aquapolis he's also my favorite tcg artist saito san is responsible for so many amazing cards like the charizard ex secret rare from cp6 also known as japan's 20th anniversary collection the skytree rayquaza promo and more recently the espeon vmax special art he's also the man behind the crystal charizard from skyridge which still eludes me to this day so how has one man continued to produce amazing illustrations for nearly 30 years surely he's got some refined methodology that he can share with us well back in 2018 he did saito-san detailed his approach with fans in this article which was written to guide budding artists who were entering the illustrator grand prix that's japan's version of the illustration contest which coincidentally is running again this year now the whole article was written in japanese which is why today i thought i'd translate it for you so let's have a look at how a pokemon card is created first and foremost saito san believes the most important thing is how he can turn what he's imagining into an illustration and while that may be difficult at times that's what makes it fun he says that there's no correct way to draw and that it totally depends on the artist's direction which is why there's a few pokemon cardo gamer irasuo gakutokini kokoro gakuteru koto or in english things he keeps in mind when drawing for the pokemon card game ultimately these illustrations are for cards and this is something saito-san always keeps in mind when creating these drawings when you think about it illustrations need to be ultra detailed and large they need to tell a story all while fitting into a relatively small canvas size so to ensure that it captures every element of the illustration he splits things up into groups in particular the pokemon the background and the effects so rather than draw everything at once he'll split the pokemon up from the other elements first that way he can check the form of the pokemon and then he'll get to work the first step is selection of the pokemon researching the pokemon and determining the composition saito-san says that the start of a commission will often begin with creatures inc outlining which pokemon to draw in a rough setting in case you're wondering who creatures ink are they're a company founded by ex-staff members from ape the team who developed earthbound on the snes after its release in 1995 they formed creatures inc and went on to create the pokemon trading card game it's a little known fact that many people such as character designers and editors are involved in the process of creating a card this is something that's been mentioned before by shibuzor she's the artist behind the amazing gallerian moltres v special art from matchless fighters in a tweet she confirmed that illustrations are a collaborative process that involves direction between the artists and creatures inc which suggests that a general direction is provided by creatures and then it's up to the artist to drive at home more often than not saito san is responsible for drawing pokemon that have already been turned into pokemon cards before which is to be expected considering they've been making pokemon cards for 25 years today saito-san is going to show us how he draws evie an absolute fan favorite that everybody is familiar with so to start he conducts research to avoid drawing eevee in a style that's already been done and that's where the card search function on the japanese trainers website comes in handy although if you search up evie cards a lot of the results are actually going to be his after all he's the man who drew all those poncho eevee saito-san says that pokemon need to be presented in a particular way and the source material needs to be followed carefully so he'll often utilize pokedex 3d pro on the 3ds to help appreciate the pose a little more as he progresses with rough sketches he's always very careful not to make mistakes and while he sometimes gets that balance wrong it's nothing he can't fix now because pokemon are living things he always tries to draw them in the moment to make them feel alive he tries to capture the strength they have while moving and living but for this eevee he's going to try and capture a sense of stillness which leads to the next stage or the rough sketch and the rough submission once he establishes a pose a viewing angle and an image of the pokemon saito-san will commence his draft using copy paper and a blue pencil he notes that while some artists like to draft digitally he prefers to stick to the analog way using a light box by flipping his draft around he's able to make amendments to the line work the viewing perspective and overall just brush up the draft this is his self-taught style and by doing this he finds it easier to see where the drawing perspective has deviated or been lost specifically he uses a term here known as pasu no kurui pasu is the term given to perspective which is kind of how we visualize positioning and depth in a drawing our eyes use the lines to infer whether we're looking at something from above inwards or outwards so when the depth or perspective of a drawing is lost and we feel uncomfortable or in japanese we have iwakam then it's hard to understand what's going on in the illustration this phenomena is known as personal kurui literally deviating from perspective in japanese once the rough draft starts to take shape saito-san moves to a pc scanning the work so far and it's here where he makes corrections adds things like the background and some early effects you've got the wind