Ponythread Learns to Draw! Together!

[Bakuel]

Thank you for the advice, and especially for the drawing! You're definitely right about the head shape - even though it's there in every still I've been looking at, I somehow failed to give that eye proper foreshortening, and now I see it, it just looks weird

Here's a work in progress. I'm having trouble getting the pupil size and positions to not look terrible, and the shape of the left eye may well change again... probably best to leave that until morning by now. The head should be more proportionate, now, at least.

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Thanks again to everyone who's looked at some version of this and given me advice.

I'm glad the comments helped!
On pupil size and position, I must admit I'm not very good at that.
However, to nit pick, in ponies the iris oval is almost always slightly more elongated vertically on the top then the pupil oval. 1 2

I would elongate the iris oval on the top and also increase it's size just a tad bit.

That is actually shaping up to be a really nice looking drawing, great work

Thanks! :D
I just wish I could do art a bit faster!

Nothing to post today, I did draw a bit and worked on the picture and a side project a bit but my attention was divided today. I'll post something tomorrow.
My own deadline for the picture to be finished by flies by again!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Anyone serious about learning should go read these books ASAP.

I'm slowly sinking my teeth into this mass of material. There are some great insights there, though largely having nothing to do with drawing ponies. :P But I guess the methods shown can be adapted to anything. I'm especially interested in scene composition methods there, can't wait to try them out.

...in the meantime, I've been rather lax on my "one new thing per day" task, though I do my best in regards to doing at least some drawing every day. Most of the new things I did draw have been posted on the main ponythread, but I'll repeat them here for the sake of completeness. Plus one I didn't post, which is the first in the lineup, and the one I've been tinkering with, which is last.

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Link (Random pegicorn structure chart)
Link (Ponythread-chan in the playground)
Link (Random thing)
Link (My OC, Southern Sky)
Link (Derpy Hooves pic in the Pony Presents series)

[flyingchicken]

xoxoxoxoxo

[Kurien]

Hi, everyone* here --
Looking at the considerable number of unfulfilled requests in the ponytar thread, I went and did one I found interesting. Now that I have finished it, however, I looked at the request post and found my design did not quite meet the requester's specifications and refs. Well, I tried my best, but now feel anxious about posting it, so I felt I should post it here first.

One of the hardest parts about ponifying established characters from other media is deciding on their coat colour, I think. One needs to pick a colour that looks good, but also fits the personality of the char. The requester suggested a light pink or white coat colour, (similar in colour to the dress the original char wore), but I chose a darker shade of her mane because I thought it looked better.

I did all the "inking" and colouring with the XP version of MS Paint, so please excuse the pixellation. I really need to try another, superior application soon. Just having *layers* would make it much less time-consuming. Well, I work with what I know, eh?

Link to the "raw" version.
Link to the same image resized with Irfanview

Hours put in: around 6?

*(Or should I say "everypony?")

Also:
@Bakuel: I really like your Day 67-68 pic- especially the buildings.

Also2: (Because I spent more than half an hour nitpicking on this post)
@flyingchicken: I'm not sure how to say this, but I would worry about what the rules say regarding the eighth and fifteenth pics from your last post. (I've read your art thread before, I liked the eccentricity of your doodles).

[flyingchicken]

xoxoxoxoxo

[Kurien]

I would've gone with light pink too for Remilia, honestly.

(here, a quick sketch:)
*snip*
I think the colors work better, in terms of making her look like her.

I mean, at least in Touhou Hisoutensoku she's mostly pinks and reds anyway (from her sprite to her various attacks). Blue (as most of her coloring)... just doesn't fit IMO.

(Watching this, I don't think I'm wrong... and I think blue would fit Sakuya...)

Actually I just finished editing in a bunch of other drawings I did in the past 2 weeks into that post so I'm not sure which ones you mean now :<

IDK, I'm just following in-thread precedent, someone posted nude sketches earlier, idk, I'll remove stuff if they're infractable offenses.

Also thanks I guess! I don't see that point of that thread now actually and would delete it if I could :O

See, I did say I thought it was difficult. I'm not surprised that I didn't get it right on the first try. Basing coat colour on the colour of the character's clothes just seemed strange to me. Well, I also didn't closely follow any reference when I coloured it. I'm pretty new to Touhou; the main pull to the series for me is the awesome music. I haven't yet immersed myself in the fandom. It is intimidating in its enormity. Kinda like MLP.

