Remember this post from October 2021? That's alright, we'll summarise: There's a competition going on right now for artists to get their illustrations printed onto actual Pokémon trading cards. Also, you can win money — but we all know that being on a trading card is way more valuable than money.
Almost 11,000 entries were submitted, and now the Pokémon Company has chosen their 300 finalists for "Round One" — you can check out the full gallery here.
You'll notice there are a lot of repeat Pokémon — that's because the judges are looking for specific designs.
The competition allowed artists to choose from Bulbasaur, Charizard, Pikachu, Arcanine, Galarian Rapidash, Scizor, Greninja, and Cramorant, with the specification that the art must not include shiny Pokémon, must not have the Pokémon wearing clothes, must not be Dynamaxed or Gigantamaxed, and must show the subject "going about its day either while adventuring or while enjoying its daily life." However, the submitted art is allowed to be in the form of physical materials, like clay, wool, yarn, etc.
Here are some of our favourites:
What are your picks? What kind of design would you like to see as the winner? Let us know in the comments!
Comments 21
Wow. These are stunning. This is a fandom at its best.
I wish my six pack Pikachu got nominated.
Good luck to everyone
I love all of these so damn much. Scizor making papercrafts, Arcanine cuddling up with a tiny Oddish and, a personal favourite that isn't here, a Bulbasaur painting it's bulb pink to match it's evolutions. I just love Pokemon art man.
I hope Louie Zong wins, he has such a nice art style
I think the Japanese are going to dominate in wins.
Would LOVE to see the other 10,000+ submissions too!!!
AHHHHHHH THESE LOOK SO GOOOOOD
I wish knew if any of them had any of socials, I'd follow all of them in a heart beat
Man, now I want Pokémon Art Academy on Switch...
I actually managed to make some not-terrible doodles in that game.
Why must there be only 1 winner? We need a whole pack!
I quick-read that as “300 fatalists.”
So many fantastic pieces. Fan art - much like fan fiction - can go some pretty sketchy places, but these all feel like they’re really grounded in the world of Pokémon. Wonderful to see.
I like how they have Gen 1 starter forms for all but Squirtle lol.
The surfing Cramorant is my favorite. Then again, I seem to be partial to surfing Pokémon in general.
This is awesome. They're literally all excellent drawings. Scizor is in my top 10, so that's particularly cool for me.
These are some cool entries. They are all fitting of a Pokemon card. If you told me these were not from one, I wouldn't believe you.
@Anti-Matter
Thank you for that. I need to go bleach my eyes now.
I'm biased cause I somehow made it into the top 300 (a Charizard not seen here and two that didn't make it haha) but Louis Zong's is hands down my favorite! The style and personality is just sooo good. I hope I can buy that card some day!
Wow, so much incredible art! 😍
@MissKLC Congrats! 🎉
Really great designs here, definitely enjoying the Cramorant and Bulbasaur ones the most! The little clay dioramas and the ones that use really different art styles really draw me in. Still sad I wasn't able to participate due to my region, hopefully future ones will open up more.
I wish they would do a contest every year and then have make a special pack of fan submitted cards that would be dated the year/the theme with a limited release for the year or 6 months or whatever. Saying that I would be fearful of all of the card hoarding/scalping that might occur over limited run cards.
All of the top 300 are excellent, and I am sure the other 9,000+ not listed are of equal caliber!
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