Discussion Tomokazu Komiya

Ophie

Ophie

Aspiring Trainer
Member
He's quite the polarizing artist, isn't he? When I was at a Noble Victories pre-release, I noticed he's back drawing artwork after a quick break at the beginning of the generation. Someone sitting next to me absolutely HATES his artwork (interestingly, she says she's an art major) because his linework is off. Someone else at the pre-release, however, told me he loves Komiya's work and collects cards illustrated by him.

Anyone got any thoughts on Tomokazu Komiya? Personally, I love his artwork too. If you look closely, you can tell he knows how to paint. He knows how to use contrast, shading, dynamic angles, using colors to convey a mood, and pretty much everything else that makes him a professional--he just chooses not to. Komiya is a frontrunner in Japan's "primitivism" movement, which is inspired by art from other cultures. (I don't know what Komiya's main influences are though.)
 
This is the first I've heard of anything. I can't say I care about the artwork, and I don't care any more now.
 
All right, that's fine. The artwork is the main reason I'm still with the TCG. I'd say it's between 70% and 90% of why I play it. The sheer variety in the visual approaches, and the way each artist has his or her distinctive style, is unparalleled among TCGs. I think a lot of other people do too--this is the tendency I notice when I discuss Tomokazu Komiya at card events and tournaments: Either sheer disgust or tremendous joy.
 
Here's an example.

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I personally don't like his artwork because he makes the Pokemon look very strange. It looks all scratched up. Just not my favorite.
 
I love Tomokazu Komiya's style. As an artist, it's fun -- and actually, very challenging -- to imitate. His art actually shows great use of color and shading.

To be honest, I much prefer the work of Komiya to someone like, say, Masakazu Fukuda, whose work has become very bland and generic in the fifth generation. At least Komiya uses interesting poses and gives a sense of motion and fluidity in many of his pieces.
 
Yeah, Masakazu Fukuda's style is very clean, but it's pretty bland. It feels like he's recently become dependent on digital filters. Komiya may be digital (and has always been), but everything is done totally by hand. It's hard to portray action and movement the way Komiya does while keeping the crude look of his works.
 
Tomokazu has always been my favorite Pokemon artist for years now. I like how he takes the Pokemon and makes them look less bland than they usually do. He always makes sure to give great scenery and a nice pose or motion to the Pokemon. His artwork also tends to capture that particular Pokemon's personality and characteristics using expression and background color.

If you wanted to you could take one of his cards and just make a whole story out of it which is another reason why I love his cards and drawing style. His use of hatching and cross hatching mixed with un-distinct lineart is always a pleasure for me to see as well noting that I tend to have a similar way of drawing.

A lot of the other Pokemon fans I know tend to completely DESPISE his artwork and I just don't understand why.
 
CMP said:
I love Tomokazu Komiya's style. As an artist, it's fun -- and actually, very challenging -- to imitate. His art actually shows great use of color and shading.

To be honest, I much prefer the work of Komiya to someone like, say, Masakazu Fukuda, whose work has become very bland and generic in the fifth generation. At least Komiya uses interesting poses and gives a sense of motion and fluidity in many of his pieces.
Click to expand...

Took the words right out of my mouth. I haven't yet tried to imitate Komiya's style, but it's something I've wanted to attempt for a while now.

I don't know enough people who collect / play the TCG to have met someone who dislikes Komiya's style, but I can understand why they'd feel that way. It's because of the varied styles like Komiya's, though, that I really enjoy seeing the TCG art so much.
 
I really dislike this style personally. I'm not an art person at all. I prefer someone like match (my favorite) or even sui if I want something new and unique. MAHOU is kinda cool too. Otherwise, I'm good with just plain old Sugimori or Fukuda personally. The text is what makes the cards good for me.
 
Oh I can definitely agree that Komiya's style is unique. I know his artwork when I see it.

I am more of a Mitsuhiro Arita and Atusko Nishida fan. You can't go wrong with:

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and

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I like Arita's boldness, and how the card actually comes to life. The colors are brilliant and lively. Nishida's softness with her work is perfect, a nice contrast to Arita's. I feel the fuzziness and warmth of Igglybuff in this card. It's just so soothing.
 
I'm a huge fan of art in the Pokémon TCG and Komiya is one of my favourites. Taken at face value, it looks very simplistic, but they're incredibly detailed and well done, conveying personality and motion. Like someone said above, all his art is telling as story by itself, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of his work.
 
Most of the Pokemon card artwork is pretty amazing! You can't go wrong with the legend artwork, or the Base Set artwork! The only ones I have honestly looked down upon, are the pokemon who are made from clay... and I am sure there are people who really enjoy the artwork on cards with clay! So quite honestly, all Pokemon cards are unique, and have their twist to em.
 
Tomokazu Kominya's art is really unique. Like CMP said, it uses a lot of unusual colors (ex. White for borders) to make the Pokemon's actions and motion really stand out. I like them, but I have noticed that his newer stuff is just so much better than his holder stuff.