Here it is again, correctified (I also replaced the hair colour with something with a little more purple hue.):

Link

[Beacon of Chaos]

Just figured I'd let you all know I'm still around, lurking. I'm still doing the draw-a-day thing, but frankly I haven't produced anything I feel like posting.

I really just want to stop. Every day I put off drawing until later and later because I don't feel like doing it. When I do, I do something half-arsed, usually just another pony body because I can't be bothered with anything more complicated. I also did a couple of traces.

I dunno. I'm not enjoying this. I want to stop, just for a few days, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll never be able to pick it up again. But I'm not really learning anything or improving right now either. What should I do?


Oh, and Bakuel, the night time Tropius pic is looking very good!

[Bryn]

I'm glad the comments helped!
On pupil size and position, I must admit I'm not very good at that.
However, to nit pick, in ponies the iris oval is almost always slightly more elongated vertically on the top then the pupil oval. 1 2

I would elongate the iris oval on the top and also increase it's size just a tad bit.

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Thanks again for the advice! How does this look now?
Edit: Changed it again somewhat.

Previously this post had:

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(This was an earlier version, maybe I should try again from there? Not really sure)

Edit: Following advice from the IRC channel, I need to make significant changes. Spoilering these.

[flyingchicken]

xoxoxoxoxo

[Bryn]

Here's the latest version of the ponythread pony. Thank you again to everyone who has helped me improve this. This should now have correct proportions, and generally be much more accurate to the show, but I'd be very happy to receive more advice!

[Bakuel]

Also:
@Bakuel: I really like your Day 67-68 pic- especially the buildings.

Thanks!

I'm glad some of you are finding the Loomis books helpful (fun fact: those were published in the 1950s-60s). I hear they're out of print and very expensive nowadays (secondhand copies).

---
*snip*

That's some good stuff, your doodles are always so lively! I really like the halfling/hobbit(?) design in your work in progress. I hope she gets colored.

On the nudity thing, I don't think non-pornographic artistic nudes will bring down the ban hammer unless it's excessive. But I would stay away from showing the genitals.
At least I hope you keep posting them, I like your nude sketches. Not in that *way* but there generally interesting and fun to look at.

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O Tom Preston, your art is mediocre, your panel layout unimaginative, your character concepts uninspiring. All this would be forgivable, if you were just another guy focusing on improving. But your popularity is most mystifying.

See, I did say I thought it was difficult. I'm not surprised that I didn't get it right on the first try. Basing coat colour on the colour of the character's clothes just seemed strange to me. Well, I also didn't closely follow any reference when I coloured it. I'm pretty new to Touhou; the main pull to the series for me is the awesome music. I haven't yet immersed myself in the fandom. It is intimidating in its enormity. Kinda like MLP.

Here it is again, correctified (I also replaced the hair colour with something with a little more purple hue.):

Link

Looks nice, the new color is better.
On the color thing, most anime/cartoon/comic character designs have somewhat defined and specific colors. I can't imagine her base color not being pink. Sure it may be just her clothes' colors, but those clothes define her.

Just figured I'd let you all know I'm still around, lurking. I'm still doing the draw-a-day thing, but frankly I haven't produced anything I feel like posting.

I really just want to stop. Every day I put off drawing until later and later because I don't feel like doing it. When I do, I do something half-arsed, usually just another pony body because I can't be bothered with anything more complicated. I also did a couple of traces.

I dunno. I'm not enjoying this. I want to stop, just for a few days, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll never be able to pick it up again. But I'm not really learning anything or improving right now either. What should I do?

Alright, I know you probably don't want my advice and you should do what you think is right and so on. But I have to throw my 50 cents in the arena.
Or whatever.

Diego Havoc,

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Take a break! No, this is very, very important. You need to take a break.
There are plenty of stories of artists, amateurs, professionals, and masters who have gotten burned out and abandoned their craft. What was done before out of passion, love or simply fun, started to be done only out of obligation, either to a schedule, clients/fans, or what have you.
This can only lead to resentment.
Don't feel bad for taking a break and you shouldn't worry about not coming back. If you have ever enjoyed drawing or making art, then you'll come back when your ready.

You've been doing the daily draw for a quite a period of time and should be proud as it is quite a achievement. Personally I find it admirable. However, there are three reasons why you shouldn't feel bad taking a break. (Bare with me here)

First off the reason you started it was presumably to get better and/or for fun. If you aren't getting better and you aren't having fun anymore, then perhaps it's time to stop and take a break. While I think a daily schedule and deadlines are useful and have a place for some, they can be done to excess.

