Ponythread Learns to Draw II

[Madcrafter]

Day 485:

Cute CMC sleeping pic.

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[Madcrafter]

Three more days of ATG! I watched a a video, watching videos always gets me doing better. Unfortunately I also was doing these right before the deadline so time was always an issue.

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Days 486, 487, 488:

Spoiler: Fluttershy Caroling

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Spoiler: Luna is ready for the battle

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Spoiler: Gilda is decorated

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[Madcrafter]

Whoops, I really let posting slip. Not really much to see for this while, the holidays were quite busy.

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Days 489-493:

Last of the ATG stuff. The third I think would make a hilarious picture done up in full vectors, otherwise blah.

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Day 494:

Back to doodle.

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Day 495-8:

This turned out ok for rough colouring.

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Day 499-501:

Embarrassingly low productivity 3 days.

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Day 502-8, 510:

I read Neil Gaiman's American Gods and quite enjoyed it. Started on an image of part of Shadow's dreams, but gave up when I realized how bad a decision doing the tower of skulls was.

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Days 509, 511, 512, 513:

It's a new year, very belated now. Rest are just a few sketches.

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Day 514-6:

This one doesn't look like much, but there is actually a bunch of different layers underneath, mostly cutaways. I spent most of my time animating the different parts, first ever stab at 2D animation. Interestingly enough, Dropbox automatically changes the psd files into image files for some reason. Let's see if the embed works.

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Day 517:

And a car.

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[Madcrafter]

Days 518, 519:

A writer and a pianist.

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Day 520:

A good old 1920s hairstyle.

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Day 521:

Got to poke around in someone's open chest today. It was great for anatomy knowledge, even if it wasn't for very long.

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Those muscles when preserved really look like jerky. Doesn't help that the formaldehyde ostensibly causes hunger.

[Madcrafter]

Day 522:

A bugsplat person, from flour bag.

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Day 523-4:

Saw Apollo 13, again. Space is cold.

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Day 525-6:

Inspired by a picture in a drawfriend.

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Day 527:

A dancing pirate.

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Day 528-30:

A service portrait of Resonant Blue. Went alright, still not as free as I would like, and colour/contrast things could do with some more time. I also really need to learn how to do nice eyes.

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[Madcrafter]

Well, while we wait for the telephone game to finish, let's just skip on over to some more recent stuff.

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Day 537-8:

Samus, and I remembered to use references. Never actually played a Metriod game though.

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Days 539, 540, 541, 542 543-4:

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[Madcrafter]

Day 545:

This one is a copy of a drawfriend image from today or yesterday. It turned out alright, but there are a few things that are kind of weird looking, mostly around boundaries/edges. Still, good inspiration to do straight up painting with a soft brush, since it looks much smoother than I usually do (and fast too!).

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[Madcrafter]

Day 546-8:

Forgive the derpy expression. It is the reality of a life without references. The technique could do with some more refinement.

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[Tiki Snakes]

It's funny, looking back over the last page or so in one go (having not paid any attention for a while).

It really seems to me that your paintings have kinda come along, are popping in a way that your sketches aren't, or haven't or something. It might just be a coincidence because most of the above paintings are ponies and most of the sketches are not, admittedly.

But I'm not sure. I think there's a degree to which line-art is a trap, an approach that naturally limits you. I'm unsure on this, but it certainly rings old bells as a theory. I do remember my old art teachers encouraging us to stop trying to lineart everything, drawing borders to things and so on and to start looking at things in terms of light and shade, but it's ever so long ago now.

Which is to say, I particularly like those last two paintings. The colours feel so warm, so fruity. They're actually making me slightly hungry, though that might just be the lack of breakfast talking. It'd be good to see more paintings.

[Madcrafter]

And here I go not responding myself after all that. But I wanted to not respond with just a quick sketch as I had done that day, and then I was on to mushrooms. But thanks.

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Day 549:

Dumb sketch.

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Day 550-5:

And the mushroom ponies. I feel like I kind of screwed these up at the end, but it kind of at least came out a bit like I envisioned it. (And now I just notice I forgot to flip the canvas back). Probably would have been better without the light, it kind of washed everything out.

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[Tiki Snakes]

Actually, I rather like how the light turned out. It was one of the plus points of the picture to me, because it has the effect of giving a sense of the air, so to speak. It also helps push the background and the foreground apart, gives it a real feeling of depth. That's another thing I particularly like, I feel like there's a good feeling of structure and depth of field in this one.

It really pops, in that sense. Especially with some of those little details, the mushroom frills and so on.

