Ponythread Learns to Draw! Together!

[Sean Mirrsen]

Originally Posted by Thanqol

I'm sorry, I'm stuck trying to think up a witty caption. My brain is simply unable to move beyond failing at that.

Please try. My mind is likewise incapable of thinking up something good enough for this. Maybe I should get the ponythread on it.

Otherwise, the only quibble I have is the shape of the chest plate; it doesn't look like it's designed to be shooting lasers. Most other stuff is beyond my ability to comprehension critique thing.

It'd make more sense if there was a way to show the thing clearly:

Spoiler

It's not any less Chest Blaster-capable than any other I've seen. I mean, going from Iron Man's Core Repulsor or Mazinger Z's "BREASTO FIRE!!!"... I think it works alright.

[Diego Havoc]

Hey, I'm back. Sorry, I vanished there for a bit. I fell into kind of a funk, and everything I drew was just... bleh. I've found that forcing myself to draw when I really don't want to just ends up with me producing half-assed pictures with nearly no effort put in. :/

Day 108 - Basic head poses. Nothing much to say.

Spoiler

Day 109 - Does this give even the vaguest impression that I know what I'm doing?

Spoiler

Day 110 - Sitting pony practice.

Spoiler

Day 111 - Twist! Was originally going to be Apple Bloom, but after using Call of the Cutie for references, I decided that I liked Twist slightly more today. Front legs are off, but apart from that I think it's okay.

Spoiler

@Sean: Picture looks good! I'm afraid I don't have any captions to add though.

[Purple Tentacle]

Getting off my arse to do some drawings.

A few head studies. Trying hard to adhere to the Loomis way of structuring a head. Somewhat successful, will work on my expressions soon so all my faces don't look so sour.

Spoiler

I was thinking earlier in the week, I don't really get the pony fandom. But then I thought its no different to my love of Rock's Modern Life, Samauri Pizza Cats, Duck Wing Duck, Gummi Bears, Gargoyles, etc. So thought I'd contribute some of my own fan art but from one of my own beloved shows. Speedy Cerviche!

Spoiler

Not happy with my Speedy pose, so did a few practice poses. Will do more.

Spoiler

[Diego Havoc]

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Getting off my arse to do some drawings.

A few head studies. Trying hard to adhere to the Loomis way of structuring a head. Somewhat successful, will work on my expressions soon so all my faces don't look so sour.

Spoiler

I was thinking earlier in the week, I don't really get the pony fandom. But then I thought its no different to my love of Rock's Modern Life, Samauri Pizza Cats, Duck Wing Duck, Gummi Bears, Gargoyles, etc. So thought I'd contribute some of my own fan art but from one of my own beloved shows. Speedy Cerviche!

Spoiler

Not happy with my Speedy pose, so did a few practice poses. Will do more.

Spoiler

Very good stuff! I loved those cartoons (except Rocko. Never got into that). Still do. Not a fan of the realistic style Speedy, but it's well drawn.

[Diego Havoc]

Day 112. Pony finale episodes spoiler

Spoiler

And a rare treat for you guys. A pic I found that I drew about 6 years ago.

Spoiler

Meet the original Diego Havoc.



Diego Havoc was the name of the alchemist I played in Ragnarok Online. He started off life as a cute little merchant boy and for some silly reason I decided to give him a cheesy action hero style name. The name just kinda came outta nowhere, to the point where I actually had to google it just in case I had subconsciously taken it from somewhere else.

I never intended it to be my name, it was just the name of the character. Until I did something I had never done in an online game before: I made friends. Good, genuine friends, not "yeah let's play again sometime" acquaintances. Before then I was always a loner, too shy to bother partying up unless I was asked first. I was playing my alchemist at the time, met a guy who introduced me to his guild and the next thing I know, Diego is no longer a character, but me. Never looked back, to the point where I usually think of myself as Diego, rather than my real name.

Or to put it another way: I never realised what online friendship could be, until they all shared their xp with me.

I miss my alchemist. He was almost completly useless in combat, but was one hell of a brewer and explorer. And his pet homunculous Tika was the cutest damn thing ever.

I'm thinking of trying to ponify him and use him as my ponysona.

[the_druid_droid]

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

And of course, the right way to address "too much glow" is "add even more glow".