The second reason you should take a break is that, speaking from personal experience, taking a break from something can actually help you learn in the long run. After taking a week or so off, I find that I can look back on my old art with fresh eyes and see the flaws in it much easier. Then I can go about and try to improve. I find that the only thing during these breaks I tend to forget is unconscious bad habits. It might seem contradictory, but my biggest jumps in skill have actually come about after half of year or more "breaks". I hope you don't take a vacation from drawing for that long, but you shouldn't feel ashamed for it.

The third reason is related to what flyingchicken said, find something to inspire you. If, for instance, you feel fresh and enthusiastic about ponies and you can't help but think about ponies and imaging ponies, then it is easy to keep up a daily draw for a while. But if you find your inspiration to draw wane, then it's best to just take a break and look around. As flyingchicken said, look at other artists. amateurs, pros, masters or what have you.
But don't forget to just observe the world around you, the greatest and most original inspiration is reality.

Forgive me for the rant, but I had to say it. I apologize.

Oh, and Bakuel, the night time Tropius pic is looking very good!

Thank you! It's taking forever and a half to finish though!
I need to work on being clean in the beginning so I don't have to spend so much time cleaning up later, this will be the biggest lesson I'm taking from this one.



@Bryn

It looks much better! I cannot find any nit pick worthy things about it. It is very show accurate.
I hope this isn't the last time you make anything pony related!



I'll post something tomorrow (I said that last time, herp derp). Mostly I've just been cleaning up the same picture, there really isn't much to show or tell. I'll edit this post if I doodle something up.

[Thanqol]

Just figured I'd let you all know I'm still around, lurking. I'm still doing the draw-a-day thing, but frankly I haven't produced anything I feel like posting.

I really just want to stop. Every day I put off drawing until later and later because I don't feel like doing it. When I do, I do something half-arsed, usually just another pony body because I can't be bothered with anything more complicated. I also did a couple of traces.

I dunno. I'm not enjoying this. I want to stop, just for a few days, but I'm afraid that if I do, I'll never be able to pick it up again. But I'm not really learning anything or improving right now either. What should I do?


Oh, and Bakuel, the night time Tropius pic is looking very good!

I feel like I should be the voice of cold authority here and say that you should keep going despite this. I have been, many times, in a relative funk with regards to my drawing. I half-ass things and they come out half-assed. I lose motivation and other demands take up my time and a cycle forms. It's easy to quit.

When that happens, don't quit. What you should do is something fun.

Bust open SAI and grab a bunch of random brushes and spin all the dials and settings and GO NUTS. Splash colour around! Switch layer settings and texture details. Try to paint something weird and ephemeral, like a night time sky, or the ocean, or the surface of the sun. Don't worry about all the petty details like proportions or consistency or any of the hard, grindy, technical bits. Just let yourself off the hook and play with it. See what you come up with.

Painting - not drawing, painting - is absolute fun. You'll learn so much in the process.

[Thanqol]

I'm going to be doing an experimental picture of Hoity Toity tomorrow. If people are interested, I could talk my way through it and what I'm doing.

Here's the sketch layer.

[Sean Mirrsen]

What's going to be experimental about it?

Also, I have been drawing things, but mostly it's things I'm not entirely happy with. Trying to practice drawing pony heads, I think I accidentally stumbled into a previous generation, for instance. I should really try to start using references. Can't trust only my memory any more.

[Thanqol]

What's going to be experimental about it?

I saw this style here, with the really thick, solid black sketchy outlines and I'm going to give it a spin and see if I can get it to work for me.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I saw this style here, with the really thick, solid black sketchy outlines and I'm going to give it a spin and see if I can get it to work for me.

Ooh, that's interesting. I might want to try that myself sometime.

If I may offer an opinion, this sort of sketchy-outline style works best for characters in action-inclined scenes, because the slightly chaotic lines imply some sort of strain, tension, energy. Your sketch has Hoity Toity in a fairly neutral pose, so while it will still look good, it may not quite achieve its full effect.

edit: ...aand now you've made me draw Hoity Toity. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE MADE ME DO!
(preferably after you've drawn your own. Not sure how it works for you, but I can't help but be affected by images similar to what I want to draw)

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It's not large, but Link.

Incidentally, I would still like to see the "talking yourself through the making" thing you've offered to do. It might offer insights I am incapable of grasping on my own.

[Thanqol]

Ooh, that's interesting. I might want to try that myself sometime.

