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Thread: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
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2012-01-14, 11:45 PM (ISO 8601)
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Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Greetings playgrounders!
This is a blatant theft of Thanqol's thread! I blame him for the idea!
*cough cough*
ANYWAY! My little introduction paragraph thing. So I love doing artsy things. Something about reaching into the void and pulling out something pretty to look at has always made me happy. For a while I toyed around with things like Photoshop and 3DS Max and found that I was pretty good with them, and loved building and painting my little wargame models. So I eventually decided I wanted to get into animation, and decided that during high school I'd take as many art classes as I could. I applied to several colleges for art and eagerly waited for their responses.
Unsurprisingly I was rejected by all of them. As good as I may be with other mediums I can't draw to save my life. Around that time I largely lost interest in artistic pursuits and found other things to occupy my time. Then I got bitten by the pony bug and found myself needing to make pretty pictures again. I found I could make really good vectors, but those took far longer to do than I care for and have largely gotten bored of burning a full day just to make one image. Managed to hang in there for most of the Equestria Daily Artist Training grounds, but don't really have the time for that now. I tried to get back into drawing but pencils refuse to bend to my will and I actually hate working with them. No fun at all.
Then I remembered my paints. My glorious, glorious paints. A medium that obeys me and is pretty quick to work with too! So now I'm going to start one of these threads myself and follow Thanqol's example of "One painting a day, no excuses". I've even recently built a handy little paint set so I can do some quick work wherever I happen to be.
So playgrounders, I'm looking to you folks to help keep me on track and help me improve. Any suggestions on what I can do better will be massively appreciated. I'm likely to paint mostly ponies, as I tend to do better and work faster when I'm working on a project I have fun with (who doesn't?) and those adorable little equines have thoroughly taken root in my brain. It's entirely likely that I'll end up painting some other things, and I'm probably going to toy around with different styles while I'm at it. I think I saw some challenge thread kicking around that I might sign up with too, just to keep a steady stream of ideas rolling in. After all, it would be a real shame to have this thread die due to an artist's block.
And so, without further ado, Day 1 (~60 minutes)
(Warning, contains tiny spoilers to MLP:FiM Episode 13)
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Piggy Pie pigging out on her favourite snack. Overall pretty happy with this one. The cloud could probably have been done better, but I didn't feel like digging up a reference for it. Her back legs are a little off too. (No references for pose either) I probably should have had them tucked in towards her belly instead of sprawled out like that, not quite sure. The yellow for her cutie mark is off, and I probably should have mixed a lighter shade of brown for the chocolate. That and I probably should have used small lines for the rain instead of big globs. What do you guys think?
Last edited by Kyouhen; 2012-01-22 at 09:22 AM.
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2012-01-15, 01:19 AM (ISO 8601)
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2012-01-15, 11:28 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Day 2 (~55 minutes)
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Nothing immediately demanded painting today so I decided to do a little scene from something I'm working on that's going to take forever to finish. Kind of needed to vent part of that project from my brain. Not terribly happy with how Gilda's claw turned out. Needs to be thicker. And I really don't like how the sky turned out. I should have left it empty space. This would have been finished faster except when I tried to paint the match for Gilda I realized I had painted her about half the size I had intended to and had to redo her.
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2012-01-15, 02:56 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Hi there. :)
I'm not the best at traditional painting, but I'd love to give you some advice if I can. What kind of paints are you using? It looks quite thick, acrylic or something.
First off - don't give up on drawing! It's clear you've got a good interest in art and it's something worth pursuing. Start small and simple, work up. It is possible for anyone to learn nobody here's born with a super-special talent, we've all gotta earn our cutie marks (except me. I have the cutie mark of making crass metaphors. ). It might take years, but a little a day, and it'll happen.
