Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: pokemon, pokemon cards, Pokemon TCG, Scarlet & Violet, Tomokazu Komiya

Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight: Tomokazu Komiya Modern

Our weekly Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight continues with the three-part Tomokazu Komiya series, concluding with the modern era.

Throughout the years, the Pokémon Trading Card Game has featured a variety of incredible art styles. Now that the hobby has been around for more than a quarter of a century, we have seen the artwork of Pokémon TCG cards elevated by daring new artist choices as well as illustrators who have been veteran contributors since the very first releases. Let's take a journey through the eye-popping, mind-expanding history of Pokémon TCG artwork by exploring some of the hobby's most interesting and unique artists. Today, we will spotlight Tomokazu Komiya. Because Komiya has been contributing cards to the hobby since the early days of Wizards of the Coast-era sets, we will feature three chapters of this spotlight: Vintage Komiya to start, Classic Komiya last week, and Modern Komiya this week. Let's continue.

The modern era has seen Tomokazu Komiya get to experiment more with his styles, breaking out of the smaller box that we see on standard Pokémon cards. The card to the left is the first Komiya Alternate Art, featuring Eevee & Snorlax on a TAG TEAM GX SM Black Star Promo. The other card, a Psyduck card that recreated the iconic The Scream painting, was a Japanese promo card from the Sun & Moon era that was never translated into English. We missed out.

We saw Komiya get more of a chance to stretch his artistic talents during the Sword & Shield era. Sword & Shield – Chilling Reign included his Alternate Art card for Galarian Slowking, which I interpret as a step toward increased detail in his style due to the expanded border. The same is true for the Oricorio Illustration Rare from Crown Zenith.

Scarlet & Violet continues this trend, and Komiya is on board with this Drowzee Illustration Rare from Scarlet & Violet base. I hope we get to see many more Komiya cards in this era.

Be sure to check Bleeding Cool every day to follow our in-depth Pokémon TCG coverage as we explore the hobby's past, present, and even future with upcoming set reveals.

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