Bear Den TCG

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  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: day 12

    Day 12’s gift is a pack of Destined Rivals!

    Today I just pulled out one card, this Shaymin by tono. What stood out to me was the way the Gracidea was centered within the composition, especially since the pink stands out against the soft sea of greens, pinks and whites. It’s almost like Shaymin itself blends in to the environment it strives to protect, while the symbol of its gratitude is the focal point instead. Of course, the background itself is beautifully painted, bringing life to the wetlands. A lovely piece of art with an excellent composition!

  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: day 11

    Today’s gift is another fun pack, but this time it’s Destined Rivals! Let’s take a look at the three cards we got today:

    We got Marnie’s Scrafty, with artwork by Kazumasa Yasukuni; Steven’s Carbink, by Ligton; and Team Rocket’s Nidoran ♂, illustrated by buchi. For this set, let’s look at how the backgrounds of card art complement the subject of the card! For the Scrafty, the neon lights and gym exterior make it clear that this card is staged right outside Spikemuth’s Gym; Marnie herself is from Spikemuth, so it connects to her story! Carbink’s card is set inside a crystal-ridden cave; as a rare stone collector, Steven would be right at home exploring these caves and collecting samples. And Nidoran ♂ stands proud in a smoky lab office, like those that Team Rocket use for their research and experiments. It’s great to see a trio of cards that show storytelling through their artwork, as they make the Pokémon world feel so much fuller and more developed!

  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: day 10

    Day 10’s gift, once again, is a Journey Together fun pack! Here’s our three cards:

    Today we have Hop’s Rookidee by Shinya Mizuno, Skwovet by sowsow, and Lombre by Mousho! There’s something to love about all three of these illustrations: Rookidee has some painterly lighting and shading reminiscent of vintage official art; Lombre has a texture like watercolor paper that gives it a tactile feeling; and I’m personally very fond of sowsow’s cards, which tend to have some great playful poses and sketchy brushwork that feels alive!

  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: days 8 and 9

    Whoops, missed a day! No worries, let’s catch up:

    Day 8’s gift was a Journey Together fun pack! These packs contain only three cards, so let’s see what we got:

    We got the wonderfully pleasant Nymble and N’s Klink by Ayako Ozaki and Saboteri respectively, but this is actually my first time seeing this beautiful artwork of Sensu-style Oricorio by aspara! The Pokémon itself is perfectly framed by the water rippling around the rock it’s standing on and the curve of the shore, drawing the eye to the center of the image. The natural colour palette of slightly muted blues and greens really complements Oricorio’s purples and pale green. It really is a gorgeous artwork of an underrated Pokémon!

    As for day nine, we got this Crabominable by Mitsuhiro Arita. Originally from Stellar Crown, this full art is wonderfully subtle in its execution, with Crabominable’s massive shape emerging from the haze of the blizzard. It really does look better in person than in my camera, so I’d encourage you to take a look! Of course, this version comes with the holiday snowflake stamp too!

  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: day 7

    For day 7, our gift in a pack of Paradox Rift! Let’s see our hit…

    An illustration rare of Iron Jugulis! This card has artwork by GIDORA; Iron Jugulis looks right at home above a neon-lit cityscape. The bright colours contrast great with the dark night sky!

  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: day 6

    Today’s gift was this sticker sheet! Alongside some snowflake and Poké Balls, there’s a Happy Holidays emblem and some of the Pokémon artwork from the Holiday Calendar’s spread; Eevee, Pikachu, Alcremie, Tinkaton and Audino! Happy Holidays!

  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: day 5

    For day five, we get another pack of Journey Together!

    Our big pull was Iono’s Bellibolt ex, but I decided to pull a couple of cards that have artwork with similar vibes. Both use very clean lines and a limited colour range to capture a lovely cartoony essence. The Wingull by Mékayu has some great little details, like the swirls in the clouds and specks of light on the ocean, that bring the scene together. The Metapod by OKUBO, on the other hand, uses strong geometric shapes and lines to create a sense of contrast between the hard edges of the Metapod itself and the rounded curves of the greenery. Both are delightful!

  • pokémon holiday calendar 2025: day 4

    Today’s gift was a pack of Temporal Forces! Let’s take a look at some artwork from this set.

    I picked out these three cards to highlight! First is this Meltan by Taiga Kayama; I love the bubbly style with the soft, rounded shapes of the plants and tree trunk and light, cheerful colours. Second, Turtwig by OKACHEKE; the backlighting here is beautiful, creating such vibrant greens and yellows to perfectly showcase Turtwig. And lastly, this Tranquil by Pani Kobayashi; the oranges and pinks of the sunsetting sky above Tranquil are a beautiful contrast to the greys of the Pokémon herself.

    Though we’re now approaching deep winter, these three cards were sunny enough to brighten my day!

  • pokemon holiday calendar 2025: day 3

    Today’s gift is this Delibird card! Originally from Paldea Evolved with artwork by miki kuda, I love this paper cut-out art style! The slight drop shadow ‘layers’ for example between Delibird’s sack and body, combined with the distance blur in the foreground and background, work together to create something that seems both 2D and 3D at once. This version has the snowflake holiday stamp and sparkly holo speckles!

  • pokemon holiday calendar 2025: day 2

    Today we got a pack of Journey Together! Sidenote, I love the cover illustrations for this set, and Lillie’s is my favourite as Clefairy is one of my favourite Pokémon 🙂

    No spectacular pulls, but there’s some really nice artwork in this set, and I’ve actually not seen this Komala before! The artwork for this one is by Natsumi Yoshida, and I love the cartoony but calm outlines and colours. I also picked out the Banette by Anesaki Dynamic and Pangoro by nagimiso, as they both have some really dynamic posing and effects that showcase the power of these Pokémon.

    Non-calendar related but Mega Lucario Z was revealed today. I’m not a huge fan of the design but maybe it will grow on me as Mega Dimensions gets closer?!