In any case, painting informs drawing and vica versa, so this stuff is a really good start. Anyway, you've got the nice beginnings of a style shaping up here, I like the coloured linework - is that all really done with a brush rather than markers? It's nice and crisp. I'd say experimenting with shading as well might be a good idea. Start out simple, introduce a clear light source and think about how the colour would react to it, then layer it on top of your base colour. That's usually a good way to get fairly neutral lighting. Later, you can begin mixing the lighting's colours into your base colours and get something that looks quite natural - it's tricky and it takes practise, but it can be quite fun. :)
Anyway, keep at it! I'll keep an eye on this thread and try to lend a hoof now and then if I can!
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2012-01-15, 03:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Yep, working with acrylics. I hate trying to work with water colours, and oils are more expensive than I care for. Acrylics are nice and cheap, and I tend to have an easier time mixing the colours I want. I probably need to get some better paper to work on though. I had gotten a cheap sketchbook to work on, but that seems to be devouring my paints. Need to pick up something more suited to paints at some point.
It's less that I dislike drawing more that I hate working in pens and pencils. I can't seem to get any of the lines and whatnot I like with those. I might grab a tablet at some point, at which point I'm probably going to get into actual drawing again. I like getting the smooth strokes paints provide and have an easier time correcting mistakes with them. A tablet would work just as well, I just don't have the money for one.
Still toying around with the idea of lighting. I modified a few MTG cards recently and managed to get some half-decent lighting done with those. Today's drawing was just a quick little thing I wanted to get done before D&D, so I didn't get too into the lighting for it. (Poor choice of picture to avoid lighting with)
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2012-01-16, 08:31 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Yeah, you'll want probably 180gsm for acrylics. One tip if your paper's getting too wet from them is to take the sheet out and use masking-tape around the corners to 'stretch' it - this way it'll stay flat and won't rumple up after you're done. More relevant with watercolour/gouache, but still applies to acrylics. Also, try out masking fluid. :D Awesome stuff and can make your life a whole lot easier.
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2012-01-16, 08:44 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Huh, never thought about that idea with the tape before. I'm going to have to try it next time I do something biggish. (I don't really seem to have a problem with the paper warping unless I'm doing something with a background) Going to have to try that masking fluid sometime too, that could be really handy.
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2012-01-17, 12:13 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Busy busy day today! Didn't have a lot of time to paint so I threw a few quick things together.
Day 3A (~15 minutes)
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Had a bit of time on the subway, so popped out my paints and did a quick MTG edit of Fluttershy making friends with a cute little saproling token. Of course looking at it now I realize I forgot Fluttershy's eye sparkles. And of course the thing's already been sealed because the paint scratches off those cards entirely too easily. Oh well, just have to remember for next time.
Day 3B (~15 minutes)
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Another bit of free time and the feeling that the token wasn't enough effort for this means you guys get two pictures! Woo! Just a quick Scootaloo outline since I have issues drawing the fillies anyway. Even in vectors they defy me. Don't think this turned out too bad, though her mane needs to be a little thicker. Still don't think I got the proportions right though. Curse you filly heads! I kind of like how the outline-only thing looks. Almost looking forward to the next time I have no time to do any real painting.
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2012-01-17, 03:41 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Day 4 (~105 minutes)
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This was stuck in my head all yesterday but I didn't have the time to do it. Had to get it just right so took my time with it. Toyed around with shading a bit to see what I could do. Really happy with how it turned out.
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2012-01-18, 05:54 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Day 5 (~3 hours)
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I really need to stop getting ideas for these things. Took way too much time working on this one today, mostly because of the background. Had to adjust Lyra's pose a few times too. Pretty happy with how the fire itself turned out, but not too happy with the attempt at lighting the ground around it. No idea why it looks so greenish... Maybe I just need to get some better browns to work with. That and I can't seem to do a good job making ponies look like they're sweating. Oh well, it's done and I'm learning. Because I was going to be doing a full background with this one I thought I'd try Mazeburn's tape idea. I didn't have any masking tape so I tried it with packing tape (all I had) and it actually worked pretty well. Thanks for the tip! Only downside is I can't get the tape off the paper now.