If I may offer an opinion, this sort of sketchy-outline style works best for characters in action-inclined scenes, because the slightly chaotic lines imply some sort of strain, tension, energy. Your sketch has Hoity Toity in a fairly neutral pose, so while it will still look good, it may not quite achieve its full effect.

A concern I had, but we shall see.

edit: ...aand now you've made me draw Hoity Toity. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE MADE ME DO!
(preferably after you've drawn your own. Not sure how it works for you, but I can't help but be affected by images similar to what I want to draw)

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It's not large, but Link.

Ha!

Incidentally, I would still like to see the "talking yourself through the making" thing you've offered to do. It might offer insights I am incapable of grasping on my own.

Let's do it!

Step 1: Sketch

I've made an enormous mental breakthrough with sketching recently, and curiously I put a lot of it down to the brush settings I've got for my sketch pencil. A solid line you obsess over and fiddle with, a sketchy pencil-like line you feel more okay with erasing, drawing over or fiddling with, Resultingly, this step was curiously easy for me.

Step 2: Flats

Square brush + Eraser. Just getting the shapes filled in.

Step 3: Render

Render brush to add shading and depth. It's a relief not having to fuss over the outlines.

Step 4: Solids

Throwing down some regular round brush strokes to add some irregularity.

Step 5: Outlines

Solid black everywhere, yo.

Step 6: Complete

Breaking up the outline with the eraser and cutting the shapes down to size. This part took a surprisingly long time but that's mostly because I hadn't done anything remotely like this before.

Total time: 2.5 hours.

[Beacon of Chaos]

I'm so bad at posting here these days.

That Hoity Toity pic is fantastic, Thanqol. Excellent work!

(spoilered for length)

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Then stop! :O Take a break. Look for something to inspire you. It's one of the reasons I love MLP: it's inspired me to draw more. If a children's television show aimed at little girls doesn't inspire you, do other things. Listen to music maybe? (personally I enjoy painting to music) Anything, really.

Personally I think forcing yourself to draw once a day is ridiculous and will lead to half-assed non-efforts... unless you have a plan. If you're really gonna draw once a day, you should work on your weaknesses.

I'm not saying stop practicing; I'm saying, don't force yourself, but do look for something that will make you want to draw.
What I do is I stop and look at art blogs, I look at dAs, I look at webcomics, I look at older paintings (sometimes), I look at *ahem* parts of the Internet (there are technically amazing artists plying their trade there). I look for artists whose work make me go, "Yes, I want to be able to draw/paint like that, I want my work to be comparable." They make me furious at myself for not being good enough, and that pushes me to draw, to paint. At first I imitate, then I reflect, and then I attempt to apply what I've learned to whatever next thing I make, whether it's just an idle doodle or something more involved.

Read some books. Read some tutorials. Try to wrap your head around things about color, about lines, about perspective, about space, and lighting, and anatomy, all that jazz even if you don't have the time or the willingness to try these things out just yet; at some point you will, if you really want to, and when you do, you'll have an idea on what to do and where to start. Try to make an effort in understanding, and working on, the concepts; try to look at good works of art with those things in mind.

That's just me though, and I don't know if it's working, I don't know if I'm improving. I'm also having a hard time making an effort. But we are fellow-travellers, and I think it's only fair to share my thoughts.

(take that with grain of salt, (1) I really don't know what I'm talking about and (2) jeez I've been awake for nearly 24 hours)

Thank you for the advice. I think maybe sitting down with some tutorials is a good plan. I'll have a look through those old figure drawing books you posted a while back, plus some of the random special effects tutorials I find on dA, those are usually good for inspiration.

Alright, I know you probably don't want my advice-

Objection! I DO want your advice! That's exactly what I'm after!

Diego Havoc,

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Take a break! No, this is very, very important. You need to take a break.
There are plenty of stories of artists, amateurs, professionals, and masters who have gotten burned out and abandoned their craft. What was done before out of passion, love or simply fun, started to be done only out of obligation, either to a schedule, clients/fans, or what have you.
This can only lead to resentment.
Don't feel bad for taking a break and you shouldn't worry about not coming back. If you have ever enjoyed drawing or making art, then you'll come back when your ready.

You've been doing the daily draw for a quite a period of time and should be proud as it is quite a achievement. Personally I find it admirable. However, there are three reasons why you shouldn't feel bad taking a break. (Bare with me here)

First off the reason you started it was presumably to get better and/or for fun. If you aren't getting better and you aren't having fun anymore, then perhaps it's time to stop and take a break. While I think a daily schedule and deadlines are useful and have a place for some, they can be done to excess.