If there was anything to criticise, I'd probably say that the actual pony anatomy is perhaps a little rubbery and vague, and the single colour scheme is a bit simple, visually speaking, but with the particular composition you've gone for, you get away with that quite well. The leaf de-emphasises any focus on pony-proportions and the rendering and shading is nice enough that the perculiarities of colour don't really seem so important, even if I'd probably have varied the exact hue/saturation etc of the top of the cap personally).

I really am very impressed and quite satisfied with it, as far as art requests go.

[Madcrafter]

Actually, I rather like how the light turned out. It was one of the plus points of the picture to me, because it has the effect of giving a sense of the air, so to speak. It also helps push the background and the foreground apart, gives it a real feeling of depth. That's another thing I particularly like, I feel like there's a good feeling of structure and depth of field in this one.

It really pops, in that sense. Especially with some of those little details, the mushroom frills and so on.

If there was anything to criticise, I'd probably say that the actual pony anatomy is perhaps a little rubbery and vague, and the single colour scheme is a bit simple, visually speaking, but with the particular composition you've gone for, you get away with that quite well. The leaf de-emphasises any focus on pony-proportions and the rendering and shading is nice enough that the perculiarities of colour don't really seem so important, even if I'd probably have varied the exact hue/saturation etc of the top of the cap personally).

I really am very impressed and quite satisfied with it, as far as art requests go.

Hmm, I agree, but it came with downsides too that I didn't mitigate very well. For one, it is too strong for the shading that is actually on the objects in the image, which is giving them a bit of shadowbox cutout effect rather than 3d effect, especially with the unfortunate placement of that dark tree bit next to the blue one. The cap is another thing; it has some more patterning than is visible, since it was washed out by the light rays.

And thanks for pointing out the anatomy. That leg is totally in the wrong place.

Still working on next request, the Digo Doctor.

[Madcrafter]

Day 556-62:

Request from Digo. It looks a little more upright than a pony should maybe sit, I was not intending to have that much shoulder in there, but adding the book pushed the bottom edge down. Hair turned out ok for how little I did with it too, still need to remember a good method for that. Eyes worked well though (until I obscured them all with smudged lighting), so I think I have a good method down for those now.

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[goto124]

May I ask, what program you used to make these? They're fantastic!

[Madcrafter]

May I ask, what program you used to make these? They're fantastic!

Hmm, well thanks. About day 218 I switched over from Photoshop to a neat little painting program called Krita. I quite like it for painting, though it has a few quirks. I still use Photoshop occasionally to do some finishing effects (eg. the light on the mushroom picture above) or text.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I really rather prefer MyPaint, but that's because I'm mostly sketching. I still use Krita for complex editing, coloring and shading though. MyPaint has a far superior brush engine and brush selection, not to mention the infinite canvas, but Krita's transform tools and layer blending options are unsurpassed.

Also, I haven't been posting here because it doesn't feel like I'm learning anything(), but I've been drawing things. Mostly things too terrible to post here. :P But I did draw a couple postable things recently, inspired by a pony RP game I am following.

Spoiler: Royal Airship Equinox

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Spoiler: Sure Sight, wife of the griffon prince Gilded Feathers

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(Had a minor mixup with who exactly she was, apparently I fail at reading)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Some research into how to draw griffons with verisimilitude, prompted by some criticism of the above character's design.

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Drawing skulls is surprisingly hard.

[Madcrafter]

I really rather prefer MyPaint, but that's because I'm mostly sketching. I still use Krita for complex editing, coloring and shading though. MyPaint has a far superior brush engine and brush selection, not to mention the infinite canvas, but Krita's transform tools and layer blending options are unsurpassed.

Hmm, I should maybe give that one a try sometime. Though the thought of a more comprehensive brush engine than Krita's is a bit of a scary thought.

Also, I haven't been posting here because it doesn't feel like I'm learning anything(), but I've been drawing things. Mostly things too terrible to post here. :P But I did draw a couple postable things recently, inspired by a pony RP game I am following.

Spoiler: Royal Airship Equinox

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Ah, post anyways, even if you learned nothing; your art is always welcome. Also, woooo, airships. Propelling it upwards with the props seems like it would be a highly inefficient process.

Some research into how to draw griffons with verisimilitude, prompted by some criticism of the above character's design.

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Drawing skulls is surprisingly hard.

I think you did an excellent job for a skull drawing. Did you base it off of anything? I ask because of the strange process on the back of the skull there. Kind of looks like you sketched muscles travelling to it, but it seems a little high for that purpose, so I'm wondering what animal you used, and if it has less upright posture.

The joint at the back of the mandible looks a bit like it's dislocated, and you appear to have forgotten the spinous and transverse processes on the vertibrae, but it still looks really cool. Nice work.

