I wanted to create a @Pokemon card that lets you see the evolution before it happens. I started working on GLIMPSE last week, an unofficial, AI-assisted Special Illustration Rare concept where the first-stage Pokémon fills the artwork while its final evolution is already waiting inside its eye. I’m putting that first because AI was part of this process and I have no interest in hiding it. But it would be equally misleading to describe the finished concept as the result of just a few prompts. The whole process involved concept writing, visual research, repeated art direction, AI-assisted exploration, Photoshop composition, masking, colour correction, typography, card-layout refinement, etc. I didn’t begin by asking AI to make a Pokémon card. I began with a question. What if a first-stage Pokémon could already show you what it will become? Here is the complete creative process behind it for those who care enough to keep reading: CHAPTER 1 ---> THE IDEA Collectors rarely look at Charmander and see only Charmander. We remember what it becomes at level 36. Every small starter carries the promise of something much greater and that is the magic behind the "every journey starts with a choice." famous line. I wanted to capture that feeling on a card. Charizard could not simply appear in the background or stand beside Charmander. That would show an evolution line but it would not tell a story. Its presence needed to feel hidden somehow. So my solution was the eye. At first ofc you all see Charmander. When you look closer, you discover Charizard waiting inside its iris. That was the moment the concept became GLIMPSE. CHAPTER 2 ---> CREATING THE RULES To become a concept, GLIMPSE needed a visual system that could work across many different Pokémon. I established three rules: 1. The first-stage Pokémon must dominate the composition. 2. The final evolution may appear only inside its eye. 3. The holographic effect must be limited to the iris. That last rule became especially important. The holofoil could not simply make the card shinier, it needed to participate in the story as well. Most of the card would remain matte. When the collector tilts it towards the light, the iris comes alive and the final evolution becomes more visible, so the future is literally revealed by light. CHAPTER 3 ---> WHY CHARMANDER CAME FIRST Charmander was the perfect first experiment because the emotional distance between its first and final forms is enormous. Charizard became the most recognisable Pokémon ever created. Collectors already understand the journey between Charmander and Zard without needing an explanation. That made the concept instantly readable but it also created a difficult artistic problem I had to solve. Charizard could not look like a miniature illustration pasted into a blue circle. The electric blue iris was developed to contrast with Charmander’s orange skin and Charizard’s flames. Violet fragments added depth while the crystalline highlights created a surface that could plausibly become holographic on a physical card. The eye needed to work as a beautiful image from a distance and reveal its real meaning only when examined closely. CHAPTER 4 ---> THE VERSIONS THAT FAILED The final artwork looks simple because all the wrong decisions have been removed. Early versions showed too much of Charmander and made the eye feel secondary. Some looked like game renders rather than Pokémon card illustrations. Others were too dark or too realistic. Even after the composition started working, the balance between the eye, the face, the volcanic background and the card information still needed repeated corrections. Most of the work was pretty much maximizing simplicity and deciding what did not belong. CHAPTER 5 ---> THE TOOLS AND WORKFLOW The process moved back and forth between several tools. GPT and Claude were used as collaborative spaces for concept development, writing, criticism and repeated art-direction decisions. AI image generation helped explore different compositions, eye treatments, lighting conditions and ways of integrating Charizard into the iris. The usable results were then taken into Photoshop for compositing, masking, cleanup, colour correction, contrast work, layout refinement and a few other experiments. The workflow was not linear and I am sure I could have done a better job here. A visual result would reveal a problem in the concept. Correcting the concept would require a new image. That image would then need further art direction, selection and Photoshop work again (zora is not a workflow expert at all). AI accelerated the ability to test possibilities. It did not remove the need to decide which possibilities were worth developing. CHAPTER 6 ---> BUILDING THE DEVELOPMENT SHEET I could have shared only the finished card but that would have hidden the most interesting part of the project. The development sheet was created to explain why GLIMPSE exists. It shows the eye as a construction study, the final evolution within the iris, the colour relationship between flame orange, electric cyan and evolution violet, and the idea of using holofoil only where the future lives. Even that presentation went through several completely different versions. The first direction looked too corporate, almost as if I was going to show this in a pitch deck to a VC lol. I rejected it and rebuilt the presentation as a physical concept page with textured paper, painted pigment tests, handwritten notes, foil studies and the completed card attached as the final outcome. All of these elements came after spending decent time checking concepts online that I enjoyed. CHAPTER 7 ---> THE ROLE OF AI As I said before, YES, this is AI-assisted work. I am not an illustrator, I was not born with that gift and that is why I absolutely respect card illustrators for being able to bring concepts to life just through a pencil and their imagination. But I also will not pretend that AI arrived with the idea for GLIMPSE, established the rules of the series, understood why one version failed, selected the right composition, developed the card identity or decided when the work was finally communicating what I intended. AI produced visual possibilities. Photoshop provided control over how those possibilities were combined and refined. Art direction connected every decision to the original idea. CHAPTER 8 ---> WHAT GLIMPSE COULD BECOME Charmander is prototype 001 but GLIMPSE was designed to allow anyone to continue this card series and play with the concept. The same visual rule could produce very different emotions across different evolution families. One eye might contain power, another could hold beauty, rage, you decide. That is the real idea behind GLIMPSE. Not a card that shows two Pokémon like TAG TEAM, but a card about future potential. I truly hope you like this concept and if you enjoy my posts, it would mean a lot if you could leave me a follow to support my journey as a Pokémon creator and, above all, collector ⭐️ Much love. Z.