At least it's more refined this time. (plus cleaned up dodgy coloring and redesigned the helmet)

Spoiler

Any thoughts on it? At all?

I think this iteration is getting quite close. The only thing I might add is to put in a sort of generic anime screen-transition background if you want something more. The black might be a little flat, although it does make the colors pop to a certain extent.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Hey, I'm back. Sorry, I vanished there for a bit. I fell into kind of a funk, and everything I drew was just... bleh. I've found that forcing myself to draw when I really don't want to just ends up with me producing half-assed pictures with nearly no effort put in. :/

Day 108 - Basic head poses. Nothing much to say.

Spoiler

Day 109 - Does this give even the vaguest impression that I know what I'm doing?

Spoiler

Day 110 - Sitting pony practice.

Spoiler

Day 111 - Twist! Was originally going to be Apple Bloom, but after using Call of the Cutie for references, I decided that I liked Twist slightly more today. Front legs are off, but apart from that I think it's okay.

Spoiler

@Sean: Picture looks good! I'm afraid I don't have any captions to add though.

I know how funks feel... Still working out of mine; some of it is a need for better scheduling of drawtime, and I'm going to work on that, I promise!

Also, the head in Day 109 is looking much better! Keep at it, and don't be afraid to take time on the details. Getting things really right, even if it takes a long time, is totally worth it, and you can always abstract your way back if a realistic style isn't your ultimate goal.

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Getting off my arse to do some drawings.

A few head studies. Trying hard to adhere to the Loomis way of structuring a head. Somewhat successful, will work on my expressions soon so all my faces don't look so sour.

Spoiler

I was thinking earlier in the week, I don't really get the pony fandom. But then I thought its no different to my love of Rock's Modern Life, Samauri Pizza Cats, Duck Wing Duck, Gummi Bears, Gargoyles, etc. So thought I'd contribute some of my own fan art but from one of my own beloved shows. Speedy Cerviche!

Spoiler

Not happy with my Speedy pose, so did a few practice poses. Will do more.

Spoiler

Totally cool if ponies don't interest you that much; it's just nice to have more artists around!

Your stuff is looking good, my only nitpicks are that the eyes on the top right head model look a little wonky and out of line, and some of the poses look a bit stiff. Posing is tons of fun though, and I feel like I could do it all day; just keep moving stuff around and trying for a good flow!

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Day 112. Pony finale episodes spoiler

Spoiler

And a rare treat for you guys. A pic I found that I drew about 6 years ago.

Spoiler

Meet the original Diego Havoc.



Diego Havoc was the name of the alchemist I played in Ragnarok Online. He started off life as a cute little merchant boy and for some silly reason I decided to give him a cheesy action hero style name. The name just kinda came outta nowhere, to the point where I actually had to google it just in case I had subconsciously taken it from somewhere else.

I never intended it to be my name, it was just the name of the character. Until I did something I had never done in an online game before: I made friends. Good, genuine friends, not "yeah let's play again sometime" acquaintances. Before then I was always a loner, too shy to bother partying up unless I was asked first. I was playing my alchemist at the time, met a guy who introduced me to his guild and the next thing I know, Diego is no longer a character, but me. Never looked back, to the point where I usually think of myself as Diego, rather than my real name.

Or to put it another way: I never realised what online friendship could be, until they all shared their xp with me.

I miss my alchemist. He was almost completly useless in combat, but was one hell of a brewer and explorer. And his pet homunculous Tika was the cutest damn thing ever.

I'm thinking of trying to ponify him and use him as my ponysona.

That's actually a really neat character story. DD has grown on me in a somewhat similar way...

And now my own finale-based contribution (Spoilers ahead! Awesome spoilers! I enjoyed the ep, if you can't tell!)

Spoiler

[Purple Tentacle]

I thought I would do a self portrait as a reference point to gauge my improvement in say 3 months when I'll do another self portrait to compare and contrast. Boy I really hate it too, not sure why It just looks weird.

Spoiler

Another fan art, my favorite Duke, IGTHORN. Had some trouble with the pose, primarily the legs. Ended up just stealing the leg pose off a screen shot that lucky fit my drawing. Went a little more cartoon this time, in hindsight should have made his chest a little bigger. Igthorn was always puffing his huge chest out in the show.

