“Its wings can carry this Pokémon close to an altitude of 4,600 feet.”

This is the very first drawing I made of Sirius, way back in December 2015. At the time, the character was unnamed, and only acquired his full name and personality several years later.

This drawing was made in response to a prank made by my former partner. I wanted to prank him back, and put together this little piece of art as part of that. He was only familiar with Pokémon from Generation I, so I thought I’d draw one of the most iconic Pokémon I could think of from that Generation. And thus, in a small way, Sirius was born. Drawing this Charizard on the spur of the moment was a good choice, I think!

The prank involved a physical copy of this piece of art. Much to my surprise, I came across this guy again years later. Unknown to me, my partner had kept him around, which was sweet of him. It’s nice to look back and think that this Charizard was well received!

Because of the quick decision I made to draw this picture, I ended up having very little time to work on it. I was only passing through and staying the night, and after that I was travelling to do some work and visit family. I wouldn’t return for several weeks, so if I wanted to get the picture ready in time for the prank to work, I had less than a day to work on it. As a result, this picture ended up being drawn in less than ideal circumstances!

About half of the work was drawn on a crowded train. It was the first time I’d drawn on transport, and I was happy to find that it wasn’t as difficult as I’d expected. The jolts of the train’s movements weren’t too severe and, while I did sometimes have to redraw some lines and edges because of the movement, it didn’t significantly interfere with the process of drawing. It was actually a very fun way to spend a long train journey, and I’ve ended up doing something similar on future journeys!

When I arrived home, I had another surprise. While I’d been away, a crack has opened in the ceiling of my kitchen that was spilling water onto the kitchen floor. I called in a plumber, but they couldn’t arrive until after I had left the following day. I had to resort to keeping the water at bay with pans that evening. Thankfully, the water flow was slight enough that I managed to prevent any further flooding while I was there. The trouble was fixed by some excellent plumbing and maintenance staff later on. It did mean, though, that I was finishing off this picture while trying not to worry about water damage in the house! 

Overall, I was working on this piece of work for less than 12 hours. I made close use of a model for this work in order to study how to draw a Charizard. I was very pleased with the result in that short period of time, especially as it was the first time I’d drawn this Pokémon. I was happy enough with this piece of work that I decided to draw several more pieces in the same way. This piece of art was one of three short pieces drawn to celebrate Pokémon’s 20th anniversary. Each drawing showed one of the three normal final evolutions of the three Kanto starters, with the other two being Blastoise and Venusaur. Maybe I’ll upload those two on here at some point!

As for some suitable music for this artwork, this seems about the most fitting:

<Pokémon Theme (Movie Version)>

The Charizard is modelled on a Charizard from the Pokémon anime although, sadly, at the time I didn’t record the particular episode used for references. If I come across it again, I’ll update this description!