It's hard to believe, but a 25-year-old art graduate by the name of Micah Yates somehow managed to make the already stunning artwork featured on Pokémon Trading Cards even better.

The Kentucky-based Instagram artist, who also goes by the online alias Lunumbra, does this by removing the border on the card and painting over all the important information required to follow the rules of the game.

While her artwork has been around for a number of years now, Yates recently spoke to the BBC about how it all began.

"I always wondered what was behind the square on the Pokemon card. This is an opportunity to take the border off the artwork and see what's behind it.

When Yates started painting cards in 2014, she was attending art school and actually wanted to be an animator instead. This all changed when her artwork for ten painted Pokemon trading cards went viral on Reddit overnight and people began paying her. Each card now fetches a reasonable sum:

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"They usually go for between $70 and $90, but my Snorlax card went for $300. I don't know why - I think people just like Snorlax!"

She once a sold an Umbreon and Espeon pair for $400 and also gets sales from her paintings as well, which sometimes sell for upwards of $300 (£230). Take a look at all of Yates' borderless Pokémon TCG artwork below:

If you want to see more of these lovely cards, visit Lunumbra's Instagram page.

[source bbc.co.uk]