Training day in Seheron

I love this so much; it's definitely one of my all-time favorite pieces of Dragon Age art I've seen on here!

I love that you tried to capture a setting we've never seen in the games, rather than re-create a familiar environment. It's harder, but it makes the resulting picture so much more unique and memorable! And in the case of this one, there are a couple choices you've made that make it clear enough what we're seeing: your rendering of Sten himself, with his hornlessness, distinctive sword and unique hairdo, and also his face, which despite looking younger is still very much the face of the character we meet in DAO, effectively tells us we're looking at a scene from Sten's past. And the environment he's in holds several clues that tell us we are on Seheron, even if we were not able to make that connection from what we know of Sten's backstory! The bright sunlight, the light-colored ground (which I am assuming is sand) and that grating the sun is shining through, which looks like it could be made of bamboo, all suggest a tropical island setting, and the Qunari symbol on the wall of the arena make it obvious we're in Qunari territory. So, even without reading your description, one can form a fairly accurate impression of what you're trying to convey here -- the only thing that cannot be divined from the picture itself is the identity of your OC, the Kithshok!

Besides the originality of the subject matter, my favorite things here are the lighting and the characters' poses. I cannot say enough about how beautiful that lighting is -- somehow it appears warm and golden to me, despite your having done this without using color. I also love the angle at which the light enters the arena -- it frames your Kithshok very nicely!

Another thing I love, somewhat related to the light, is the grid of shadows cast by the fence mounted on top of the arena wall. I think you executed the curves of those lines needed to convey the circular shape of the arena flawlessly. It's quite a difficult bit of mental geometry, but you've nailed it.

On to the figures! I mentioned that I love the poses -- they look very natural, and give very clear suggestions of what's going to happen next. There's only one thing I would do differently: I would try to give more of an impression of fast movement. Both characters are posed in such a way that it makes more sense to think they are in motion than that they are still, and it would make more sense to me if their hair was also moving. Like, Kithshok in particular looks like he's either just made, or is in the middle of making, some kind of spinning attack on Sten, so I expected to see his braids swinging to one side rather than hanging straight down.

(It's possible that I am reading the combat differently than you intended it, but I still think having Kithshok's hair move would add another element of interest to what is already a supremely interesting composition!)

Anyway, I love this and consider it pretty near perfect already, so don't take my quibbling about movement too seriously! It's great and IMO Bioware should be calling you about having you illustrate for them!