This is a commissioned work of my avatar/fursona as envisioned by fantasy artist CurioDraco ( http://www.furaffinity.net/user/curiodraco ). Arc is ©me, Byzil is ©Byzil, and the artwork is ©CurioDraco. :)

Despite having been very close to my dear friend Byzil for almost four years now, the two of us have gotten surprisingly little art together. So last year I decided to remedy that by taking up the wonderfully talented CurioDraco on one of her sketch commission streams. :)

This one is actually based on real-life events. While paying her a visit one time she’d managed to find a really nice chess set at a local Goodwill. We decided to test it out with a couple of quick games together. Neither of us had played in quite some time, but we got into it pretty quickly. I don’t think I did too badly given my inexperience, but Byzil clearly outmatched me and routed my glass army off the board both times! XD

Regardless, I had a lot of fun! I’d truly enjoy playing her again someday, even if my skills haven’t improved one bit. My look of concentration during our matches wasn’t nearly as intense as Arc’s is here, but…you get the idea. Artistic liberty for the sake of humor. ;)

As an aside, don’t read too much into the piece-positioning on the board. It’s just a representation. :)

Curio did an absolutely superb job capturing the expressions on this one. Both the faces and the body poses are absolutely PERFECT for depicting the mood of the moment. She’s one of my favorite artists because of her talent for doing this on a consistent basis, and this piece is certainly no exception. Thank you so much, Curio, for drawing this for us! It was a lot of fun watching this being made, and you are simply wonderful to work with! And entertaining to talk with, too!