blowing through warm sunlight from the east a grove of trees and some leaves scattering about with evie curiously gazing skyward this is the draft that cythol signed will then send to creatures inc for review and provided everything is okay it's then passed on to the official pokemon company for their editorial check through the supervision process he'll typically receive advice regarding balance and some of the finer details that need to be addressed for example in the rough draft the tail was a little too large so they asked that he shrink it a little bit some distinction between evie's heel and buttocks was needed and evie's neck fur was drawn as one whole tuft but it needed to be split into parts from here it's just a matter of implementing the changes and suddenly the draft is coming to life when you compare the two it's a real testament to how rigorous the process must be especially when each new set is introducing hundreds of new cards the amount of rough drive cytosome will draw depends on the situation he says there are times where he can draw a lot in bursts and there are also times where no matter what pattern he draws he isn't satisfied when that happens he'll revisit the first iteration he says that what inspired him first should be treated with care this is a philosophy that i try to incorporate when i'm creating two when you think about it there's a reason why that spark lit the fire on you to begin with now that the draft sketch is mostly complete it's time for step three coloring most of the time saito san will use photoshop for coloring his process is relatively straightforward before applying color the first step is to finalize the line work based on the draft next he'll paint the base colors then prepare a shadow layer and finally lay them together and apply some shine if you recall back at the start saito san approaches the illustration group by group so at this stage the pokemon is mostly complete that means it's time to move on to the background now because the pokemon is the lead actor of the illustration ultimately he doesn't think it's necessary to draw a background with ultra fine detail you want the pokemon to stand out from the background having said that he always tries to use colors in the background that help with visualizing the situation that the pokemon's in often times choosing colors from past works as reference so i guess you could say that the background plays a large role in setting the scene for the actor for this background saito san wanted to capture the image of sunlight passing through trees in the forest first he details the ground then the grass then the inner tree branches then some more grass then the shadows a little bit of atmosphere and finally sunlight and then layers them all together at this point things look mostly complete and you really start to get an appreciation for just how detailed the card illustrations are but there's still a little ways to go to get things looking perfect so it's time for step four the finishing touches i think the craziest thing that this article taught me was just how important that last step is in tying the whole thing together it's literally the cherry on top and i guess that's why he leaves the effects till last rather than adding them in as he goes so to draw out more perspective saito sun blurs the sakura in the foreground and adds a haze over eevee to give him a bit of shine and again because they're the lead he wants evie to stand out so he also adds an edge light to further emphasize them by blurring and shading off the inner part of the background and adding this extra shine to eevee saito-san creates a sense of depth that really separates them from the background and that's integral to making the whole thing feel real at first i was a little bit confused as to how saito-san adds something intangible like atmosphere but then it hit me by adding some sakura to the foreground and applying noise with the use of dust he's able to create a glistening wind effect that you can really feel finally he adjusts the colour of the entire illustration applying a colour tone correction layer and it's complete eevee standing still and gazing at the sakura pedals floating through the wind if you can share the same feeling as that then saito san has achieved his goal and if you were wondering why you haven't seen this card in the wild before that's because it hasn't been included in any release just yet so who knows when we might see it at the end of the article he leaves a message that really sums up the beauty of pokemon cards so i'm excited to share it with you here today i get excited thinking about what kind of feelings the finished illustration will evoke so while i'm drawing i'm always asking myself does this illustration have the feeling of a pokemon living with us in our daily lives saito-san as always i can't wait to see what you draw next mate i'm ok jayloff thank you so much for watching [Music]

Channel: okJLUV

Views: 18,658

Keywords: pokemon cards, japanese pokemon cards, charizard, pokemon, pokemon card openings, pokemon center, pokemon center japan, japanese special set, pokemon anniversary, charizard reprint, s8a-p, s8a-g, gold pikachu, mew, umbreon gold star, pokemon celebrations, pokemon celebrations etb, pokemon gold box, surfing pikachu, flying pikachu, birthday pikachu, eevee, how to draw a pokemon card, kouki saitou, 斉藤コーキ, pokemon photoshop, shibuzoh, creatures inc, illustrator gardevoir

Id: 37bDfG-rZWA

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 27 2021