Was trying to figure out what type of thing I could do for the current art challenge theme and was reading through Thanqol's fanfic. Got to this scene and decided I'd have to do it. There's a few other parts that I'm tempted to do some painting for, but those will probably have to wait a while. I'm probably going to avoid anything with too much background for a little while.
Last edited by Kyouhen; 2012-01-18 at 05:54 PM.
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2012-01-19, 02:16 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Day 6 (Forgot to check)
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Lots of stuff I want to get done today, so not a lot of time for painting. So figured I'd take a shot at pony faces today. Picked Sweetie Belle because Scootaloo got the last quick painting and fillies continue to defy me. As do open mouths. Need to take a better look at examples of open mouths from that angle from the show.
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2012-01-20, 11:06 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Day 7
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Kyouhen vs Scootaloo, Round 2, FIGHT!
I think I'm going to declare Scootaloo my sketch filly. I like having coloured outlines better than just using black, Scootaloo has very few colours, and the colours she has I have access to without dealing with mixing paints. And she'll probably be my sketch pony for a while more since fillies continue to defy me.
Things to work on next time: Legs are too short, bend on back leg needs to be higher, plot and tail are too small, and nose is too big.
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2012-01-21, 11:50 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Day 8 (~2.5 hours)
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Needed one more good painting for The Challenge (assuming I'm calculating this right at all) and figured something beach-related would work. I haven't tried painting a scooter Scootaloo yet, so today she gets to be a motorboat!
Pretty happy with how this turned out. I think I'm getting closer to the right filly proportions, about the only glaring problem I can find with this picture is that Sweetie Belle's head might be a little small. Or at least that's the only problem I can find with the ponies. Perspectives seems to give me problems, so I'll have to work on that some too.
Apple Bloom was originally going to be in this, but the sketchbook I've been using is smaller than letter-sized paper and with the messed up perspective I couldn't fit her in without it looking horrible or being crowded. So she got cut from the picture.
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2012-01-22, 02:05 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint! (Poorly)
Oh wow, I totally missed this thread starting up. And double oh wow, you're actually using traditional canvas paints!
My first recommendation is to nix the 'poorly' from your thread title. One of my very first pieces of digital painting turned out like this. The lesson there is that it is possible at any stage of the process to produce legitimately good pieces. Don't bind yourself to a negative descriptor when it can be proved patently false in as little as 200 days.
Unfortunately, most of my advice relates to the digital medium and won't be much help to you. I can say this, though - don't aim for complete precision. Painting is like an illusion, using colours and shapes to make our eyes create conclusions. My great uncle, Constantine Kluge, was a master painter, and he produced things like this:
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Look at it! And then look at it really, really closely. The policeman's head is just a blur of brown. Look at the trees; differently coloured smudges. You're not going to be able to get detailed precision with painting, or at least, not as easily as other mediums. That's not it's strength. Consider the whole picture and not the linework.
It might not be the style you're after, but it's a style I greatly admire. Moe's paintings are the same, if you look closely at them. Good luck!
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2012-01-22, 09:33 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Advice on shapes noted! Also noting the clouds in that. I like how those look. You're right that it isn't the style I'm after, but the style I'm after is my style and I have absolutely no idea what that is. Another reason for getting myself into this, as I'm sure if I paint and experiment enough sooner or later I'll find something.
And I've removed the (Poorly) from the title. It was more there as a half-joke or something. I have the unfortunate tendency to hammer away at something until I'm happy with it, and I've been mostly happy with everything I've done so far. I've long since gotten it stuck in my head that if I'm happy with my work then it qualifies as 'good' despite what anyone else thinks of it. I'll still listen to advice/constructive criticism, of course.
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2012-01-22, 10:03 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
From my own experience, the best way to learn is to replicate whole swathes of different styles as a means to learn technical skills, and then you'll naturally gravitate towards the one you like the most. Learn as many technical skills as you can so that style becomes a choice and not a trap; being able to switch between different styles freely is part of what makes a great artist.