But I have to disagree with you Adam, Masakazu Fukuda does a great job of showing action and fluidity.
But his style is a lot more realistic - or should I say sugimori-like.
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He is by far my least favorite of the TCG artists and the only one whose work I dislike, personally. I really don't like his shading/coloring style, the poses are made a weird, unappealing angles and most of all I hate how the Pokemon tend to be sweating or have painful/angry expressions on their faces in most of his artwork.

To be fair, he has gotten better over time, and there's occasional recent cards where I get and respect what he did. Some of his earliest cards were just horrendous though.
 
I think I said it in my post, Zach, but I meant Fukuda's style in the fifth generation. His previous artwork was great -- especially the * cards. However, look at anything from BW-on and it all looks the same. Bland. Boring. Uninspired. To me, at least. Most of them just show the Pokémon standing there...

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Whereas there are the ones much better, such as...
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The general majority of Komiya's work is at interesting angles, whereas not many of Fukuda's recent work does. I think it's that Fukuda's work now looks too...digital, too perfect. Plus a lot of them have that bizarre white outline -- makes them stand out from the background too much. Perhaps that's it, I dunno.

One of my favorite pieces my Komiya...
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I love the monochromatic look.
 
I remember that Dark Omanyte. I think that's actually done with physical media, and it's the sort of thing I would like to frame upon a wall. It would definitely not look out of place in an art museum, that's for sure. I'd say my favorites are Double Gust, Houndour from EX Team Rocket Returns, and Exeggcute from FireRed/LeafGreen.

Double Gust is one of his earliest works, but I like it because it portrays what someone playing the card would likely do with it. Sentret and Hoothoot are in a good mood, but Hoppip doesn't feel too well, and so the person calling the Double Gust picks Hoppip. Houndour has just broken into somebody's cabin (you can see the hole in the wall in the back), knocked over the furniture, and is busy munching away at the apples. I'd assume that it's the same cabin as the other Houndour in the set (#59, illustrated by Naoyo Kimura) and probably the same Houndour, but I like Komiya's better because of the sheer energy. Each of the eggs in Exeggcute has a different expression, but the center one is definitely the focus. All of the other eggs are staring at how much of the shell is gone from the center egg, revealing the yolk inside--but this egg seems perfectly content. It's the only one that's smiling.
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And yeah, looking at people's opinions here, he is definitely a polarizing artist. You either love his stuff or you hate them.

I remember Masakazu Fukuda began doing fully-evolved Pokémon and/or really rare cards, and when he first came onto the scene, I really liked his stuff. Now, he seems to make Pokémon from every part of the evolution line, and if you ask me, his work doesn't really have much passion to it unless it's fully-evolved, almost like it's a chore. It's like with Hikaru Koike--those artists just don't seem to be "in it," so to speak, unless they're drawing something that looks powerful and fearsome.

Apparently, Komiya draws some Pokémon manga too. I'd like to see what that looks like, because it'd be pretty unusual.
 
I don't really like Komiya's style, it looks rather childish and the pokémon look weird as someone said above...
I prefer Kouki Saitou, the pokémon look more realistic...
 
I originally hated Komiya, but with time I really started to appreciate how unique their art was and it actually was a very nice opportunity that these cards were presenting the sort of work you'd probably never see, well, anywhere.

Like has been mentioned, the TCG feels like it has entered somewhat of an uninspired era, and even though the art's very clean, representative, and bright, it also feels somewhat blander for it. It's in this context of the past few years I've started to reevaluate my thoughts about some of the 'stranger' art the TCG has always had, and especially when you consider some more unique artists (Fukuda et al.) are starting to err towards a more generic style, something like a Komiya card showing up in a pack is always nice.

For the other lingering trains of thought in this conversation -- not caring for the artwork in this TCG seems ridiculous. So much of it is amazing, and they do make a great effort to bring a range of styles you might not usually see (yes, like Komiya) into the mix. I don't want to come across as bitter, but if you're apathetic to the artwork in this series, I'm sure there are better strategic games you'd be better off playing (I don't want to come across as apathetic or worse towards any myriad of reasons to play a particular game, but acting blase towards the art in this series.. well, you're really only hurting yourself). Other lingering topic of favorite artist -- Midori Harada. I'm planning on starting to collect all the cards they've done artwork for... I know there are artists that appeal to me a bit more like Kouki Saitou and some of these newer artists they've brought on like kawayoo and MAHOU, but I'd be able to survive if they stopped doing artwork for the series. Harada leaving really would 'break my heart' in a way, their style is amazing and the TCG has done a fantastic thing in regularly including her art.
 
Yeah, I'm definitely on the hate-side. His illustrations are probably the only ones I always hate, too...
I think his art was actually what put me off collecting entire sets - I didn't want to force myself to acquire more of his art.
 
I guess none of you guys are old enough on this site to remember him, but we had our very own Tomokazu Komiya a couple years ago. He was a fan. I remember when he first joined, people thought it really was Tomokazu Komiya joining our forums, lol. But no. Just a fan. He was cool. :[

I... uh... don't really know what to say about the artwork. I think that how "terrible" it looks is what draws people to it. I mean, you got some slicktastic artwork by Ken Sugimori artists posted in this thread, and then bam. Houndour. Kinda throws you for a loop.
 
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