Posted in: Card Games, Games, Pokémon TCG, Tabletop | Tagged: pokemon, pokemon cards, tpci, Yukiko Baba

Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight: Yukiko Baba – Classic

This week's Pokémon Trading Card Game Artist Spotlight continues our series on illustration Yukiko Baba, moving to the classic era of sets.

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 Yukiko Baba. This will be a three-part series showing Yukiko Baba's work over the years, including their vintage, classic, and modern work. I began with Baba's vintage work in the first installment, which you can read here. Today, we move to Baba's classic work, covering the time between the end of the vintage era with Wizards of the Coast and the modern era of XY and on.

Yukiko Baba continues to explore their style, evolving through the eras. Notably, the sets that I would classify as the "classic" era saw Baba pull back their contributions a bit from what we saw during the vintage days. There were only a few cards during the Black & White era especially, but first, let's take a look at the Platinum and HeartGold SoulSilver eras, which split off from the Diamond & Pearl era. We see a Pokémon-focused Chimecho from Platinum – Supreme Victors, where the background is basic. However, Sandshrew from HeartGold SoulSilver shows growth in the quality of the background illustration.

Baba's strongest showing in the Black & White era was the expansion Black & White – Legendary Treasures. It featured multiple cards, including a cute Kirlia and a holographic Thundurus, both of which show Baba continuing to hone and perfect that unique style.

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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