Kyouhen Learns to Paint!

[Kyouhen]

Hey, I resemble that remark!

Yep, you sure do!

Problem with black outlines is that they need to be really thin in order to work. Thick black lines look really bad, but thin, pencilly ones can be excused.

Yeah, that and black in general is a horrible colour to use. (See below)

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*

The brim being too wide really was the big mistake with the hat. I had tried reshaping it a few times but wasn't happy with any of the attempts and eventually settled with this. The top part wouldn't look as bad if the rest of Applejack was at the same angle as the hat. I'll probably have to touch on this perspective again sometime for more practice.

And huzzah! *Brohoof*
And one for Thanqol too.

Anyway, I had forgotten that I wanted to do a little summary thing from toying around with altering these cards now that the ATG is over. Learned a few things trying to mimic the art that had already been placed on the cards. First though, for completion's sake, here's the first two I had done.

Mock War Day 1

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Day 1 Original

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Mock War Day 2

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Day 2 Original

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So. Key thing I was watching as I worked on these was what I needed to do to reproduce the backgrounds. The ponies are all ponies, easily done on any other medium and not really the point behind this experiment. The point was to attempt to modify another artist's work as seamlessly as possible, and the first two days are probably the best examples of that attempt as they had the most that needed to be removed/changed. (Not that I wasn't messing around with how to draw Applejack, it just wasn't the primary objective)

Main thing I learned was in mixing colours. Mixing anything with either black or white is a horrible idea, both kill the colours. I've been aware of the fact that you should avoid using them for a long time now, but trying to reproduce a professional's work really drove it home. White tends to be more forgiving of the two though, as it only really dulls the colour. Black just flattens anything it touches, so most of the darker colours I used were actually mixed with a really dark brown I have. (The dark purples for Day 1 were actually mixed with a nice navy blue. Quite pleased with how those worked out. Most of the teals from Day 2 were just a combination of teal and navy as well)

I also learned a few things about subtle shading. Again, something that I had noticed before but never really payed attention to until just now. Every card has pretty much been tinted in the colours that the card belong to. Day 1 has an abundance of warm colours, Day 2 is cool teals and greys, Day 3 involved a lot of faded colours for the sky and Day 4 had green in everything. I just found this really interesting because for a lot of the work I was able to mix one main colour then change it slightly to get all the colours I needed. Day 1's a bit of an exception with all the dark purples in it, but Day 3 was done almost entirely with one colour lightened and darkened as needed.

So yeah, learned lots of stuff about toying around with colouring in a painting. Probably going to try experimenting with that a little, see what happens.

[Kyouhen]

Day 15

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And her hooves didn't even touch the ground!

Had this idea when I was halfway through Day 4 of the ATG2. Absolutely had to finish it. Pretty sure it qualifies for the 'transformation' theme for this week's challenge too. Assuming anyone gets the reference. I really hope someone gets the reference.

[Kyouhen]

Day 16

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Today's D&D, so not much time for painting. I was originally going to do a line art thing, but messed it up. Instead of burning a bunch of white paint to fix it I decided to try whatever this is instead.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Day 15

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And her hooves didn't even touch the ground!

Had this idea when I was halfway through Day 4 of the ATG2. Absolutely had to finish it. Pretty sure it qualifies for the 'transformation' theme for this week's challenge too. Assuming anyone gets the reference. I really hope someone gets the reference.

I have no idea what the actual reference is, because what I remember is likely in itself a reference. It was a game in an episode of Reboot, where Enzo ended up as the princess (and he used the phrase later as if describing a hypothetical partner (i.e. Bob) in the same situation to whats-her-name the aquatic-themed game character)

[the_druid_droid]

Day 16

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Today's D&D, so not much time for painting. I was originally going to do a line art thing, but messed it up. Instead of burning a bunch of white paint to fix it I decided to try whatever this is instead.

This is actually a really neat experiment! The only things I'd note are that her mane needs a little more volume, and the color of her cutie mark looks a little off - not quite pastel enough.