And you learn so much from trying something new like that. If you do 10-20 paintings in Kluge's style, then a hundred days later when you need to draw clouds in something unrelated you'll remember a really good system for doing them.
And I've removed the (Poorly) from the title. It was more there as a half-joke or something. I have the unfortunate tendency to hammer away at something until I'm happy with it, and I've been mostly happy with everything I've done so far. I've long since gotten it stuck in my head that if I'm happy with my work then it qualifies as 'good' despite what anyone else thinks of it. I'll still listen to advice/constructive criticism, of course.
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2012-01-22, 11:09 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Day 9 (1 hour)
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Not much to say about today's. The idea got stuck in my brain yesterday but due to time constraints today I couldn't do yesterday's painting today. (and yesterday's was intended for The Challenge, so it had to be done by today) Originally the cannon was going to be shoulder-mounted like the Pinkie Pie Launcher, but after looking at it I decided it wasn't nearly good enough for a cannon of doom and extended it. A lot.
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2012-01-24, 02:08 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Day 10 (Unknown)
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Now now Trixie, you said no dragons!
Foolish Twilight Sparkle! The GREAT and POWERFUL Trixie said no pink dragons!
The Challenge theme this week was transformation. The ATG Alumni group on Deviantart's theme this week is a pony in competition. My mind immediately jumped to this.
I had entirely too much fun painting this. Got dragged into a few games of MTG while I was nearly done, so I lost track of how long it took me to paint it. I put the finishing touches on it between turns.
Pretty happy with how the terrain turned out. Twilight's face refused to obey me, and I had to redo a chunk of the background flames. I had planned for Trixie to be taller than she is, but ended up not having space for her. Her neck got cut down and a big empty gap to her left that was supposed to be filled with her body got filled with flames instead.
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2012-01-24, 04:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Day 11 (Forgot to track)
Spoiler
Fear the power of Thanqol's mighty pen!
The other idea I had for the transformation theme this week. Thanqol's been doing chibis of a bunch of avatars, which lead to hilarity in Ponythread. I thought Aotrs Commander's avatar getting chibified by a blast of ink would be amusing to draw.
Apparently today wants to be one of those off days where nothing I work on wants to cooperate. Not at all happy with how Mask turned out. Not sure what bugs me about her (I think Mask was a her... feel free to correct me on this Thanqol) but she doesn't didn't seem to come out right. Might just be that the black outlines on Bleakbane make Mask look out of place, I dunno.
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2012-01-24, 06:52 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Hmm, one suggestion: since he just got hit with a blast of ink, it would heighten the effect to have some ink splatter still left on the Commodore. All I can see in the painting is the puddle at his feet, which makes it seem sort of watery, I guess.
Also, bravo with the painting! I played around with acrylics forever ago and they didn't agree with me very well...I'm thinking about looking into watercolors though, once I feel a bit better about my drawing abilities.This Machine Surrounds Hate And Forces It To Surrender
Ponythread Learns to Draw!
SpoilerBleeeeh! Alfalfa Monster!
Avatar by Aruius
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2012-01-24, 07:25 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Watercolours are fun, though I find they're a fair bit more difficult to work with than acrylics or oils. Watercolours (from my experience, at least) tend to be a lot less forgiving of mistakes so you need to plan ahead a little more carefully. I like toying around with the paints and colours as I work, so acrylic and oil tend to suit me better. (Though oil is far more expensive than I'm willing to put out for, especially when acrylic can be painted onto damn well near anything I want. )
If you do plan on getting into watercolours make sure you get some quality ones. From what I remember of my time playing with watercolours the cheap paints don't look anywhere near as good as the ones in the middle price range.
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2012-01-24, 08:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Haha And Mask is female - although when she's got the Mask on that's far less relevant.
Just one nit-pick: With the Mask, it doesn't transition from grey to the empty white, that makes it too vague. Solid black outlines for the eyes help emphasise how stark the empty whiteness is. Also, solid blacks under the hood and behind the Mask also look good. Example:
Spoiler
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2012-01-24, 09:18 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
*Adds a few quick touches*
Yeah, it looks like that was largely what I was missing. That and the cloak doesn't quite look right either. Oh well, still turned out half-decently trying to work from memory. Might have to come back and work on some more Mask stuff at some time in the future.