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Day 563-6:

Last minute submission of a pipbuck icon for ye old Overmare studios. I don't know if they have any use for a chef icon, but it came out ok. Jacket could use a little more variation in colour perhaps.

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[Sean Mirrsen]

Hmm, I should maybe give that one a try sometime. Though the thought of a more comprehensive brush engine than Krita's is a bit of a scary thought.

IIRC Krita technically has MyPaint's brush engine, at least as an option for brushes (it was released as a separate free library by the MyPaint team), which is a large part of the reason for its comprehensiveness, but it has no brushes to really complement it. Krita has the capacity for the same brush quality, but MyPaint already has it. I found some great pencil brushes for Krita, for instance, but even the best of them don't quite give me the same kind of natural-feeling lines that I get with MyPaint's "set 2" pencils.

Primarily though, I should re-state that I use MyPaint primarily for the first stages of drawing. Sketching, scene layout, basic colors, those are all incredibly easy to do in MyPaint thanks to the combination of awesome brushes and the infinite canvas. Once you've done that though, you can save, load the ORA with Krita, and proceed to do all the final things there. Make sure to re-save it as a KRA file though, Krita's ORA loading and saving is pretty slow, so if you save iterative versions with any regularity you won't be stuck waiting for longer than necessary.

Ah, post anyways, even if you learned nothing; your art is always welcome. Also, woooo, airships. Propelling it upwards with the props seems like it would be a highly inefficient process.

It's more for changing attitude in that case, and to propel it above the clouds. The airship flies on a cloud encased in the envelope, which won't naturally rise above the cloud layer, so if the airship wants to be above the clouds it has to use its engines.

I think you did an excellent job for a skull drawing. Did you base it off of anything? I ask because of the strange process on the back of the skull there. Kind of looks like you sketched muscles travelling to it, but it seems a little high for that purpose, so I'm wondering what animal you used, and if it has less upright posture.

The joint at the back of the mandible looks a bit like it's dislocated, and you appear to have forgotten the spinous and transverse processes on the vertibrae, but it still looks really cool. Nice work.

I took an eagle skull and hammered it into a roughly humanoid shape.
(well, I took a picture of an eagle skull and hammered the design into a humanoid shape, but still) :P

I'm not at all a biologist, so me getting the design even remotely true-like is a minor miracle. :) I still got it very wrong even for the purposes I intended, I now see a few errors that I'd like to address, from an engineering standpoint. But basic goal of making a more realistic griffon face design than I had at the time has at least been met. :P

Day 563-6:

Last minute submission of a pipbuck icon for ye old Overmare studios. I don't know if they have any use for a chef icon, but it came out ok. Jacket could use a little more variation in colour perhaps.

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That looks pretty neat, but the shading on the face and clothes, while not bad as such, does not fit the style of a Pipbuck icon. The slightly realistic, rougher look it gives does not quite mesh with what I remember Pipboy icons being like - simple and cartoony. Other than that, and the suspiciously circular, rather than spiral, lines on the horn, I think it's pretty neat.

For a lineless drawing. :P
/me sketches away into the sunset.

Spoiler: An excitable alchemist meets a hippogriff, rough sketch

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[Madcrafter]

Finally got the dropbox issue sorted out, so I can upload again. Sacrificed backup to do it though.

I gave MyPaint a try and immediately disliked it. It has a few features I find nice, and the brushes are neat, but the lack of any sort of digital capabilities left much to be desired for me (including being able to set up most hotkeys). For simple sketching, mayyyybe, but otherwise I think I'll stay away. I did notice the slowdown on ora save/loading.

That looks pretty neat, but the shading on the face and clothes, while not bad as such, does not fit the style of a Pipbuck icon. The slightly realistic, rougher look it gives does not quite mesh with what I remember Pipboy icons being like - simple and cartoony. Other than that, and the suspiciously circular, rather than spiral, lines on the horn, I think it's pretty neat.

For a lineless drawing. :P
/me sketches away into the sunset.

Yup, you are right, but it did say any style. Mind you, my entry didn't show up in the list, so maybe it just got silently excluded because of that.

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Day 567-75:

Snakepony. I already went over my criticisms of this one in ponythread, but suffice to say it definitely wasn't as good as the last two.

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Days 576-80, 83-4:

Just bad sketches. Life needs to stop being so busy.

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Day 581-2:

This was the one I started just as a scribble in MyPaint. Did most of it in Krita though after I got frustrated with MP. Produced a highly unsatisfactory image.

