My body ached as I surged toward the sun, violent winds ripping around my exhausted wings.

‘Just a little farther.’

I stole a glance at the griffon, the derisive mass of arrogance trailing behind me.

‘Good.’

My teeth sunk into the hilt of my sword.

‘Ready… breathe and… GO!’

I whirled, air whipping around me as I brought the foam blade down with all my might. The griffon’s arrogance melted as she tried to veer away. It was too late.

POW!

—

This is my submission for the NATG 2012 Day 3 theme – draw a pony dueling. So Dusky gets to go head to head with a griffon.

This was nearly too ambitious. I wanted to do a big sky scene for this and that made the poses incredibly unfamiliar and difficult. I clocked in around 6.5 hours doing this, with a lot more time spent sketching than I normally do. Done with the 2H-HB-2B trio, of course.

Oh and one final fun fact: I’m so used to drawing happy Dusky, that giving her an angry face actually disconcerted me a bit (about half the reaction I had when I saw Flutterage). Imagine that, my own ponysona freaking me out. >.>