The second reason you should take a break is that, speaking from personal experience, taking a break from something can actually help you learn in the long run. After taking a week or so off, I find that I can look back on my old art with fresh eyes and see the flaws in it much easier. Then I can go about and try to improve. I find that the only thing during these breaks I tend to forget is unconscious bad habits. It might seem contradictory, but my biggest jumps in skill have actually come about after half of year or more "breaks". I hope you don't take a vacation from drawing for that long, but you shouldn't feel ashamed for it.

The third reason is related to what flyingchicken said, find something to inspire you. If, for instance, you feel fresh and enthusiastic about ponies and you can't help but think about ponies and imaging ponies, then it is easy to keep up a daily draw for a while. But if you find your inspiration to draw wane, then it's best to just take a break and look around. As flyingchicken said, look at other artists. amateurs, pros, masters or what have you.
But don't forget to just observe the world around you, the greatest and most original inspiration is reality.

Alright, I'll consider taking a break. I certainly would like one.

(spoilered for length)

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I feel like I should be the voice of cold authority here and say that you should keep going despite this. I have been, many times, in a relative funk with regards to my drawing. I half-ass things and they come out half-assed. I lose motivation and other demands take up my time and a cycle forms. It's easy to quit.

When that happens, don't quit. What you should do is something fun.

Bust open SAI and grab a bunch of random brushes and spin all the dials and settings and GO NUTS. Splash colour around! Switch layer settings and texture details. Try to paint something weird and ephemeral, like a night time sky, or the ocean, or the surface of the sun. Don't worry about all the petty details like proportions or consistency or any of the hard, grindy, technical bits. Just let yourself off the hook and play with it. See what you come up with.

Painting - not drawing, painting - is absolute fun. You'll learn so much in the process.

And then there's this. I'll be honest Thanqol, I respect your opinion, but I'm starting to think that while the daily draw thing worked for you, it may not be for me.

Still, I'll carry on for a while. I'll try a mix of the advice given: take a break from drawing and instead spend time with tutorials and messing about. I've tried out what you said; I opened Photoshop and just kinda played around. Yesterday I fiddled with the filters (lesson learned: the stained-glass filter is pretty cool) and the day before I tried out a whole bunch of different brushes (lesson learned: there's a brush which would be pretty good for sparkly magic type effects). Dunno if I can say it was fun, but it was interesting.

Just one thing:

Painting - not drawing, painting - is absolute fun. You'll learn so much in the process.

This... This is probably going to sound stupid, really stupid, especially in a thread full of artists, but... what's the difference? I always just thought of painting as drawing, just with paint.

[Kd7sov]

This... This is probably going to sound stupid, really stupid, especially in a thread full of artists, but... what's the difference? I always just thought of painting as drawing, just with paint.

I don't know if this is what Thanqol means, but my view of it is that drawing deals with line, whereas painting deals with color. Shape vs. form. Appearance vs. identity, although that one's lines are not in quite the same places.

Personally, I have in the past gotten more enjoyment from drawing than painting, but then I wouldn't say that I've had enough practice at painting to consider myself sufficiently skilled at it.

[Thanqol]

This... This is probably going to sound stupid, really stupid, especially in a thread full of artists, but... what's the difference? I always just thought of painting as drawing, just with paint.

This is a drawing and this is a painting, at least as far as I'm concerned. Main difference is a forsaking of linework.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Picture in commemoration of my (or technically my avatar's) 27th birthday.

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Link (1900x1100 img)

Southern Sky should brush up on her cooking. Plus, I think that applied meteorology and cooking are like hot and cold air currents - it's better if they don't mix.

[Bakuel]

Went through a bit of a funk and my art suffered. I got better though!

A concern I had, but we shall see.



Ha!



Let's do it!

Great Hoity Toity and food for thought.
It's amazing that you did it in only two and a half hours!

Picture in commemoration of my (or technically my avatar's) 27th birthday.

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Link (1900x1100 img)

Southern Sky should brush up on her cooking. Plus, I think that applied meteorology and cooking are like hot and cold air currents - it's better if they don't mix.

Happy late avatar birthday(?)!
Not only does the cake have a rainbow in it, it also has it's own water cycle. Best cake ever.
Nit pick:
Southern Sky's eyes with the angle of her head seem a little off. She doesn't seem to be looking at the viewer but slightly off, which makes the picture feel a little weird.

