(My second to last transfer from dA, description pasted)

Ever do one of those pictures that takes you so long that you so long that you end up giving up on it and then coming back multiple times and so it ends up like a patchwork of subtly different examples of how you were drawing at several intervals spaced over half a year or so? Yeah, this is one of those. I started this in October last year- I wanted try some more dynamic poses, so naturally rather than starting with something just a little bit kinetic like a sensible person, I raced off the deep end and tried to draw Azira fighting a pair of guards by kicking off from one guy's chest, cutting his throat and twisting in midair to lunge towards the second one. Huehue.
There was another motivation to this too. A good IRL friend of mine who is familiar with my artwork once complained that I never draw Azira doing anything assassin-y. This is a fair criticism, most of the time, I draw fairly boring, single-character poses. The reason for this is because if I draw a character I like and two mooks, then I have to spend two thirds of my time drawing something I don't care about and I think that tends to show through with reduced quality. But I did want to provide an example of Azira's rather ostentatious fighting style and it had to be done.

Azira is my oldest character that I still maintain and he's changed a lot over the years. Previously he was a strengths-of-both-weaknesses-of-neither mashup of an assassin and a warrior, but I've tried to reform him as a fairly pure assassin. He's very cautious and will go out of his way to avoid a fight with anyone who looks like they might be even the slightest threat. If detected, he'll run first and fight only if cornered, disengaging the moment he sees an escape route open up. Being called a coward doesn't bother him in the slightest, if he wants someone dead, he can come back in a few nights time and kill them in their sleep. In open combat, Azira relies on his speed and dexterity to quickly overwhelm his opponents with a blinding storm of rapid attacks interspersed with feints and acrobatic flourishes. Against inexperienced fighters and especially in groups, this strategy is extremely effective; unable to keep up and separate the real attacks from the decoys, fatal confusion and panic quickly takes hold and often the fight is over in mere seconds. Against more experienced enemies however, this does not work. If an opponent can filter out the feints and visual distractions and move fast enough to counter the actual strikes for a short period, the high stamina cost of keeping up the assault becomes very draining. Although he knows how to fight more conservatively and his agility makes him a dangerous opponent in a pitched duel, Azira would almost always rather not run the risk and will simply flee at the first opportunity if his opening combo is ineffective. "Fair" is a four letter word to Azira that should be avoided at all costs. =P

Anyhow, I'm pretty pleased with how this came out. I had a lot of trouble getting the poses to this point and I guess I'm still not 100% satisfied with them. I kept thinking Azira's torso is too long, but I think that's an illusion created by his long neck, thick shoulder armour and the fact that he's at maximum extension in this. The spray of blood was also difficult, the sorta, hanging trail is a bit of a stylised idea, so perhaps it was never going to look perfectly realistic, but I think it worked ok. I might go back a bit later and do some more edits on this, but at the moment I'm just glad to have it done.

It's 2am and I've already spent way too long writing this description and I can't be bothered thinking any more. TL;DR: Azira wrecking some fools. Hope you enjoy. :)