This is my illustrated take on the Charizard V Alternate Full Art (SWSH154/172) from Brilliant Stars, one of the most cinematic alt arts of the Sword & Shield era. The original card by Ryota Murayama shows Charizard reaching down with talons bared, fire ready, while Venusaur lurks in the rocks below, vines already whipping forward to strike. It's the Fire-vs-Grass starter rivalry, captured in a single frozen moment of action.

The matchup itself is iconic. Anyone who picked Charmander in Red or Blue and faced down a Grass gym leader knows this energy. Anyone who's played the TCG knows that this matchup, on paper, should favor Charizard. But the art doesn't tell you who wins. It tells you the fight is on.

Like every print at Palette Town, this Charizard vs Venusaur scene started as a TCG card I love and got rebuilt from scratch in Adobe Illustrator. There's no painting and no photography in here. Every flame, every vine, every spark in the air is a vector shape I drew by hand and stacked in layers. Even what looks like linework is shapes. It's slower than digital painting, but it means the file scales cleanly to any size. The print on your wall looks exactly as crisp at 24"x32" as it does at 8"x10", and the action stays punchy whether you go matte or semi-gloss.

If this is the rivalry that defined Pokémon for you, this is the print.