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[Sean Mirrsen]

I gave MyPaint a try and immediately disliked it. It has a few features I find nice, and the brushes are neat, but the lack of any sort of digital capabilities left much to be desired for me (including being able to set up most hotkeys). For simple sketching, mayyyybe, but otherwise I think I'll stay away. I did notice the slowdown on ora save/loading.

Ah, I might have forgotten to mention that. Yes, it has next to no digital editing tools. Basic layers, undo, mirroring, some others, but no transform tools whatsoever. Not even a selection tool to copy/paste regions.

I find it to be a strength of the program. It feels much more like a physical medium that way, so it kinda forces you to learn to draw things right the first time. :)

Besides, I've been drawing with pencils on A4 sheets for as far as I can remember. Just having layers, undo, and infinite canvas is like a godsend for the kind of art I am most proficient at doing. :P

(I actually kinda hate Krita for its transform tools. They're great tools, a great help with near-complete multi-layer drawings that need some complex details changed, but I've lately found myself being more lax with planning out a picture because I know I can edit it later. To each their own, I guess. ^_^)

Day 567-75:

Snakepony. I already went over my criticisms of this one in ponythread, but suffice to say it definitely wasn't as good as the last two.

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Nice effect on the eyes there. :)
I also rather like the shading on the face. For some reason I still struggle to find a method of calculating and applying shading that works well enough for me.
I'll skip criticisms if you've gotten enough of them already. :P

Days 576-80, 83-4:

Just bad sketches. Life needs to stop being so busy.

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Yeah, not much to say there.

Day 581-2:

This was the one I started just as a scribble in MyPaint. Did most of it in Krita though after I got frustrated with MP. Produced a highly unsatisfactory image.

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It looks a little flat, and the odd shapes of everyone involved don't add much to the look of the picture (to me, at least :P), but it's a better lineless drawing than most, if not all, of those I ever did. So it's not all bad as far as I'm concerned. :)

I'd still recommend you keep MyPaint in mind for doing basic layout and sketching, it shaves a lot of time off starting to draw something, or jotting an idea down so it doesn't escape from your head. But if it's not your thing, then it's not your thing. Krita's good too. ^_^

As for me, I would post more things here, if I had anything drawn that were acceptable to post here!
Why am I so stuck drawing various AO-rated pony pictures lately (or doing actual, honest-to-deity-of-your-choice research leading up to drawing them), I have not a single idea.

Spoiler: Bed manes, SFW sketch

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In the pony RP game I'm following, there are these two characters, Flittermouse (the batpony), and Tradewind (the pegasus). They fell into relationship, as is par for the course, but a point of interest was their mane styles. Flittermouse has a mane akin to a brambly bush, curved little "hair hooks" sprouting out of long curves of mane. Tradewind has a mane of long, very curly hair that goes in little loops.
So we theorized that, whenever the two would inevitably end up in bed together... their manes would make like Velcro and get tangled up like nobody's business. :P
We've half-jokingly agreed to never let the GM know of the concept, lest he make them actually spend 1d6 minutes untangling themselves if their airship comes under attack in the morning.

And the other is a technically NSFW ("pony nudity"-type) WIP picture of Applejack, for which reason it shall remain a link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ches/147_j.jpg
It's kind of a misguided experiment, but I see no reason not to keep drawing it. If all else fails it'll just be a pretty (if NSFW) picture of Applejack. ^_^

(both drawn in MyPaint :P)

[Sean Mirrsen]

No time for anything significant.

Sketching some pony heads.

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[Sean Mirrsen]

Still sketching various ponies here and there.

Spoiler: Fleeting Quiver

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Spoiler: A pretty pony face

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Spoiler: Tree Pie

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[Madcrafter]

Och, sorry for leaving you alone here. Very busy, nothing worthwhile made recently. Interesting idea for bow shooting, I guess the stationary ground mounts don't really work for a mobile pegasus.

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Day 583 onward (today is 606):

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I gave MyPaint another chance for those last two. I do really like the brushes, and think that I might use it more in the future. Just have to relearn my sketching stuff to get more used to not using my digital tools.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah, I envisioned a neat lil' system with a specialized horseshoe for archery. It has a notch on the front that allows an arrowshaft to be slotted securely into it, with the fletching flat against the underside of the hoof, and the end of the shaft resting against the curved lip at the back of the horseshoe, which is also used to catch and draw back the bowstring. The bow can be drawn like this, without risk of dropping the arrow (as it's slotted into the shoe), just by bracing the other foreleg against the bow's grip. To fire the arrow, it has to be positioned as depicted, the arrow braced against the 'inside' of the bow. This means that with a single flex of the drawing hoof, outward, the arrow is dislodged from the slot holding it in the horseshoe, and the bowstring simultaneously slips off the curved lip that holds it at the back of the hoof, immediately onto the end of the now-dislodged arrowshaft resting against the same lip. Done in one motion, the action will not allow the aimed arrow to move significantly, and it will be propelled forward accurately.