This... This is probably going to sound stupid, really stupid, especially in a thread full of artists, but... what's the difference? I always just thought of painting as drawing, just with paint.

Don't feel too bad! I always thought of it the same way. A painting is a picture made with paints. That's it. A drawing is one made with pencils, ink, or charcoal or whatever and (generally) monochrome. At least that's what I always thought.
I like Thaqol and Kd7sov's definitions dealing with linework though.


Day 69-75, Or "Sunshine and Celery Stalks"

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Day 69 is when everything went wrong. I never was good with 69.
Moving right along,
I barfed colors. And not the good kind.

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Link

But then I got better after roaming around for a few days in a daze and drawing garbage. During this time I did clean up and finish or at least stop tweaking the Tropius night cityscape picture.
Mostly I added more lights on the ground level and cleaned up some lines here and there.

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One down, now it's time to start from the top and do it all over again!

I started working on the AJ versus Wispy Woods. Once again it's like I spat colors all over the place. But it's a work in progress as you can see. Mostly just some shading and base colors. The clean up will be long and hard for this one.

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Onward to more entertaining things!

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It's possible for someone to love those celery stalks a bit *too* much if you know what I mean. Sure those bitter little stalks have a sexy crunch, but you need to control yourself. *nods sagely*
Besides AJ's cheating on the apples.

I heard that I use too many dark and saturated colors. So I decided to lighten things up a bit. I actually have an unholy love of desaturated colors and watercolors and stuff like that.

Applejack is supposed to be tiding up the celery stalk crop dirt pile thing. Or whatever it is people do with gardens and growing things with dirt and stuff like that. The pose and intent got away from me and now I'm not sure what she's doing, swaying around like a love struck leaf in the wind. I also realized I had forgotten everything I thought I knew about pony anatomy but didn't. Need to work on actually learning that.

Anyway,

Things I learned,

Once again, it's all in the contrast. Before I applied the darkened lines, it looked like this. Very dirty, too bright, and ugly. But when I went back and put the darkened lines in, it looks much cleaner and not as bright. Okay, it's still dirty, bright and ugly. But still, it looks cleaner and darker just because the brain has darker lines to build the picture off of even if the base colors are the same. The opposite of the night picture, were brighter lights made it seem cleaner and brighter. This may seem elementary, but my life is a long painful lesson on the groking of elementary concepts.


Random non-pony art!

Yesterday it was hot and I wanted to draw something dealing with winter. So I did! Well, ok... Maybe not. It's just cat children bullying a lizard. I dunno.

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[flyingchicken]

xoxoxoxoxo

[Madcrafter]

Hello ponythread. I'm cross-posting this from the avatar thread, since the most criticism one seems to be able to get over there is "It's great, thanks!" or "Could you change XYZ small thing?"

Anyways, this is my try at a Warhammer 40k tech-priest pony that was requested, and I'm looking for criticism/advice. This is the ~third pony I've drawn (the first being my avatar, the pony parts of which were actually made by the pony creator, the second being another avatar request), and my first ever time using photoshop.

Here it is:

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Some things I can already see that need correcting:

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-The rebreather is slightly out of position with respect to the eyes
-The 'cutie mark' on the robe is out of style, and not properly bent around the curve of the body
-The right shoulder portion of the robe is too small
-One mechadendrite is much more 3D than the rest of the image, but nonetheless lacks curvature in a few places
-A significant overdose of solid red (I was trying for a showlike style with no shading), as well as a general primary colour overload (I was trying to keep things simple though)
-Front leg merges with the body
-I derped and missed a spot on the brightness correction layer mask

And a question for the photoshop users: How many layers would you expect to use in a plain drawing like this one? I don't know if I should be try to use more or less, or if its just personal preference.

[flyingchicken]

xoxoxoxoxo

[Madcrafter]

Thank you! I knew it didn't look right, but having little to no art knowledge (especially about colour) I had no idea how to fix it. Not knowing what is wrong makes it hard to do a google search for it (as stated in my obvious error section: "there is too much red"). The best I could come up with was lowering brightness.

As for the blue pony, I agree, but it was what was requested. How would you recommend changing it, so it looks better but is still blue?

[flyingchicken]

xoxoxoxoxo

[Kd7sov]

As for the blue pony, I agree, but it was what was requested. How would you recommend changing it, so it looks better but is still blue?

