Meowscarada · Scarlet & Violet (SVI) #015

3 comments

1. 

   Twylis

   (2 years ago)

   I’ve always wondered if extremely diagonal artworks like this are a creative decision on the part of the illustrator, or something done by the card design team later in the process to better center the pokemon in the illustration box. Could also vary case-by-case. The dreamlike feel of it definitely complements the magician motif of Meowscarada well, though!

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     TwylisTwylis

     (2 years ago)

     As I stare at it more, I’m inclined to believe the tilt was done by — or at least exaggerated by — the card design team. It would be a compositionally odd choice for Murayama to make the floating plant’s flower perfectly parallel to the border. But the persective is also wonderfully tilted and warped within the art itself, so I don’t think it was ever intended to be perfectly straight either.

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       AmbassadorTwylis

       (2 years ago)

       I invariably assume it’s a choice by the artist. This is something I first noticed when looking at Atsuko Nishida’s artwork; especially during Gen 3 (though her N2 Espeon’s a great example), many of her works are compositionally oriented at (roughly) 30~45 degree angles.

       The card art border dimensions aren’t always ideal and impose their own sorts of limitations in terms of the possible composition of a piece, and angling the artwork is a way of “cheating” that limitation – e.g. here, it’s allowing you to see the Pokémon’s entire profile, without cutting out the legs or having to have it in some crouched post.

       I’m sure the card design team might rotate some pieces by (picking random numbers here) 1~5 degrees here and there, but the only reason I’d see them doing any significant rotations *beyond that* would be if there was a card, originally meant to be a full art card, that ended up getting “demoted” to a standard art.

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