Why yes, I did put too much thought into this. :P

Don't really see anything to comment on in your sketches though, sorry. The one with the dog pup looking at a crystal (I assume it's a dog pup looking at a crystal) is pretty neat though. Details are lacking, but the overall shading gives the right feel, I think.

For my part I've been experimenting with shading techniques in Krita.

Spoiler: Mystic Alkali

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I found a very nice layer blending mode, called Linear Light. It allows to apply both highlights and shadows simultaneously. Also, get this brush pack, if you haven't already. (I don't remember if I linked it yet) http://meemodraws.deviantart.com/art...Pack-311306611 The sketch brushes are great, and the smudge brushes are simply awesome.

And nice to see you're giving MyPaint a chance after all. ^_^ I think you'll only get better at drawing overall if you force yourself not to rely on digital editing tools from time to time. :)

[Madcrafter]

Hmm, I don't know if it work very well... The bowstring catching the end of the arrow exactly without affecting the aim or draw will be very hard, or at least require an absolute expert. An easier method might be to have a tiny flare at the very end of the arrow which can catch in little prongs on the hoofpiece, pulling both it and the string back. That way the arrow can still hold the string the whole time, and both are released simultaneously.

The picture in questions is ostensibly a diamond dog pup. Seeing a massive gemstone.

I really like the view in your picture there, as well as the shading. Is that a halo around her head or is she a psion?

I am also finding the brushes (or at least, they few I've used) and the blending mode extremely nice to use. So here, day 607-9, sketched in MyPaint, and coloured in Krita with extensive use of these new toys. (Seriously, I can't believe I never found that blending mode before).

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[Madcrafter]

MyPaint brutally reminds me why I at first didn't like it. Drawing something somewhat detailed and then figuring out it should be rotated like 10 degrees.

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Days 610-618 Rundown:

A thing Forum Explorer I think mentioned. Sketched but gave up after it not being a very good pose.

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A dragon, I dunno.

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Hair, all the hair. Well at least now have a better way of doing it next time.

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Very partial map for a game.

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A request for a holy symbol seen on the forum here. Hand came out ok-ish, but the gem looks like it's sitting oddly. It's also a damn uncomfortable position to hold something in.

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[Madcrafter]

Days 619-20:

And a more stylized token version of the same.

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[Madcrafter]

Day 621-37:

Another one spent much too long on, and I don't think I'd even rate it done. That said, my sister was visiting for a week of that and I didn't get a whole lot done in that time; I probably should have transitioned to sketches for that time, because this one definitely hit the I've been working on this for way too long and it looks terrible stage. I think I managed to salvage some parts though.

Monsterhearts fanart, the first I've seen thus far, though I think Thanqol promised a picture somewhere in there. It ended up being a bit of a compositional mess, my own fault there. Originally it was just Therese sitting on her throne staring dreamily into space, which is why everything is designed so statically, but a few days in suddenly Iris got her head chopped off and I just had to add that. Like an idiot I threw it in the corner though, instead of restarting and making that the focus of the picture, since it's far more interesting, being a PC and all on top. I think that's the main reason the whole right side is a bit of a mess.

Throne, genie, and Iris are all kind of unfinished, but I'm really tired of working on this and doubt I could do that much improvement on them at the moment anyways.

Therese came out alright I think, hair excepted. Her face is also not really what I imagine it as, but it is miles better than some of the earlier versions. Dress and jewellery came out well. Detail-wise at least, overall design is probably terrible but I'm not a fashion designer. Hands also came out well. Dog is a little ill defined, but that's alright, overall he looks like a dog, so I'm calling that a success.

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Hair, hair, hair. Gotta work on hair.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Sorry for leaving you to man the thread on your own again, Madcrafter. I've hit one of those "your brain is incompatible with the chosen activity" periods in regards to art. Just haven't drawn anything mentionable.

And I must say, I really like the way you're doing shading, and drawing with color. Plus your human faces are a lot more believably human than mine. I can never get anything resembling a face unless it's outright cartoonish or simplified to all heck.

Well, I guess I am meant to make sketches after all. :P

I did make one, thanks to a Let's Play of Iji that got me past the block with a very funny line that I just had to draw an alternate-universe followup to.

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So far, nobody I showed it to managed to identify what line the reference was to. :)