{"id":30837,"date":"2018-07-06T16:15:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-06T16:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/07\/pokemon_card_artist_mitsuhiro_arita_talks_about_the_process_behind_those_iconic_designs"},"modified":"2018-07-06T16:15:00","modified_gmt":"2018-07-06T16:15:00","slug":"pokemon-card-artist-mitsuhiro-arita-talks-about-the-process-behind-those-iconic-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/07\/06\/pokemon-card-artist-mitsuhiro-arita-talks-about-the-process-behind-those-iconic-designs\/","title":{"rendered":"Pok\u00e9mon Card Artist, Mitsuhiro Arita, Talks About The Process Behind Those Iconic Designs"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/07\/pokemon_card_artist_mitsuhiro_arita_talks_about_the_process_behind_those_iconic_designs\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/07\/pokemon_card_artist_mitsuhiro_arita_talks_about_the_process_behind_those_iconic_designs\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed centered picture-900x img-900x\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a title=\"cards.jpg\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/07\/pokemon_card_artist_mitsuhiro_arita_talks_about_the_process_behind_those_iconic_designs\/attachment\/0\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/07\/pokemon_card_artist_mitsuhiro_arita_talks_about_the_process_behind_those_iconic_designs\/attachment\/0\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"cards.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>Mitsuhiro Arita might not be a name that you&#8217;re instantly familiar with, but you&#8217;ll definitely have seen dozens of pieces from his impressive portfolio of work, and you may well have several of them stored safely away in your home right now.\u00a0One of the most prolific illustrators in the history of the <strong>Pok\u00e9mon<\/strong> trading card game, Arita has been illustrating cards for over 20 years now &#8211; including\u00a0<em>that\u00a0<\/em>Charizard card that seems to bring back waves of nostalgia with a single glance.<\/p>\n<p>The official Pok\u00e9mon website has shared an interview with Arita, going into detail about the design process, his work with developer Creatures, and how Pok\u00e9mon became the global phenomenon as we know it today.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen I first began working on the Pok\u00e9mon Trading Card Game, I had no expectations I&#8217;d be working on it over 20 years later,&#8221; he said. Asked if he would he have charged a little more for his work had he known what Pok\u00e9mon would become, he jokes, \u201cOf course!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s clear that Arita is proud of his achievements with the franchise, bringing along a complete binder full of the cards that he&#8217;s worked on to the interview. It features 537 cards, all in chronological order, with the famous Charizard and Pikachu cards from the Base Set visible in the very first page. \u201cGoing through it, I really have a lot of memories of these, and I really like all of them,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture strip\">\n<div class=\"img\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/07\/pokemon_card_artist_mitsuhiro_arita_talks_about_the_process_behind_those_iconic_designs\/attachment\/1\/original.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/07\/pokemon_card_artist_mitsuhiro_arita_talks_about_the_process_behind_those_iconic_designs\/attachment\/1\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Arita's binder of Pok\u00e9mon cards featuring every one of his 537 designs\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Arita&#8217;s binder of Pok\u00e9mon cards featuring every one of his 537 designs<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The process behind the creation of the cards has apparently remained the same from the early days, right through to the present day.\u00a0He starts things off with a hand-sketched draft to set the scene, creating a few versions for Creatures to choose from. Once a general direction has been decided, he moves through black-and-white and\u00a0full-colour versions, edging towards the final product. The planning, illustration, and approval phases take around seven weeks for just a single piece of art for one card.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cFor example, maybe they want a spot in the Alola region, and will maybe provide information about that place. Also, sometimes Creatures will have a specific pose or attack in mind that they want me to do&#8230; One thing I always try to focus on in my illustrations is to think about what that Pok\u00e9mon is, and to\u00a0<em>not\u00a0<\/em>think about what I&#8217;ve done with other Pok\u00e9mon. I&#8217;ve always tried to observe reality and nature and try to reflect that when portraying the Pok\u00e9mon as if they could be realistic creatures.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote><\/blockquote>\n<p>If you&#8217;d like to check out the full interview, make sure to <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pokemon.com\/us\/pokemon-news\/pokemon-creator-profile-mitsuhiro-arita\/\">give it a read on the Pok\u00e9mon website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><em>Do you have a collection of Pok\u00e9mon cards? Do you fondly remember these early, classic designs? Let us know with a comment below.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mitsuhiro Arita might not be a name that you&#8217;re instantly familiar with, but you&#8217;ll definitely have seen dozens of pieces from his impressive portfolio of work, and you may well have several of them stored safely away in your home right now.\u00a0One of the most prolific illustrators in the history of the Pok\u00e9mon trading card [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30837\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}