Gorebyss Card Art: Artist Profiles and Signature Styles

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Gorebyss card art by Kagemaru Himeno from Hidden Legends

Image courtesy of TCGdex.net

Gorebyss Art Spotlight: Artist Profiles and Signature Styles

The Gorebyss card from Hidden Legends is more than a stats sheet on a trainer’s desk—it’s a window into how a single illustrator can elevate a creature with mood, movement, and a sense of underwater mystery. Gorebyss, a Water-type evolution of Clamperl, is a stage 1 Pokémon that wears its rarity on its shimmering sleeve. With 70 HP and a pair of precise, tactically flavored attacks, this card invites players and collectors to study not just the game text but the brushwork that anchors it in memory. ⚡🔥

Artist at a glance

  • Illustrator: Kagemaru Himeno
  • Card name: Gorebyss
  • Set: Hidden Legends (ex5)
  • Rarity: Rare
  • HP: 70
  • Type: Water
  • Stage: Stage1
  • Evolves From: Clamperl
  • Attacks: Stun Needle (Colorless) for 10, with a coin-flip chance to paralyze; Mystic Water (Water + Colorless) for 20 plus 10 more for each Psychic Energy in play
  • Weakness: Lightning ×2
  • Variants: holo, normal, reverse
  • Legal in formats: Not standard or expanded in modern play

Himeno’s signature style—soft gradients, fluid lines, and an almost liquid sense of motion—feels perfectly suited to Gorebyss, a serpentine water creature that seems to glide just beneath the surface. The art captures the creature’s elegance while anchoring it in a moment of tension: a still, luminous underwater world where light refracts along the creature’s curves. The result is a card that looks alive in a way that invites both strategic study and a slow, reverent appreciation for the artist’s craft. 🎨

Signature style in Gorebyss: what to look for

In Gorebyss, Himeno leans into the elegance of sinewy form and the shimmer of water. You’ll notice a carefully controlled palette—cool blues and teals offset by gentle pinks or purples—that creates depth without sacrificing readability of the card text. The Gorebyss silhouette stretches with a graceful arc, a deliberate emphasis on proportion and rhythm that helps the card feel like a living, moving piece rather than a static illustration. Subtle highlights along the creature’s dorsal ridges and the surrounding water currents convey motion, making the artwork feel cinematic even in a compact card frame. This is a quintessential example of Himeno’s water-themed work, where the creature and its environment read as one continuous stream. 💎🎴

What sets this piece apart is not just its beauty, but its utility in storytelling. In the Pokémon TCG, art often becomes shorthand for a strategy or a mood. Gorebyss’s Stun Needle attack, with a coin-flip paralysis chance, sits alongside Mystic Water’s damage ramp, creating a tension between tempo and inevitability—much like a well-composed frame that guides your eye from one focal point to the next. The artist’s ability to render a calm, aquatic scene while maintaining a dynamic energy parallels the card’s gameplay rhythm: a patient setup morphing into a decisive moment of impact. This synthesis—art that echoes mechanics—makes Gorebyss a memorable example of early-2000s Pokémon illustration. ⚡🔥

Gameplay and collector perspective

From a gameplay standpoint, Gorebyss brings a modest 70 HP to the table and two attacks that reward careful energy management. Stun Needle is a low-cost option that can disrupt an opponent’s plan with a flip of the coin, introducing a probabilistic element that many players learn to respect. Mystic Water scales with Psychic Energy already in play, encouraging deck builders to consider multi-type energy support or synergy with teammates that can accumulate Psychic energy on the field. The combination of Water typing and a Colorless-anchored toolkit allows Gorebyss to slot into various water-centric or mixed-utility decks that were popular in the Hidden Legends era. Weakness to Lightning ×2 adds a layer of risk when facing fast or electric-dominant opponents, reminding players that even graceful Water-types must watch for electric onslaughts. The card’s rarity and its evolution path—from Clamperl to Gorebyss—emphasize collecting, as many fans chased the whole line across multiple printings and finishes. In holo form, Gorebyss becomes a coveted piece for display cases and binder pages alike, underscoring how art can amplify value beyond raw numbers. 🪙

Pricing snapshots from late 2025 hint at broader market dynamics. On Cardmarket, the base non-holo Gorebyss sits around a modest euro value (avg near 0.97 EUR) with a wide spread between low and high, reflecting condition, print run, and market demand. On TCGPlayer, the standard version hovers around a few dollars in typical condition (low ~2.20 USD, mid ~3.29 USD, high ~5.00 USD; market around 2.64 USD). The reverse-holofoil variant commands notably more, with ranges that can push toward the mid-to-high teens in market price (low around 7 EUR, mid near 8.93 EUR, high up to 12.99 EUR; market price around 13.12 EUR). For collectors, the holo and reverse-holo printings are the true prestige cards—showcasing Himeno’s signature style in a way that catches the eye and the wallet. These numbers also illustrate a broader truth: in the modern era of reprints and reissues, late-era staples like Gorebyss ex5 can still shine as niche collectibles for fans who appreciate both the art and the mechanics. 💎🎨

As you study the Hidden Legends era, Gorebyss stands out not just for its in-game value but for the way Kagemaru Himeno translates underwater motion into a still image. The art bridges nostalgia and technique: an enduring reminder that the TCG is as much about the stories on the cards as the stories the cards tell during a match. For fans of Water-types, for collectors of rare prints, and for anyone who loves a well-told moment in a single frame, Gorebyss remains a shimmering, collectible piece of Pokémon history. 🎮

Interested in owning something that reflects this signature style in a different format? Explore the Neon Slim Phone Case for iPhone 16 Glossy Lexan Finish and see how a design ethos can translate beyond the card table—where polish and protection meet pop culture in a new, tactile way.

Neon Slim Phone Case for iPhone 16 Glossy Lexan Finish

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