Spoiler

Diego: Yeah I do miss the Toons from the 90s and morn the tragic death of saturday morning cartoons. I liked hearing about the character that inspired your screen name. It's cool whenever you can find pleasure in something you've created yourself, in this case a character/persona. I think he deserves an updated pic to do him justice. I'd rather see a humanoid version but either way is cool.

The Druid Droid: Totally agree about the stiffness that actually runs through out all my drawings. I guess it's a symptom of lack of knowledge and confidence. So I won't really allow myself to let go.

Spoiler

To be fair I haven't given MLP a chance yet until I do I'm just kinda ambivalent towards it. I like that pony design and the hoof sitting on the chest like he/she is Evily monologuing. Question: Is the body deteriorating or is he/she made out of Swiss cheese? Having not seen the show and given that we have cartoon characters on tv like a certain under water sea sponge with square pants I don't want to jump to any conclusions.

Ummm cheese pony.

[the_druid_droid]

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

I thought I would do a self portrait as a reference point to gauge my improvement in say 3 months when I'll do another self portrait to compare and contrast. Boy I really hate it too, not sure why It just looks weird.

Spoiler

I've found it really hard to do self portraits. I think some of it is because it's very easy to be critical, both because we tend to criticize our appearance, and we know our own faces really well at a subconscious level, so flaws get magnified. In my own opinion, the above looks pretty good, although there's a slight skew to all the features, I think. The detail looks pretty solid however, and you seem to have a pretty good grasp of facial anatomy.

Another fan art, my favorite Duke, IGTHORN. Had some trouble with the pose, primarily the legs. Ended up just stealing the leg pose off a screen shot that lucky fit my drawing. Went a little more cartoon this time, in hindsight should have made his chest a little bigger. Igthorn was always puffing his huge chest out in the show.

Spoiler

Oh gosh, my brain just made the connection about which Gummi Bears you meant! I used to love that show! I should really dig up some episodes on Youtube or something, I haven't seen it in ages.

Again, picture-wise, it looks like you have a pretty good conception of how the body fits together. In your case I would start moving away from just structural concerns (which you seem to be getting hold of) and spend some time working on composition and rhythm. I admittedly don't have this anywhere near perfect myself, and a lot of stuff I'm drawing is from references, so take that with a grain of salt.

Diego: Yeah I do miss the Toons from the 90s and morn the tragic death of saturday morning cartoons. I liked hearing about the character that inspired your screen name. It's cool whenever you can find pleasure in something you've created yourself, in this case a character/persona. I think he deserves an updated pic to do him justice. I'd rather see a humanoid version but either way is cool.

I completely agree. The 90s Saturdays were awesome!

The Druid Droid: Totally agree about the stiffness that actually runs through out all my drawings. I guess it's a symptom of lack of knowledge and confidence. So I won't really allow myself to let go.

Spoiler

To be fair I haven't given MLP a chance yet until I do I'm just kinda ambivalent towards it. I like that pony design and the hoof sitting on the chest like he/she is Evily monologuing. Question: Is the body deteriorating or is he/she made out of Swiss cheese? Having not seen the show and given that we have cartoon characters on tv like a certain under water sea sponge with square pants I don't want to jump to any conclusions.

Ummm cheese pony.

Finale Spoilers:

Spoiler

Ah, well I would encourage you to at least give ponies a try. The current series is very different from previous incarnations, and a lot of episodes have some really solid storytelling and awesome animation, though there are a few stinkers in the bunch, as always.

To answer your question without spoiling too much if you do decide to watch, the pony is named Chrysalis and she's one of the Big Bads from a recent episode. That shot is pretty much based on an evil monologue screencap, so glad I conveyed it that way. Also her legs are wonky because she's a half-monster/half-pony basically, though as far as I know that doesn't include cheese or sponge-based life.

<.<

[Bakuel]

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

I know how funks feel... Still working out of mine; some of it is a need for better scheduling of drawtime, and I'm going to work on that, I promise!

Add me to the funk train. It's like the funky train but less fun.

It seems like I can't help but push my way through half of the week, then fall off the ball like some sort of ball type standing person who is only half trained. Anyway, I've been pushing my way through lazy or bad art days and been too embarrassed to post anything. But this time around I'm going to stick with it. Seriously. It's going to be completely different. The ball standing training will then be complete.

