This Gengar is my illustrated take on the Gengar VMAX Alternate Art (SWSH271/264) from Fusion Strike, more commonly known to the TCG community as Gigantamax Gengar or Gmax Gengar. The original card by 5ban Graphics shows the Gigantamax form mid-laugh, that enormous wicked mouth wide open, smoke pouring out, hands clawing through the haze. It's one of the more genuinely unsettling cards the Pokémon TCG has ever printed, and one of the most beloved alt arts of the Sword & Shield era for exactly that reason.

The Gigantamax form is something else. Regular Gengar is mischievous. Gigantamax Gengar is cosmic horror. The mouth opens to what looks like another dimension. The smile is too wide. You can almost hear the laugh. If Halloween had a patron Pokémon card, this would be it.

Like every print at Palette Town, this Gengar started as a TCG card I love and got rebuilt from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. There's no painting and no photography in here. Every smoke wisp, every clawed hand, every glint in those red eyes is a vector shape I drew by hand and stacked in layers. Even what looks like linework is shapes. It's slower than digital painting, but it means the file scales cleanly to any size. The print on your wall looks exactly as crisp at 24"x32" as it does at 8"x10", and the deep purples and smoke effects stay punchy whether you go matte or semi-gloss.

If Gengar is your guy and you love the Gigantamax design, this is the scene that captures him at his most iconic and most terrifying.