Which reminds me, this week has suddenly turned into MTG week. For the rest of the week I'm likely to be doing nothing but putting Applejack in several MTG cards. The EqD Artist's Training Ground 2 has started back up, and I had challenged myself to do the entire thing through modifying MTG cards to have ponies in them. Then I ended up doing Applejack because she never seemed to get much love. Figures it would restart right between a pair of Applejack episodes...
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2012-01-25, 11:20 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Day 12
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Original:
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So that was painful. Once again, challenging myself to do the entire ATG run as altered-art MTG cards featuring Applejack. I've learned today that in my moderately vast collection of cards I can't find a single card suitable for today's theme of "A pony in a duel". Didn't help that I had just drawn that the other day and was sorely tempted to just submit that. This is what I get for trying to manage my ideas based on how much time I have to work on them. It doesn't help at all that the minute I sat down to start uploading my pictures I noticed I had missed the deadline for submissions. I had completely forgotten they changed timezones, and had thought I still had a few hours to spare. >_<
Still, here's the image that I was going to submit:
Spoiler
A lack of a decent card means that I had to get a little creative. I'm sure anyone who plays MTG will get what's going on. If I hadn't been late I was also going to take a cheap card and paint a massive hoof covering it to make it look like someone was holding it and submit that too.
Quite pleased with how this turned out though. Applejack needs to be a shade lighter, as does her hat, and I wasn't able to preserve enough of the original background as I had wanted to, but still turned out quite nice.
And tomorrow's theme is "A pony on a rescue mission". FFFFFUUUUU- Can't even imagine what card would be good for that. I'm sure there's some good white protection-granting cards I can work with. Probably going to have to get Fluttershy to be an angel though.
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2012-01-26, 02:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
This Machine Surrounds Hate And Forces It To Surrender
Ponythread Learns to Draw!
SpoilerBleeeeh! Alfalfa Monster!
Avatar by Aruius
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2012-01-26, 05:19 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Day 13
Spoiler
Original:
Spoiler
I am never going to try painting a proper-sized pony on any card bigger than a 2/2 again. Seriously. The picture is deceiving, but that Shimmer is slightly bigger than my thumbnail. It is really hard to work at that scale.
Still, quite happy with how this turned out. And I got it done in time to be submitted to the ATG too! Huzzah!
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2012-01-27, 05:15 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
Day 14
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Original
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For some odd reason I couldn't get outline colours I was happy with today, so I tried a black outline instead. Still couldn't quite seem to get it right (curse you off days!) so there's a few problems with the outline. Couldn't get the hat quite right either. I also think Applejack's eye needs to be visible there, but after a few tries and failing to make it look right I decided to just leave it out.
I hated doing tiny ponies, but that tiny barn was lots of fun. No clue why, I just really liked painting the little thing.
And that's the final submission to EqD's ATG2. We now return you to your regularly scheduled paintings. And maybe a few more cards when I feel like doing them.
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2012-01-27, 05:43 PM (ISO 8601)
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2012-01-27, 06:11 PM (ISO 8601)
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2012-01-27, 08:27 PM (ISO 8601)
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Re: Kyouhen Learns to Paint!
I think the issue with the hat is that it seems flat and a bit off from the perspective of the rest of the piece. Thinking of the hat brim as an ellipse, it needs to be a bit narrower, and thinking of the top part as kind of a deformed cylinder, you need to show the body of the cylinder, whereas you've only drawn the top, so it looks squashed.
I also agree the eye should probably peek through, even if it's only the white part. Good work finishing off the ATG though; I just submitted my final piece too! *brohoof*This Machine Surrounds Hate And Forces It To Surrender
Ponythread Learns to Draw!
SpoilerBleeeeh! Alfalfa Monster!
Avatar by Aruius