Humorously, I was going to post yesterday, yet my power kept flickering on and off as I drew/and or typed due to the rain. Not a thunderstorm, just heavier then usual rain is enough to turn off power around these parts!

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Getting off my arse to do some drawings.

Your drawings are very nice! I especially like Igthorn! How long have you been drawing? If you don't mind me being an inquisitive fool.

On Speedy, technique wise it looks nice and is great. But I must agree with Diego Havoc, I really don't care much for the more realistic design either.

Spoiler

It's the face and eyes for me. Something about them seems uncanny valley-ish, the eyes and nose proportions are still somewhat close to the show, but with your realistic style it seems odd. It's stuck in the odd place between nice funny cartoon cat and a real cat. Now, commenting on design is hard as you didn't say what you were going for when you posted it. But to reduce this effect have you thought about working more of a real cat's face into it? Smaller nose/snout, eyes .etc and so on? It can still be cartoony as far as expressions go, take a look at Puss in Boots from Shrek for example of a good idea of a more realistic yet cartoony cat face. You may not want to go that far of course.

All this is subjective design mutterings of course, feel free to ignore them.

On MLP,

Go ahead and give the show a spin! However, I will admit that while there are plenty of reasons to like the show, there are plenty of reasons not to. It all depends on you're taste. Just make sure you don't get too swayed by yay or nay sayers, lovers or haters, and watch it with a open mind and form your own opinions on it. I personally find that hard to do with polarizing shows like this, one can fall into the trap of watching the show to "get" why it's awesome to another person or why another one hates it instead of just watching it and seeing if you like. If that makes sense.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

"If"? I'ma drive you into it with whips and chains!

I'm working on it! I'm working!
Mostly I have been thinking about the setting and still practicing with drawing. I have been also reading up on panel/scene layouts and dos and don'ts, studying my favorite comics and mangas and so on. As well as trying to do thumbnail layouts of some of the scenes which are already in my head. Panel pacing is tricky. Won't have anything to show rather then concepts for awhile though.
The bad thing about this is that I generally start the week all ready to go and get started, but by Thursday or so, work has burned me out and I fall behind again. I sleep most of the weekends all day and then the cycle begins again. But this week is going to be different!

Originally Posted by Thanqol

Blur the boundaries of myth and reality. Keep outright supernatural elements absent but have them be discussed in the same way as real myths.

I will! Granted, being the type of person I am, I had to try to hash out the cosmology of the setting.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

*Nod nod* I am taking a significantly different tack with this; the key elements all came together in my head last night. The core themes are 'Echoes of Friendship' and 'Flawed Harmony'. The first half is going to be smooth and fluid, I know of the powerful centre point and all the emotion and power there and then I can see the story break into a hundred gleaming shards. It feels more like the setup for a series than a story right now. Ah, I can do so much with this!

I'm nicking my own idea about the Dragon-Shogun back as the primary antagonist.

I'm glad your using your Dragon-Shogun! I really want to see that idea in action. So is Celestia wandering around amongst the common ponies? Or is she trapped by the Dragon?

Originally Posted by Thanqol

Good philosophy and wise words, thank you. My offer of unlimited assistance to your comic remains and will remain open.

I probably *will* take you up on that offer. I have a lot of free time during the summer (one of the few benefits of working in education), so I'm actually planning to get a lot of the penciling of the comic done then. If I can hammer out most of the scenes and plot progression by then. And in a perfect world it could be inked at a leisurely pace and posted to the web in batches and finished *hopefully* by new years sometime. At least hopefully, if nothing bad comes up in real life. Of course deadlines exist to be broken.
You can measure how bad a plan is by looking at how many "ifs" it has.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

The traditional way this happened was a noble paying a smart commoner to be a 'tutor'. They wind up being a vassal/courtier/steward of the aristocrat, getting to ply their trade and letting someone else claim the credit. It's possible to better yourself in life under feudalism, it's only when you want class mobility that things become a problem. The only real way to legitimise it is to marry a noble.

You know, one thing I was playing with was Twilight being Sweetie Belle's tutor taking some odd inspiration from this pic, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Te..._for_girls.jpg. Granted, it might not actually show up in the story.
I need to organize my scenes and settings better and get a storyboard or something up...

