Here it is, finally finished after two months of work. (well not EXACTLY two months straight, but it's two months later than I would have wanted it to be done.) I made this pic for my boyfriend, for his birthday. <3 Happy birthday, meine Liebe.

Although I haven't decided the chronological order exactly of the events leading to this battle, it takes place during the time period of the prequel series to Greyline (which hasn't a name yet). The two characters here are Karata (the dragon) and Marduk (the other dude).

A little backstory: The Karata dragon is actually a chimera composed of many powerful and rare creatures--some of which include multiple dragons, a phoenix, and an archaeopteryx. The beast's power was further increased by being integrated with countless crystals of various types/powers, (although the main crystal used was Myst) and blood. The dragon was also fused with a sorcerer named Qingu Karata (hence the dragon's name), in order to become a greater asset to the rebellion he and his wife Tiamat led.

Marduk is on the opposing side. He was a low-ranking soldier who had risen up and was chosen for his specialties to become fused with another chimeric beast. The Zithrae government observed the power of the Karata dragon of its enemy and wanted to make their own creature. Thus, Marduk's beast form was created.

However, due to limited resources, fusion is quite difficult to accomplish and a lot of the material needed to do so was used up in the creation of the dragon forms for Karata and Tiamat. Therefore, Marduk was basically made out of the remaining materials that the Zithrae government could scrounge up in the amount of time they had, so Marduk's beast is obviously a lot less complex, although not any less powerful.

Prior to this picture, Tiamat is killed by Marduk. Tiamat, though the leader of the rebellion, unfortunately is far weaker than Karata due to sabotage during her creation. Understandably, then, Marduk would be able to kill her (under orders from the Zithrae government). Karata is heartbroken and furious, and tracks down Marduk and the resulting battle is the one that this picture is a snapshot of.

Location, location, location. I know how it goes. Honestly, I've never really thought much about where the two fight, but the reason I drew a river and a forest in autumn was due to some questions I had asked Joe about before I made this. I asked him what his favorite genres were, favorite color, part of nature, mythological creatures, etc. I kind of strayed from the original answers a tad, but he was pleased nonetheless.

And I, too, am very pleased. This turned out far better than my hopeless lack of confidence ever could have predicted. I DREW ROCKS. AND TREES. AND A RIVER. (Believe me, folks, this is AMAZERING.) I've not had much practice with backgrounds--and nature? Let's not even get into that. But here we are, I've drawn rocks and they look relatively nice. And the trees do too. So go me.
Oh! Oh! And I did lighting! well...sort of. (Hooray Copic airbrush!!!)

There are, of course, countless flaws in this, and the quality is iffy due to the fact I had to piece many scans of this together in photoshop, but other than that, it's pretty snazzy, methinks.

Materials used:
Posterboard from Walgreens
Fibracolor markers
Galaxy markers (these things are the shit)
Copic markers
Copic airbrush
Ballpoint pen, mechanical pencil, eraser stick (duh)
Felt tip pen
White chalk pastel
Saliva