Magic The Gathering taps iconic Pokemon Trading Card game artist for Bloomburrow set
Wizards of the Coast is bringing Pokemon card royalty to Magic of the Gathering with Bloomburrow, as Mitsuhiro Arita makes his debut.
08th Jul 2024 15:40
Mitsuhiro Arita
Magic The Gathering taps iconic Pokemon Trading Card game artist for Bloomburrow set
Wizards of the Coast is bringing Pokemon card royalty to Magic of the Gathering with Bloomburrow, as Mitsuhiro Arita makes his debut.
08th Jul 2024 15:40
Mitsuhiro Arita
Magic The Gathering's Bloomburrow set previews are set to go live this week (it might be worth keeping an eye on this very site in the coming days), but one card that's already been revealed may have slipped by unnoticed.
Aside from Lumra, Bellow of the Woods being a great-looking card, showcasing a very angry-looking bear, you may have missed that it's been illustrated by Mitsuhiro Arita - a name likely to be very familiar to Pokemon fans.
Pokemon artist creates stunning new Magic The Gathering card
Arita has been working on the Pokemon TCG since its very start, developing prototype cards and using Pokemon Red and Green's sprites for inspiration. According to Bulbapedia, he's contributed to almost 700 cards for the set. In fact, he worked on the initial prints of Squirtle, Pikachu, and the entire Charmander evolution line (I'm still mad I never packed the Charizard, but I digress).
While those early Pokemon designs have a colourful, almost watercolour look at times, his work on Bloomburrow couldn't be more different.
Lumra, Bellow of the Woods, is a more realistic-looking bear, at least in Arita's interpretation. His artwork is only on the borderless version of the card, while Matt Stewart and Allen Douglas have worked on the standard and showcase "Field Notes" version (thanks, Scryfall).
Here's hoping to see more of Arita's designs in the future because it's not often you get fresh card art from an industry legend.
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Lloyd Coombes
Lloyd is GGRecon's Editor-in-Chief, having previously worked at Dexerto and Gfinity, and occasionally appears in The Daily Star newspaper. A big fan of loot-based games including Destiny 2 and Diablo 4, when he's not working you'll find him at the gym or trying to play Magic The Gathering.