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Day 112. Pony finale episodes spoiler

Spoiler

Nice! Are you going to color it?

On a side note: (spoilers I guess)

Spoiler

Best season finale ever. The actionadventureawesomeness. I love Nightmare Moon and I love Discord, but the story lines they appeared in were lacking generally on the pacing side of things. But this... Was almost perfect.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

And a rare treat for you guys. A pic I found that I drew about 6 years ago.
[spoiler]
Or to put it another way: I never realised what online friendship could be, until they all shared their xp with me.

Genius. Simply genius.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

I'm thinking of trying to ponify him and use him as my ponysona.

Do it!

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

And now my own finale-based contribution (Spoilers ahead! Awesome spoilers! I enjoyed the ep, if you can't tell!)
*snip*

Very nice! Awesome villain is awesome.


Day 38-39 and 40. Ponies, colors and setting musings!

Spoiler

More misadventures in coloring! Yay!
The first up is a picture of a sheriff AJ. This was the last passable picture I drew on last Thursday and Friday before falling off the map. Just experimenting with colors again. A quick paint and rather sloppy around the hat. She has a gun but can't shoot anyone.



Today I got home and drew! And it wasn't anything too ugly. It's another picture of Shrine Maiden Fluttershy, this time partial colored! Her mane isn't fully colored and the bird isn't either. she's off model, but I figure I will need to draw these ponies a lot, so may as well try to develop a workable style that I'm comfortable with. Still, her eyes need a bit of work and not satisfied with the snout and mouth. The pose is off a bit, not too sure how, may just be the leg to body length. But those skirts can be tricky because they wear them so high up on their bodies. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.



The following two blurbs have little to no effect on the story which is being developed. It's almost pure fluff. The cosmology betrays my love of odder settings, but it may or may not be true depending on the person's ideas of what the setting is and what story they want to tell. But it is what most beings believe is true about their world.


On The Most Commonly Accepted Cosmology of the World Known Colloquially as Samurai-Equestria.

Also known as the blabberings of a mad man.

Spoiler

Most believe that all of reality follows a dualistic standard. There are positive and negative energies, law and chaos and so on and so on. For every coin which makes up reality, there are two sides of it. The world is no different. The world is divided into two, the physical or mortal realm, and the spirit/shadow or magical realm. The former is the world of ponies, griffins, diamond dogs and so on, the other is a mirror realm that is the place of spirits and deities both big and small and various odd beasties that feed off of magical energy.
However, the realms are connected to each other just as the two sides of a bit, all things have a imprint on both realms, physical things and beings generally have a small ghostly shadow in the spirit realm, and spirits generally have an anchor in the physical realm, such as a stone, shrine, tree or so on. Some powerful beings are said to have a powerful presence in both realms at once, such as the Empresses and her sister.
In this view, a earth pony's magical ability to coax a more bountiful harvest from crops is said to be because of it's ability to interact better with the crops in the magical realm, while a pegasus's ability to move the clouds around is due to it's power to interact with the clouds' shade in the other realm. In other words, their spirit shadows are more in sync for lack of a better term. Likewise a unicorn's ability to change something magical is due to it's power to move or manipulate the shade or form on the magical plane.
Despite all this, it must be said that the spirit realm is pretty boring and is generally viewed as foggy and it seems to be permanently at either dusk or day break. The spirit realm is a mirror realm, the geography is the same, natural non-living things have a similar, if somewhat different appearance in both. Things such as mountains, the ground and soil and so on. Living things, however, are different, trees and plants have a equal weight in both realms, but their shadow appearances can be off putting. It is in the sentient beings and animals were the most drastic change is. In the spirit realm they appear as ghostly shadows, wandering around following the paths of their physical-selves.
A creature can survive the destruction of one of their forms on either plane but generally not their major one and not for long. For example, a guardian spirit can survive the destruction of their anchor and move to another, though it will have to be quick about it or dissolve into oblivion. How long it has depends on how powerful it is. And a pony can survive the destruction of their shadow in the magical realm but not for long. Bad luck and sickness is believed to follow and the necessary rituals would have to be carried out to establish a new shadow or presence in the other realm. However there are expectations, at times, a pony can lose it's body in death, yet exist as a ghostly shadow in the other realm for quite some time and attach themselves to an anchor such as a grave. If they survive long enough without passing over into oblivion, it is believed that they can become more powerful and may become spirits of either good or evil.
To truly kill something completely and certainly, one most kill it in both realms. Beings with a powerful presence in both realms such as Celestia have no problem with this.
If that is not possible, for whatever reason, some spirits, with the right ritual, can be bind to a certain object or area in the physical realm and be also trapped there in the spirit realm as well.

