Ken Sugimori

nihongo|Ken Sugimori|杉森建|Sugimori Ken (born January 27, 1966 in Tokyo) is a Japanese illustrator most famous for being the art director of Pokémon franchise. A friend of Satoshi Tajiri, the creator of the franchise, Sugimori is responsible for the bulk of Pokémon art and almost single-handedly designed the first 251 Pokémon (since "Pokémon Ruby" and "Sapphire", others have helped to design the characters). He is also responsible for designing many of the main characters in the Pokémon video games, such as Red, Blue, and the various Gym Leaders.Also among his work is a majority of early Pokémon cards.Ken Sugimori also helped with the design of Pokémon characters on the popular video games "Super Smash Bros." and "Super Smash Bros. Melee", and was the prime character designer for "Pulseman", an earlier game by Game Freak for the "Sega Mega Drive". He also participated in the Game Freak event in which he and two others traded their Psyducks for Ponytas.

Works

*"Pokémon" (TV): character design
*"": Original character design
*"": Original character design
*"": Conceptual character artist
*"Drill Dozer": Director/Game Design
*"Pulseman": Character Design/Artist
*"Pokémon Trading Card Game": main card artist