Asako Ito
37 cards illustrated by Asako Ito.
Ito is the artist who doesn't paint or draw at all — she crochets. Each of her Pokémon is a little yarn doll she makes by hand, then photographs against a soft background built from felt, so what you're looking at is a real, huggable, three-dimensional thing, stitches and all. She taught herself to knit at university (she'd actually trained in oil painting), and once you've clocked her style you'll spot it instantly — she's the knitting equivalent of Yuka Morii's clay models. Her cards are cult favourites for exactly that reason: nothing else in a binder looks remotely like them.
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