This drawing was originally started up in late 2020, when my then-new friend told me about how much he liked the nightgown design I did for Melee back in 2016. The comment left me feeling rather inspired, and it prompted me to try my hand at drawing his shark in such a gown. After all, he seemed like a cool person, I liked his shark, and I needed an excuse to draw something that wasn't my characters... why not make him something quick as a token of good faith between us? So I did, all the while taking some liberties with the gown design to not only help differentiate it from Melee's gown, but also to suit his sharksona's design a little better. He really liked the sketch I did for him, prompting me to continue working on the drawing, making it all the way to the shading stage...!

And then I just... stopped soon after. I guess the prospect of shading everything proved to be too intimidating for me, especially considering how long it's been since I last did any sort of digital art. But I wound up sitting on it for some time.

Kal never nagged me about it, though, knowing it the pic was always just a gift and I had no obligations to do even as much as I did on it, but he did occasionally drop hints stating he loved the WIPs I shared prior and hoped I would finish the piece one day. Come 2022 when I begin working on updated ref sheets of my characters, and he once again makes a comment about how much he liked the then-WIP I did of his shark and continued to express hope I would be motivated to complete it... as he was a terrific friend to me thus far and only ever encouraged me to keep doing art, I made a promise that I would not do any more work on my character ref sheets until this pic was completed... and so I finished it up that year.