A Dereham artist has painted a giant Pokémon mural on the side of a Norwich tattoo parlour to celebrate how Pokémon Go is bringing people together.

AsOne of AsOneArts graffitied the five-metre Gyarados behind the Sith Tattoo Studio on Heigham Street after seeing how the popular app had taken off in the county.

The 32-year-old had grown up playing the original Pokémon games and said he has been amazed at how the new game has created a sense of community among its players.

'I have downloaded the new game and am an avid player of it and the best part of it is that the Pokémon can pop up anywhere so I thought painting this on a wall would link into that,' he said. 'I spend a lot of time in Dereham sat on a green where mothers and daughters, sons and fathers, partners and all sorts of people sit there and play Pokémon together and chat about it like a little community.

'But some people just don't get it and shout insults as they drive pass which where the line 'they see me training' came from as it links to the lyric 'they see me rollin they hatin' and I thought it fitted well.'

The augmented reality game - which is attracting thousands of new players in the city - involves finding virtual Pokémon characters in different real locations with many famous landmarks in the city being home to the elusive characters.

The mural took AsOne about five hours to paint on Wednesday. He chose to depict Gyrados as it appears on the loading screen of the game and is very well known.

He said: 'The positives of playing this game really outweigh the negatives. I haven't bumped into any lamp posts yet from looking down and playing on my phone but I have bumped into many different and interesting people who I would have never encountered if I wasn't playing the game.'