[Kyouhen]

I have no idea what the actual reference is, because what I remember is likely in itself a reference. It was a game in an episode of Reboot, where Enzo ended up as the princess (and he used the phrase later as if describing a hypothetical partner (i.e. Bob) in the same situation to whats-her-name the aquatic-themed game character)

The hypothetical partner was actually Bob if I remember correctly, they just never actually name Bob. I think they point out he was talking about Bob later. But yes, that was the reference.

This is actually a really neat experiment! The only things I'd note are that her mane needs a little more volume, and the color of her cutie mark looks a little off - not quite pastel enough.

Yeah, that was more me being lazy. I have problems getting small amounts of paint out of the jar thingies they're in and don't like mixing for such a small amount.

[Kyouhen]

Wow, I must have been really tired last night. I could have sworn I had made a post here. Oh well, this post will just have to double up.

Day 17

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An extremely long day at work (woke up at 2am, didn't get home until about 10pm) and no time to paint anything resulted in me painting that when I got home. I was trying to paint Pinkie Pie by filling in the negative space around her. Instead I ended up with whatever that is. Also two failed attempts at doing better heads. Hooray for exhaustion!

Day 18

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Reference

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This week's CHALLENGE theme is life and death. I have an idea I want to do but didn't have time for it today, so instead I did some fusion thing between Iname Life Aspect and Iname Death Aspect while still toying around with working with just shapes instead of really working with outlines. I don't think this turned out too bad, though it definitely isn't Iname. (And yes, I know there's Iname as One, but that's a horrible card so bleh)

[Thanqol]

Wow, I must have been really tired last night. I could have sworn I had made a post here. Oh well, this post will just have to double up.

Day 17

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With negative space you don't draw just the outline. You draw everything except the pony. A pony-shaped hole in the world. Looks kinda rosarchy at the moment.

Also, I envy that your medium gives you access to awesome paint splatter effects.

Day 18

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Reference

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This week's CHALLENGE theme is life and death. I have an idea I want to do but didn't have time for it today, so instead I did some fusion thing between Iname Life Aspect and Iname Death Aspect while still toying around with working with just shapes instead of really working with outlines. I don't think this turned out too bad, though it definitely isn't Iname. (And yes, I know there's Iname as One, but that's a horrible card so bleh)[/color]

I have a shiney version of that card

[Kyouhen]

With negative space you don't draw just the outline. You draw everything except the pony. A pony-shaped hole in the world. Looks kinda rosarchy at the moment.

Also, I envy that your medium gives you access to awesome paint splatter effects.

Yeah, that was the original goal. Then I started adding to it when it looked horrible and that's what I ended up with. I'll likely end up giving it another few tries sometime in the future.

And there's bound to be some way to reproduce it with custom brushes for the digital medium. What program do you use again?

I have a shiney version of that card

All my hate.

[Thanqol]

Yeah, that was the original goal. Then I started adding to it when it looked horrible and that's what I ended up with. I'll likely end up giving it another few tries sometime in the future.

And there's bound to be some way to reproduce it with custom brushes for the digital medium. What program do you use again?

Paint Tool SAI. And while I'm sure there is a way to do that digitally, my best guess is that I have to be wearing hair plucked from the neckbeards of ninety nine virgins as a scarf while singing the Pony Poky to please the photoshop gods to let it happen.

This process may also involve shelling out four digits for a full copy of Photoshop, too.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Paint Tool SAI. And while I'm sure there is a way to do that digitally, my best guess is that I have to be wearing hair plucked from the neckbeards of ninety nine virgins as a scarf while singing the Pony Poky to please the photoshop gods to let it happen.

This process may also involve shelling out four digits for a full copy of Photoshop, too.

You may have better luck with Corel Painter in that regard.

[Thanqol]

You may have better luck with Corel Painter in that regard.

... I didn't even think of that! I'll give it a look again later.

[Sean Mirrsen]

... I didn't even think of that! I'll give it a look again later.