There's plenty of blues. Look at, for instance, Rainbow Dash, Soarin' (including the Wonderbolt uniform, but also his mane and coat), Mrs. Cake, Photo Finish, Sapphire Shores (mane), Princess Luna, Fancy Pants (mane), Shining Armor (mane, mane, and mane), The Great and Powerful Trixie, the sousaphonist in Octavia's group, Twilight's father, the jelly with which that one stallion was strangely obsessed...

[Sean Mirrsen]

I haven't been drawing a whole lot, mostly due to issues with eye strain and concern about vision quality in general. I guess my body wasn't ready to keep this sort of thing up. :P

I did draw something more or less decent, for one Alex Gann, who you might know as Slag, the author of Special Delivery (the RDxShipping fic), whose birthday it is today, June 24th.

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Link (1900x1300 img).

[Bakuel]

Hm, actually, I've practically scrapped the WIP it because I got the halfling's size completely wrong. After mocking up some 3D models for lighting reference, I found that she should be around 2 heads shorter!

Oh well, I really liked the hat... Are you going to try again maybe?

Glancing over it, I realized that then she would be lower then the other characters waists. I never realized halflings were so tiny. For fantasy races, waste height was always my personal if-you-are-below-this-height-I-cannot-take-you-serious level.

Dobston's problems extend wayyy beyond his mystifying popularity, but there's already a whole world of tumblrs and threads out there that tackle that so yeah >_>

It must be his award winning personality!

I feel like I still can't fully articulate what I find wrong with these colorwise, but I think part of it is the... bumpiness, of the shadows. I think you should define the large blobs of shadow first, the work your way from there, instead of the sketchy shading, idk.

Tip noted! I used it the other day to good effect! Who knew? Start with large shading large brush, then go in for deeper shading with smaller brushes. Still blotchy, but I'm just a dirty guy like that, I'll work on it.

The funny thing about the colors and shading is that I notice a lot of things wrong with them. I don't know if one of them is the one you are referring to or all of them at once.

Spoilered longer response,

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If you want reasons why the coloring looks off, I have a dozen and a half.
One problem is that I'm approaching shading like I sketch and doodle. With a thousand light strokes and then going back and hinting at where the line or shadow should fall. At best it's generally soft. I treat everything like a round ball, even when it should be shaded more like a square. In other words, I treat the more angular spaces on surfaces like rounded parts. If that makes since.
What I need to start doing is drawing a line in the sand and making a stand! The shadow is here, it is defined, and it will fall no were else! Dang it.

Another problem is that I don't treat the contrast/light values right when I pick colors. The reason my night scenes always look marginally better then my daylight scenes is because saturated colors come out best with low light. Hence, while Flying Tropius and Pony Vampires, while still amateurish, come out at least looking a bit like something and are more popular unlike my daylight scenes which turn into steaming piles of cow manure.

Finally, besides pony colors which are seeded from screenshots I tend to chose colors at freehand. So my color choice is often off. Metals don't feel like metals, cloth doesn't feel like cloth, hair doesn't feel like hair, flesh doesn't feel like flesh. A bit silly using "feel" for seeing, but I want to say something deeper then just "looking" like something. Even though this is a visual art which makes it rather silly. I mean it's all looking anyway, right?
But I digress, I'm working on it. Those colors of mine.

I like the colors you picked for celery-staring AJ, I don't know why. Maybe it's my personal bias towards ridiculously light and somewhat desaturated colors. I think the hair on tree-kicking AJ WIP looks good, though in a sort of... "realistic" details (realistic isn't the word I'm looking for) sort of way, so I feel the only way to make it work is if you match that level of detail with the rest of the image.

I rather like the Celery one's colors too. It's my personal theory that desaturated colors are just easier for me to work with, seeing as a lot of the tones are found in nature, as opposed to over saturated colors which is generally only found in a few places in nature and reminds one of cartoons and plastics. Many of my older pictures's colors have higher color saturation, yet softer amateurish free hand shading as opposed to cell shading, making the whole thing look off and plastic like. Simpler basic cell shading looks best with high saturated cartoon colors I think with little to no highlights.
If one is attempting more gradual and varying shades of color for shadow and highlights, or, is simply bad at cell shading and has a uneven hand (like me), then I think it's best to stick to more desaturated colors.

Of course I ramble. All this is probably wrong, these are just the words of a man who has only been at this coloring business for 6-8 months and only around 70-80 days of actual practice. Since I have time to think, I'm just throwing these thoughts out there.

Don't worry on the detailed hair front. That picture is far away from being finished. There's going to be like, leaves and stuff. And bark. Granted, before drawing trees I should have made sure that I knew how. Perhaps I should have waited for autumn for the leaves and started a summer scene instead?