Some ponies believe when both parts are truly gone and dead, they pass over into oblivion or nirvana. Others think there is some afterlife or other world, others don't. In this there is more disagreement.

tl:dr:
The most common cosmology is that the world is divided into a spiritual and physical. Spirits and deities live more in the spirit realm and ponies and stuff live more in the physical, but all things generally have a presence in both. We're dancing on the dualism. See Japanese (and a bit of Chinese) traditional beliefs for the inspiration.

Spoiler

In the beginning Celestia and Luna were not the first goddesses, nor the original rulers of Equestria, but there were many more and they were free. Free to bring blessings or curses to the mortal realm as they saw fit and lead groups of ponies to do whatever.
Celestia ascended and became the mighty sun and appointed her sister to the moon. Together they brought order to both the spirit and the physical realms. Most spirits lost their physical forms and were reduced to mere anchors in the physical realm, others sealed away, some went into hiding and others were put to order. Others were of course destroyed. She united the daiymos and brought order establishing laws for both spirit and mortals.

As time went on shrines begun to be established and they served a variety of functions. However most can be divided into two types,

1. Shrines for powerful evil spirits. These are calm and joyous so that the tranquility of the people and scenery may deny the spirit any negative energy to feed on (think the CMC's antics which caused the release of Discord). Also it is hoped that the positive feelings may even lead to the spirit becoming less evil with time.

2. Shrines dedicated to local guardian spirits/land deities were people seek to appease and ask for favors from. These beings are believed to be of varying strengths however, most are viewed as less powerful then the alicorn sisters. Most are to be believed to be the spirits of former ponies from long ago who, for some odd reason or another, stuck around and became attached to a certain area. They are far from all powerful, but are viewed more as helpers and if asked, they aid the people. Some believe they use the prayers and positive energy of the people as power to do good in the spirit/shadow realm, which leads to corresponding good fortune in the physical.

tl:dr
Celestia commands and rules both the physical and spiritual realm. See the Chinese and Japanese Emperors as well as the Roman Emperor's religious duties for the inspiration.


This is a description of the guardian spirit of the region in which our tale takes place. And a small snippet on Rarity.

Spoiler

Tomo is the kami of the (Ponyville) shrine. A rock that has stood in that spot from time long gone, it's weird shape and irregular position has marked it as auspicious and the place of the local guardian spirit. No one knows when the rope was first placed around it or who did it, but it was long before Ponyville was founded and the land untamed. When ponyville was first founded and the wilderness which stood around it cleared away and replaced with farmland, a shrine was built around the rock so to appease the spirit said to be living there. The shrine is really a large enclosed space of several odd acres or so of gardens which houses a large number of native plants and animals. The gate is also the main building were the shrine maidens and priests live. To call the enclosed space gardens is only half right, while there are pathways and parts of it are kept gardenlike for visitors, other parts are given over the wilderness to appease the nature spirit. It is said that Tomo is kind, generous, and virtuous, but also sad, serious and melancholy. Some say that he can be quietly mischievous to those he likes and at times, trollish. But this criticism has been leveled against all the spirits, both great and small, even against the ever wise Celestia, thus it can be ignored.
He aids the farmers in their work, and is well known amongst the old earth pony families in the region. Small shrines dedicated him can be seen besides roads or in the old farm houses. Often with a stone and sometimes with a veiled guardian spirit doll with his symbol on top of it. Personally, he is said to come to people in dreams and give guidance in moments of uncertainty. He prefers to quietly work for the forces of good from the background pushing ponies in the right direction and aiding them in their work. Tomo dislikes large loud praise and worship, preferring quiet thanks and meditation. Of course, skeptics say that the "quiet" spirit has long since moved on, if it ever existed. Yet even to unbelievers the shrine is one of the symbols of Ponyville and to stop it's upkeep is almost unthinkable. Both believer and unbeliever can be seen wandering it's grounds and enjoying it's scenery and the wilder parts are viewed as a symbol of the wilderness which has been pushed far away from the city and surrounding farmland. A link to the region's past. While ponyville may be in the middle of nowhere, this at least is something worth seeing. Even if the rock is a bit ugly (even to rock enthusiasts).