I'm not sure how much it costs, but it has just about every conceivable tool and option for every possible medium. It even has a real palette, where you can mix paints. For real painting in digital form, I suspect it's the best there is. I'm just too used to the likes of Photoshop to make proper use of it.

edit: $350, as of now. There's a free trial though.

plus there's also the "free" option of course, but that's a very very wrong thing to even think about

[Thanqol]

I'm not sure how much it costs, but it has just about every conceivable tool and option for every possible medium. It even has a real palette, where you can mix paints. For real painting in digital form, I suspect it's the best there is. I'm just too used to the likes of Photoshop to make proper use of it.

edit: $350, as of now. There's a free trial though.

plus there's also the "free" option of course, but that's a very very wrong thing to even think about

I actually already own Corel, it came free with my tablet I switched away because I found I preferred SAI for linework at least.

[Kyouhen]

I actually already own Corel, it came free with my tablet I switched away because I found I preferred SAI for linework at least.

Well, why not do the linework in SAI then transfer it over to Corel for the colouring? A little annoying to do, but it might be worth it if you can get better colouring done.

EDIT:
Whoops, forgot I was posting that in my thread. And I have no idea what the general rule of thumb is for double posts in this subforum are. Nor can I seem to find them. Oh well, edits to the rescue!

Day 19

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I apologize for exposing you to... whatever in the nine hells that is. Massive discussion about FlutterDash shipping and the Valentine's episode followed by Trixie starting the new ponythread on a bee theme and declaring a challenge for people to contribute bee-based memes resulted in this horror. Originally I was going to include the other ponies as other bugs, but for some reason my brain decided it needed to be a really corny Valentine's day card thing instead. And I have problems keeping my brain under control.

Now excuse me while I spend an hour or so on 4chan to punish my brain.

[Thanqol]

Well, why not do the linework in SAI then transfer it over to Corel for the colouring? A little annoying to do, but it might be worth it if you can get better colouring done.

But I liiiiike SAI's colouring too and I like a bunch of things in Photoshop Elements too.

EDIT:
Whoops, forgot I was posting that in my thread. And I have no idea what the general rule of thumb is for double posts in this subforum are. Nor can I seem to find them. Oh well, edits to the rescue!

I've posted, like, 10 times in a row and never had a moderator smack me down for it at times. I reckon the rule here is 'each new post should contain new content.'

Day 19

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I apologize for exposing you to... whatever in the nine hells that is. Massive discussion about FlutterDash shipping and the Valentine's episode followed by Trixie starting the new ponythread on a bee theme and declaring a challenge for people to contribute bee-based memes resulted in this horror. Originally I was going to include the other ponies as other bugs, but for some reason my brain decided it needed to be a really corny Valentine's day card thing instead. And I have problems keeping my brain under control.

Now excuse me while I spend an hour or so on 4chan to punish my brain.

It's adorable, and yet I need to punch someone for that pun.

*Punches self*

[Kyouhen]

But I liiiiike SAI's colouring too and I like a bunch of things in Photoshop Elements too.

Ok, then stick with SAI.

I've posted, like, 10 times in a row and never had a moderator smack me down for it at times. I reckon the rule here is 'each new post should contain new content.'

Actually it was more me wondering how often I can post in a row without it being considered spam. I don't want someone to get the impression I'm just trying to bump up my thread or am just spamming. Pointless fear I'm sure, but I'm paranoid so whatever.

It's adorable, and yet I need to punch someone for that pun.

*Punches self*

It's about to get worse. I'm tired and it's late, but trust me, tomorrow it gets worse.

[Kyouhen]

Day 20
By the gods. Roommate dragged me out to a pub earlier before I had time to do my painting. Figured that was fine, I'll take a little notebook and my paints and toss something together while I'm there. I swear it was the single most boring night I've ever had at a pub. Incoming picture onslaught.

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When my roommate saw me pulling out my paintbrush he found a chunk of glass and said if I could use it in a piece of art I'd get 10 XP. So I tossed this together, folded the paper in half and stood it on the table. Easy XP. (Especially when I get another 15 for doing this much art! BWAHAHA!)

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Next up is another entry for The CHALLENGE, the Forest Spirit from Princess Mononoke. I had decided I would try doing it entirely from memory. When I got to the eyebrows I asked a friend who was familiar with the movie what colour they were because I knew they weren't the same colour as the rest of the fur. The end result was me looking up what the Forest Spirit looked like and realizing how screwed up the painting was. So I fixed it.

For anyone not familiar with the movie, the Forest Spirit is a spirit of life and death which happens to be the current CHALLENGE theme.

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Next up is the Nightwalker, also from Princess Mononoke and also for the CHALLENGE. Did this one from memory too, and was happy enough with how it turned out that I didn't bother doing any major revisions to it. The Nightwalker is what the Forest Spirit turns in to at night, and is basically death on a stick. Or at least it is later in the movie, not sure what it does normally.

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I tried painting a timberwolf. Was less than pleased with it, but at least the people who were watching me could figure out it was supposed to be a wolf. Biggest problem with it's the back legs, I'm not sure how but they ended up way too thick and aren't bending the way I had wanted them to.

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And for my last work today, I did a little painting of a tree being devoured by locusts. This is also for the CHALLENGE theme.

Bunch of things for the CHALLENGE today. I had originally planned on doing something big worth 2 or 3 points like I normally do, but couldn't when I ended up going to the pub. Too busy to afford to let those points slip, hence the piles of small things done today. Now I'm back on track.

And good news Thanqol! The pun doesn't get worse today! Probably tomorrow though.

[Kyouhen]

Day 21

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Next submission for The CHALLENGE. Decided to do a picture based on that myth where the sun is taken too far from the earth and causes it to freeze, then is placed too close and burns everything.

Hooray for the weekend! I'll be able to have time to relax and not be getting home at stupid hours!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Day 21

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Next submission for The CHALLENGE. Decided to do a picture based on that myth where the sun is taken too far from the earth and causes it to freeze, then is placed too close and burns everything.

Hooray for the weekend! I'll be able to have time to relax and not be getting home at stupid hours!

I...

I probably need to go rent a TBM and tunnel my mind out of the gutter, but...

Holy flaming flatulence Pinkamena, what were you eating?

Nice job with the fire and snow, but the composition could use some clearing up.

[Kyouhen]

I...

I probably need to go rent a TBM and tunnel my mind out of the gutter, but...

Holy flaming flatulence Pinkie, what were you eating?

>_>
<_<
Strictly speaking that wasn't supposed to be Pinkie. I just wanted a colour scheme that would take little effort and that I already knew would look appropriately pony. Hence why I gave her straight hair.

That said, what's been seen cannot be unseen. I BLAME YOU! AND THE FLOWERS! IT'S TOTALLY THE FLOWERS' FAULT!

[Sean Mirrsen]

>_>
<_<
Strictly speaking that wasn't supposed to be Pinkie. I just wanted a colour scheme that would take little effort and that I already knew would look appropriately pony. Hence why I gave her straight hair.

That said, what's been seen cannot be unseen. I BLAME YOU! AND THE FLOWERS! IT'S TOTALLY THE FLOWERS' FAULT!

Or maybe mushrooms.

Big, tasty mushrooms.

Except these seem to kick in much later in the digestive cycle. :)

[Kyouhen]

Day 22

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I was originally going to have Twilight yelling about a book with Rainbow Dash at the bottom, but Dash takes entirely too long to paint thanks to all her colours and a decently chewed-up book would be just as bad. Not a lot of time for that today, and I'm just as happy with Twilight freaking out over a pen.

I managed to reduce my medium-sized brush to a whole 4 bristles trying to do the background for yesterday's painting. Not too surprised since I've had that thing for ages and it's had more than a few bristles broken off for various reasons over the years. I swapped to a hard, larger brush I've been using for sealing models and whatnot today and it really sped things up. Downside is now I need a new sealing brush. The entire reason I wasn't using this one before is because for whatever reason I can never get all the paint out of it, so when I try applying the sealing stuff to a model it ends up tinted unless I spend a good 10 minutes scrubbing the paint out of it. Oh well, at least I can paint large things faster now.

[Kyouhen]

Day 23

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Super quick painting today. Apologies to Lixie if I messed up her pony too much, it's hard to remember what everyone looked like now that everyone's running around with human avatars.

And I can see why Thanqol went and did so many chibis, they're really fun to make!

[Thanqol]

And I can see why Thanqol went and did so many chibis, they're really fun to make![/color]

I know, right? And they're also marvellous character design practice. 75% of each chibi was conceptual/design.