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Some stuff I've done over the past week, all entirely done in Inkscape; a bit scarce I know, but a little more colorful than my usual stuff:
*snip*

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append: not the greatest Locke:
*snip*
4.5ish hour drawring

I don't have... a very good grasp of how things fit together, and it was even worse in the first 2 hours or so (I basically had to redraw everything a couple times ).

Oddly, something about that clothed pinkie looks like she could be in a fashion magazine. And I prefer the doodled version of Locke. Can't help with the realistic sketch, but something about his eyes looks very creepy. But then again, I'm not good with eyes myself. And I never watched the show so maybe it fits?

I haven't been drawing a whole lot, mostly due to issues with eye strain and concern about vision quality in general. I guess my body wasn't ready to keep this sort of thing up. :P

I did draw something more or less decent, for one Alex Gann, who you might know as Slag, the author of Special Delivery (the RDxShipping fic), whose birthday it is today, June 24th.

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Link (1900x1300 img).

I'm not Mr. Anatomy, but his shoulders and arms look way off. His right arm's elbow seems to be around the waste which is too long down, and I feel like his shoulders should be a wider and more defined.
Then there is the hands, much better then I could do for realistic hands. But, I must say that the right one is much larger then the other.

I read that fic after you posted.
Thanks. You made my day.

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Pure genius. So wrong, but so perfect. I haven't laughed that hard in awhile, I needed that.
Is he planning to write anymore?

Day 76 & 77, or "Allured with Armor"

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"I saw her there on the battlefield, standing among the dead after she had broke our ranks with that ungodly strength... And I... I... felt an odd urge to brush the pony's hair."

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Link

So I seem to be on a role with drawing! Or at least drawing and coloring something everyday. Hopefully I can keep it up for a whole week.
Today and yesterday I was drawing armor! Yes! This is a exciting thing.

Yesterday I was doing a Ghulam reading a newspaper. I kinda of lost focus from the shoulders downward. And he lost his lower body in the war, now he spends his days out in the yard, reading newspapers. I need to do a full body week again. And work on anatomy, yes I know. But honestly I just drew a doodle and started to color it, I wanted to get to the coloring part faster. Next time I'll take my time and get the anatomy down right and make a full figure.

Today I drew a spontaneous OC pony! Trapped in a strange land of war, she is forced to join a free company and fight for her life(!) Over the years she has abandoned her name from her time in her happy pony homeland, now most call her the remorseful warrior, Valkyrie!
Action! Drama! Explosions!
Alright enough stupidity.
I wanted to draw a pony with armor on. Put some lines together and here we are. The armor is based loosely on Gothic horse armor, but at the same time I wanted to do fancy Italian parade style armor, especially with the helmets and stuff. Hence the helmet with fish-dragon-demon. I put the Holy Roman two headed eagle on her for a standard, and some somewhat random coat of arms for the armor near her foreleg. I wanted to do a painted pony, brown and white, but you can't see it as she's wearing a lot of trash anyway!

Things I learned,

Where to begin? I built off of the lessons I learned on contrast between light and dark and took it to the next level and applied it to the saturation of colors. Shadows having greater saturation while colors in the light having less. This may seem elementary, as usual, but this concept was quite a break through. I finally learned why my earlier drawings colorwise didn't seem to *pop*, that's because I wasn't giving any thought to saturation. It was like I was ignoring a whole dimension of color (bare with the silly phrase), only dealing with colors and how light or dark they were. Thus giving them a flatter 2d look on the color spectrum. If that makes sense. Day 76 was when I started to realize this and today (Day 77) when I begin to draw I applied what I had learned to draw a new random birthed pony OC.
The theme for these two days was armor and I got some practice coloring metals. I like armor. I'm a ye medieval type guy and I love me some armor type stuff.
I learned that metals have sharp shiny highlights, it's best to use a color very close to white for it. If the metal is in sunlight large parts of the shiny iron armor will probably be pretty close to white. Thus, while Day 77 is the stronger colored picture by far, I believe that the newspaper reading ghulam feels more like he is out in direct sunlight. Out there in his yard, drinking coffee and reading newspaper. Anyway, this is because of parts of his helmet, which are almost half almost white, while the other is darkly shaded. At least I think so. Ignore the rest of it's body it is pretty bad. I don't know what time of day it will have to be to get the sunlight to be like that. While on the other hand we have Valkryie, the shieldish parts of her armor could be more whitish in the highlights and they could be bigger. If that makes sense.