Popular Pokemon TCG Artist Accused of Tracing Fan Art for Upcoming Pocket Set

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Wisdom of Sea & Sky will release later today in Pokemon TCG Pocket, but the card images have already been preloaded into the app, datamined by fans, and shared all over social media.


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After seeing the set's new Ho-Oh ex, "lanjiujiu," a fan artist on Twitter, was quick to point out that Ho-Oh appears to a partial trace of his artwork drawn in 2021. The wings and head match, though the talons are different. His tweet has now received nearly 20 million views. Some fans, like Lewtwo, have...
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I mean, the posing is the same but the shades of it are different so maybe it was just a coincidence that they share the same pose. There are also some aspects of the pocket card that make it different compared to the fan art
 
See, the cards could be changed, but this is for one of the immersive card arts. They’d have to delay the set at this point to change it.
The whole thing is just baffling. SIE is very clearly a talented artist. Why trace fan art?? I’ve seen people argue too they might have thought that art was official but even then- why trace it for tcg…?
 
MarlinRimes said:
I mean, the posing is the same but the shades of it are different so maybe it was just a coincidence that they share the same pose. There are also some aspects of the pocket card that make it different compared to the fan art
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It’s the lineart that people are looking at here. When people say tracing they’re not talking about doing a one to one copy- It’s normally just the outline.
 
Stunky said:
See, the cards could be changed, but this is for one of the immersive card arts. They’d have to delay the set at this point to change it.
The whole thing is just baffling. SIE is very clearly a talented artist. Why trace fan art?? I’ve seen people argue too they might have thought that art was official but even then- why trace it for tcg…?
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Could be that they were crunched for time, maybe had artist's block or something and the deadline was fast approaching
 
It's way too close to be a coincidence, and the art on the booster pack kinda proves that you can draw a nearly-identical pose, but it's still clearly different.
Magic had this kinds of issues before, but Wizards are also very communicative, especially in that kind of drama. I'm wondering what the response will be here.
 
I wonder if SIE used AI to find a pose they liked and it spat out ho-oh from lanjiujiu's art, it'd make sense why SIE would think they could trace that since it's supposedly "original"
 
Stunky said:
It’s the lineart that people are looking at here. When people say tracing they’re not talking about doing a one to one copy- It’s normally just the outline.
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Ah ok, but I would say that some aspects of it are a bit different from the fan art
 
I kinda don't agree that it looks traced. There's a few details on the Ho-oh that are quite a bit different than the presented art. Also this is their big card for the set; the immersive rare, and as such it's probably animated art as well. And frankly, this is kinda just The pose you see Ho-oh in in a lot of art; it's similar to the pack art and various other art of Ho-oh.

Not trying to defend them whatsoever, if they are tracing they shouldn't get away with it. Also my friend who I shared this article with presented another possibility; that the artist was using AI to blueprint the drawing and it came up with this exact pose that another artist drew. This is really not any better, and sounds a lot more likely what happened to me. But really we won't know until a statement is made about it.
 
madibye said:
I kinda don't agree that it looks traced. There's a few details on the Ho-oh that are quite a bit different than the presented art. Also this is their big card for the set; the immersive rare, and as such it's probably animated art as well. And frankly, this is kinda just The pose you see Ho-oh in in a lot of art; it's similar to the pack art and various other art of Ho-oh.

Not trying to defend them whatsoever, if they are tracing they shouldn't get away with it. Also my friend who I shared this article with presented another possibility; that the artist was using AI to blueprint the drawing and it came up with this exact pose that another artist drew. This is really not any better, and sounds a lot more likely what happened to me. But really we won't know until a statement is made about it.
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It's still tracing, it's literally the same as copying someone else's homework but changing a few lines. The teacher is gonna notice anyways
 
That is a direct rip, no question. Each subtle curve of the anatomy, especially in the way that the orange and white layers of the outspread wings line up, is identical. There is the same visual tangent on the second-from-the-top orange feather of the wing (right side on lanjiujiu, left side on rip-off) for example.

Also, note the shapes of the negative space around the sillhouette, especially the one formed by the two wings and the neck. You dont just accidentally end up with the exact same minute proportions of a complex silhouette like that when drawing something of your own creation--the odds would be astronomical.
 
It's possible that the artist is protesting his work being used in pocket or just trying to put an artpiece he liked into better recognition. Not defending him, but there are a number of reasons that this could have happened, and for what its worth, this is an extremely generic ho-oh pose that we have seen many times.
 
Were I in the dude's shoes, I'd be happy that my work featured on the tcg, if that is indeed a copy. But due diligence is also paramount, so let's not make assumptions, it could go both ways.
 
Flailing Karp said:
It's possible that the artist is protesting his work being used in pocket or just trying to put an artpiece he liked into better recognition. Not defending him, but there are a number of reasons that this could have happened, and for what its worth, this is an extremely generic ho-oh pose that we have seen many times.
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No one in their right mind would do either of those things via stealing someone's art. Why would he be protesting his art being in pocket? Makes absolutely no sense. And stealing someone's art and passing it off as your own is not a smart way to give the artist more recognition
 
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