[Glass Mouse]

Hey Kyouhen! I just trawled through this week's works (you know why), and it just struck me how... different your paintings are! You're all over the chart, ideas-wise, and it's great to see that creativity
Also, your medium rocks. It's been so long since I tried real painting... Hmm.


I know you dislike the timber wolf, but I really like the colours and the way the brush strokes makes its back look like branches and twigs.
I agree with Sean that the sun picture could use a more solid composition. If you don't know it, the golden ratio is a great guideline, no matter your skill level.

Cheers!

[Kyouhen]

Hey Kyouhen! I just trawled through this week's works (you know why), and it just struck me how... different your paintings are! You're all over the chart, ideas-wise, and it's great to see that creativity
Also, your medium rocks. It's been so long since I tried real painting... Hmm.


I know you dislike the timber wolf, but I really like the colours and the way the brush strokes makes its back look like branches and twigs.
I agree with Sean that the sun picture could use a more solid composition. If you don't know it, the golden ratio is a great guideline, no matter your skill level.

Cheers!

Thanks! My mind tends to wander to strange places, and when it latches onto an idea I'm obligated to follow through with it. It helps that I tend to get bored of doing one thing too often and try to find something new to try. Except ponies. Ponies seem to be a good muse so far.

The colours and strokes I'm happy with, it's mostly just the back legs on that thing that bug me. I'm a touch of a perfectionist, so I tend to be overly critical of my work even when it's pretty good. Golden ratio is what I was trying for, except the entire thing kind of got away from me. I don't do too much planning with my paintings, preferring to just try projecting it straight from my mind onto the paper and going from there. I'm usually happy with the results, it just has the unfortunate side-effect of the work getting away from me and doing it's own thing before it's finished.

Speaking of which...

Day 24

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Yeah, I have no idea what this thing is. Hit a bit of a creative block today, then things got busy so I couldn't do the bigger thing I wanted to do, then I still had to paint something and had no ideas what to do. One of my roommates has some converted Tyranid Carnifexi kicking around so I decided to take the basic body shape of one, put my brush in some paint, and see what I end up with. Pretty happy with how this turned out though I have no idea what it's supposed to be. The floppy antennae things on it's back were originally going to be tentacles but after I started painting the first one I decided it would be more interesting as a moth-like antenna thing.

[Kyouhen]

Day 25

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An extremely long day at work with no time for painting says I do this little painting today. I wasn't sure what I wanted to paint and was reading A Dance With Dragons when I got to the scene...

A Dance With Dragons Spoilers (Mostly relevant to Storm of Swords)

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Stannis reveals his sword Lightbringer to the Night's Watch. The scene just immediately demanded that I paint it, so I did.

This is also my first work for this week's Challenge. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, though the shadows still need a little work.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Day 25

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An extremely long day at work with no time for painting says I do this little painting today. I wasn't sure what I wanted to paint and was reading A Dance With Dragons when I got to the scene...

A Dance With Dragons Spoilers (Mostly relevant to Storm of Swords)

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Stannis reveals his sword Lightbringer to the Night's Watch. The scene just immediately demanded that I paint it, so I did.

This is also my first work for this week's Challenge. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, though the shadows still need a little work.

Yeah, the shadows might need work. I'm not sure how the scene is supposed to be set up, but the lightsource for the two giant shadows (I assume those are shadows) seems to be at the characters' feet. If the lightsource is the raised sword, the shadows would be stretching down and away rather than up.

[Kyouhen]

Apparently I forgot to actually upload my work yesterday, so you guys get a double dose today!

Day 26

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I have one of those Zwipe erasable marker things and ages ago found out that they work really well with card sleeves. As such just about everything in my EDH deck is wearing a top hat and a monocle. This includes the equipment/spells/enchantments. I was playing yesterday and decided to have a shot at painting the Classy Overlord. Pretty happy with how it turned out.

Day 27

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Another entry for The Challenge. It doesn't matter how often I play this game, the light at the end of the tunnel out of Ravenholm is the most beautiful thing in the entire game. I really hate Ravenholm. Yes I can go through it blindfolded in hard mode, no that hasn't improved my hatred for that town.