Deviation Actions
Description
On the left is erin-hime's Ignatius, aka the Diabolus Dei (much to his consternation), the god of dragons, fire, and, depending on who you ask, chaos and darkness. He does not like being associated with chaos and darkness, so naturally, that's the epithet that stuck. He's active in the Five Kingdoms of Angelus Dei. On the right is my Duja, also known as the Light-Bringer or the Mer-Creator depending on who you ask, but Duja is a local name for him. He's a more monotheistic god, in that he is worshiped as a general liberator of mankind from a malevolent creator, and more specifically worshiped as a creator of mermaids and centaurs, patron of knowledge, magic, and medicine, and all-around decent guy. Unless you ask the Cerulandians. He wears many hats, and has many different appearances, of which this is only one. With that fabulous pimp coat, it's the only guise he needs.
erin-hime and I have a wonderful crossover canon between our stories, and that's basically that Duja and Ignatius are nephew and uncle, respectively, and that Duja's potential trickster-god nature is in full force whenever he's around Ignatius. By that, I mean he trolls him mercilessly. Not that Ignatius always takes the bait, but that doesn't stop Duja from trying.
I kind of viewed this as taking place within the Diabolus Dei temple in Alter. It made sense at the time; why else would Ignatius look so unamused if Duja just popped into his temple, unanounced? Dollars to donuts says he'd disguised himself as Ignatius for shits and giggles, because if the Greek gods can do it, he can too, and was trying to boss around the poor priestesses. He is a good associated with light; there's nothing saying he couldn't trick them to make it look like fire. The ruse probably works until the actual Ignatius shows up, in which case the jig is up. He is not amused.
The background was vaguely based on how I pictured the temple in Angelus Dei, which means it's probably completely wrong -- I thought the floors were made of stone until I went back and double checked. But I pictured there being a sort of sunken area in the centre of the room, and that spot was where Ignatius would appear, after the applicants did their summoning dance, with a hole in the ceiling to let in light/let out smoke. No idea if I'm right, but it was in my head. Trying to do lighting directly from above was a bit of a challenge, but it turned out okay.
The background was a bit of an experiment, in that I wanted to see how dark I could make it without using black. It worked, but I'd layered on so many layers of colour that shading, or doing anything, resulted in me basically just scraping off the layers underneath it, it was kind of a mess that way. >.O I like the dragon theme to the walls though; I could imagine them being the only temple that still has that dragon connection.
This was also an experiment in using grey tones for shading, mostly on the skin. It toned down some of the stronger colours, and it's an interesting effect. I'm not sure I would do it again, but it worked better than I thought. Aside from a few minor mishaps (I think Ignatius' tail need to have the colours reversed?) it turned out pretty well! I enjoy it, and I hope you do too, erin-hime.
Ignatius, image, and Angelus Dei © erin-hime
Duja, colour, and Aspera Virtus © callisto-chan
I feel sort of bad that the first thought I had upon seeing this was ‘oops, I meant to tell her to use the current outfit he has’. This was mostly because I had figured it might be a little easier for you. Of course, the second thought was ‘
oh well. Who cares? This turned out awesome!’
Granted, traditional collabs generally look a little weird, because, you know, you have to print out the lines and then color them. And because, you know, we usually do computer colored collabs. But then again, that’s why these are so awesome, because they are so very rare. As ‘weird’ as it looks to me, it doesn’t take away from the awesome force of our collabs. It’s just a different form, and…yeah. It’s pretty.
Okay, it really doesn’t help that it’s of our two favorite gods/trolls.
I rather like the little backstory you have for this. I can see Duja prancing around, pretending to be Ignatius, especially in a temple outside of Magnolia’s, where they wouldn’t know exactly what he looked like. Granted, this is Magnolia’s temple, so I’m sure everyone inside is all like 
and wondering if Ignatius is messing with them or if it’s an imposter. And then the real Ignatius shows up (because he views that particular temple as sacred to himself now), and…well, isn’t amused. He doesn’t go around his lands pretending to be Duja. (Not like he can, seeing as the tail and horns are permanent and all.)
And Duja’s all like ‘Nephew! Long time, no see! Your mother’s been inquiring about you.” And Ignatius is just wondering what the hell he’s playing at. 
I do really like how they turned out. Ignatius especially, obvious reasons, and you did a fantastic job on his tunic! And his tail. I…need to edit that part in the story to make it correct, although why you decided to follow book description and not image description is beyond me. Usually image is correct. Duja turned out great as well, although, sadly, the grey shading actually makes him look rather sickly.
Unfortunately, I see the Alter temple as actually being made of light wood and the floor, while circular, is flat. There’s a raised platform along the walls that the priestesses walk on when not performing a ceremony, but it’s not a small indentation in the floor. 
But, I really like the idea of the dragon motif, and it being the only temple still with it because the others focus more on the fire and darkness aspect of his being.
But over all, this is an awesome, awesome piece, and it’s great to finally see these two together. (You thought I was going to say something else, weren’t you. ) We should definitely do another one of these sometime, maybe before NaNo ’15.
So. Pretty. *_*