Hey guess what I like Pokemon

Here let me tell you a fun little story about me during middle school. Once upon a time I was in 7th grade and Pokemon Red and Blue had just come out in the U.S. I instantly became obsessed because you got to basically train birds to battle (yes I had other Pokemon on my team). Anyway I remember very clearly saying, "I wish there was a falcon Pokemon that dived SO FAST that it would create flames with its speed". I might have even sent a letter to Nintendo begging them to make such a Pokemon, I don't remember.

And then Pokemon X and Y come out and guess what I find? THE POKEMON FROM MY 7TH GRADE YEARNING.

It only took 17 years but now I have my fire falcon Pokemon and I'm happy.

Anyway, you're probably wondering why this looks nothing like Talonflame! That's because I created it for the Concept.org Pokemon Redesign Challenge. The purpose of the challenge was to completely redesign a Pokemon as a fantasy creature - not just to paint it realistically, but to actually redesign it completely. So I took Talonflame's ability (Flame Body) and springboarded off of that.

Now I know I'm going to get someone going, "welllll Talonflame couldn't be made of lava because lava is rock and it would have to be partially rock-type", so for the sake of it still fitting within the Pokemon world, we're going to say it's not actually molten rock, but rather its feathers are made of a special material that goes molten, and then re-solidifies into feathers when it cools down. So there.

Uhhhhh some amount of hours in Photoshop.