Ken Sugimori (born January 27, 1966 in Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese video game designer, illustrator, manga artist, and director best known for creating the visual identity of Pokémon. He drew all 151 original Pokémon himself and has shaped the franchise's art direction ever since, working across games, movies, and trading cards. Beyond Pokémon, he's contributed art direction to titles like Pulseman and the Super Smash Bros. series.
His path to game design started in the early '80s when he discovered Game Freak, a gaming fanzine run by Satoshi Tajiri, at a dōjinshi shop. Sugimori got involved with the magazine and eventually he and Tajiri decided to pitch an arcade game to Namco, transforming Game Freak into an actual development company in the process. Their first game was Mendel Palace.
When designing Pokémon Black and White, Sugimori directed a team of 17 character designers but made a point of personally drawing all final designs. He draws heavy inspiration from real animals, often visiting aquariums and zoos to observe them. Beyond game work, he's also written and illustrated original manga, including a piece distributed with preorders of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time and Explorers of Darkness.
His design process is fairly methodical: he starts with a rough sketch, traces it onto film paper while refining it into something polished, then iterates on proportions until the character feels right.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
