Bear Den TCG

Our gift for day 23 is a booster pack of Destined Rivals! Let’s pick some cards to focus on.

I picked out these two: Team Rocket’s Dottler by Scav, and Medicham by Whisker. The Dottler, I found interesting for the detail used in the environment around it. By detailing individual blades of grass, ridges on the bark of trees and mushrooms growing on the wood, Scav creates a sense of scale that we subconsciously measure the Dottler against, so it looks small despite filling the center of the image. I also liked the use of purple to light the edges of the trees in the background, which brings to mind the ambient lighting of the night sky. Medicham is almost the opposite; Whisker’s use of a chunky, textured brush gives the lineless style a strong sense of light and environment, from the crumpled suggestion of water plants to the surface of the lilypads to even the dithered edges of the shadows. It feels tactile in a completely different way.

For day 24, we get this promo card of Glaceon ex! Originally from Prismatic Evolutions, this version comes with a snowflake stamp and some extra sparkly holo!

And our final gift for day 25 is (slightly underwhelmingly) a fun pack of Destined Rivals!

And for our final card highlight, I chose this Arven’s Toadscool illustrated by Fujimoto Gold! I love the strong lighting in this image, with crisp edges to the shadows and Toedscool itself being backlit, but mostly I love the motion at work here! Toedscool’s running animation has always been just great to me, and seeing it in a static image like this is the result of masterful motion blur and foreshortening. I love it!