This art was done by my friend Daniël Koper, who also did the Cheep Cheep Island and Broken Pier illustrations based on the Mario Kart: Super Circuit tracks of the same name. Go check out my Gallery if you're curious.

Here's a bit of my personal history revolving around this Pokémon: Sandslash is my favorite Pokémon of all time, since I caught it as a Sandshrew on Route 113 -- the Volcanic Ash path -- in Ruby, and then trained it all the way up to Level 100. It is also the first ever Pokémon to reach that level by my training. In other words, it's the first one I ever leveled up to 100. Sandslash, together with my Swampert and Pelipper, has helped me win the Hoenn Pokémon League by barely holding on during the Champion Steven battle and defeating the last Pokémon he had in his party. Sandslash, as of now, knows the TM move Cut, another TM being Strength, and, in my opinion its signature move -- Aerial Ace! Thanks to this one specific move, I've won a lot of close battles with difficult Trainers, like the one against Maxie -- the Leader of the evil team in this version, Team Magma (in Sapphire it's Leader Archie from Team Aqua) -- and the Rival character May (I chose Brendan as my character because I'm a boy). Sandslash also helped me get through the Hoenn Victory Road at some points with the aforementioned Strength, to push those darn boulders that get in your way all the time, you know? This may sound like I'm using Sandslash as an HM Slave, but I'm way too attached to it by now, so I think calling it an HM Slave, is undeserved.

But like I said at the beginning, I now own this awesome drawing of my Signature Pokémon Sandslash thanks to my coach and good friend Daniël Koper. Thank you very much for all of your hard work, Daniël!