Eccarlate

This started as a picture relevant to the year of the dragon and then turned into just Phantom Brave fanart, whoops.

My train of thought was something along the lines of Ash's special attack summoning the water dragon Eccarlate > dragons > NEW YEARS but then it got to be 3:40 in the morning and also I can't draw dragons.

Another less fanarted character who actually has more to do with dragons was going to show up as well, but obviously that didn't happen either. WELP.

Still, the year of the dragon is pretty cool, so I had to do some kind of art for it. It's considered exceptionally lucky to be born in the year of the dragon, and even in the original zodiac story the dragon is probably the most noble of all the animals to cross the river and meet with God. When questioned for arriving later than even the poor rabbit who clung to a piece of driftwood that washed ashore, the dragon replied that along the way it happened across a town in drought and gave them rain. Also it saw that poor rabbit and created a wave of water to wash it safely to the other side in the first place.

Needless to say, God couldn't really argue with including it in the zodiac after that.

Happy lunar new years (: