This is a painting I've had in the works for a while. Some of you may have noticed at some point earlier this year I changed my Twitter/deviantART/whatever else usernames to "Amaruuk." This is where that name came from - a creation deity I had come up with a year ago along with a now-abandoned project. Based rather loosely on <i>Microraptor</i> and/or just a vague dromaeosaurid-type form, her name means "Great Mother Bird" in the old tongue. She was born from the first light, which became the sun that she carries on her head, and she created the cosmos and all life within. Her opposite is Vusuuk (whose name means "Dark Crocodile King"), born of the first shadow, who seeks to consume all light and return the universe to darkness.