Pokémon TCG Reveals 2022 Illustration Contest Entries: Cramorant

Get ready for a new series here at Bleeding Cool that will show off some of the best Pokémon TCG artwork you’ve ever seen. There is an interesting twist, though. These illustrations are not, in fact, coming to an upcoming Pokémon TCG expansion like our other preview series. In fact, most of these will never become cards at all. What you’re seeing in this series is a collection of the annual Pokémon TCG Illustration Contest submissions that have now been made public. These my personal selections from the Top 300 submissions as picked by TPCI. Today, let’s take a look at the Cramorant cards included in this bunch.

April Borchelt submitted a Cramorant very eager to fish for some Arrokuda. There’s something hilariously dog-like of the way Cramorant presents the Fishing Rod to us.

The Cramorant depicted in Austin Pettit‘s hilarious submission shows the Pokémon taking a far more direct approach as it dives, open-mouthed through a swarm of Arrokuda and Luvdisc.

I love how both of these take extremely different approaches, with April’s painterly and realistic and Austin’s cartoony.

buboplague and Jairo Contreras both offer incredible painterly takes. Each of these is absolutely stunning, and I can’t help but try to imagine them rendered as Alternate Art Vs. They’d be among my favorites ever printed.

Again, we get very different takes from Miranda Jacoby and Noctem, with both upholding the theme of this being a very food-obsessed Pokémon. My absolute favorite here is the indignant Espurr looking after the bread-snatching Cramorant.

Sicong Sui and Kanami Ogata also take different approaches, with the former looking like a portrait you’d see hanging in a sea captain’s cabin and the other offering a bright and cute look at Cramorant stealing from a kitchen prep table.

Stay tuned for the continuing journey through these incredible submissions to the Pokémon TCG 2022 Illustration contest. For more illustrations, you can check out the entire collection right here.