It is not generally known, but Rarity is one of the followers of Tomo. If we stretch the meaning of "follower", since it carries some idea of subservience. Rarity can be seen, often at night, pacing all around the large rock. Sometimes somewhat peaceable, but often if one stands nearer to her you can hear her muttering curses in Tomo's direction. She often comes to the shrine when she needs inspiration or guidance in her life and is stressed. Yet the combination can be viewed as odd. Rarity is flamboyant, cultured, fashionable and certainly not quiet and melancholy. And above all Rarity is civilized, coming to a nature spirit for guidance is a odd match up.
It is said that Rarity's connection to Tomo involves how she got her cutie mark, but the details are obscure. It is known that in Rarity's childhood she became sick and feverous, the sickness was complicated by a magic build up in her horn. Her parents consulted the best doctors but all they could do was subscribe medicine and advice them to wait and hope for the best, her horn's wild magic making any spell casting dangerous. One night while asleep, her horn magic began to overreact and Rarity was overheard muttering something about a "rock" and "why'd it have to be a rock?", and later, "Oh... Tomo~... I see it now... It's... so beautiful...". What is known that in the morning her fever was gone and her childhood had ended, her parents saw that she had gained her mark. Her kimonos quickly increased in creativity and beauty and became well known locally. However, when asked about the story or about the dream Rarity often becomes flustered and defensive and denies anything and everything.

A philosopher might say that while it is an odd match up, it is good. For, though Rarity is civilized and far removed from the wilderness, all of the products of civilization, stone, wood, silk, the precious metals .etc, come from the resources from the natural world. In that view, Rarity's devotion to a nature deity is both proper and correct.
On the other hand, she may just be crazy.
Nonetheless, she is one of the shrines prolific anonymous donators. If one visits the shrine at night and hides in the bushes around the rock, if you are lucky you may see this fashionable pony pacing around Tomo in one of her best kimonos. Sometimes, leaning against the stone deep in thought. However, if she's in a very bad mood you may see her give the holy boulder a swift kick.


It is at night around Tomo where Fluttershy overhears Rarity ranting to the rock and steps forward and offers her and Dash's services to sneak into the Apple family mansion. And thus the history is not too important, the shrine is one of the scenes.

[Thanqol]

Originally Posted by Bakuel

I'm working on it! I'm working!
Mostly I have been thinking about the setting and still practicing with drawing. I have been also reading up on panel/scene layouts and dos and don'ts, studying my favorite comics and mangas and so on. As well as trying to do thumbnail layouts of some of the scenes which are already in my head. Panel pacing is tricky. Won't have anything to show rather then concepts for awhile though.
The bad thing about this is that I generally start the week all ready to go and get started, but by Thursday or so, work has burned me out and I fall behind again. I sleep most of the weekends all day and then the cycle begins again. But this week is going to be different!

My contract requires me to inform you that keeping a little momentum makes it so much easier to keep going, even on a day you're otherwise feeling blargh. Adding one sentence to a story or doing a quick and terrible sketch will leave you thinking about it for hours before and after, which quickly resurges into productivity.

I will! Granted, being the type of person I am, I had to try to hash out the cosmology of the setting.

*Nod nod*

I'm glad your using your Dragon-Shogun! I really want to see that idea in action. So is Celestia wandering around amongst the common ponies? Or is she trapped by the Dragon?

We-eeeell, I'm currently thinking the shogun might be Discord. I dunno though. It's all a bit of a mess.

I probably *will* take you up on that offer. I have a lot of free time during the summer (one of the few benefits of working in education), so I'm actually planning to get a lot of the penciling of the comic done then. If I can hammer out most of the scenes and plot progression by then. And in a perfect world it could be inked at a leisurely pace and posted to the web in batches and finished *hopefully* by new years sometime. At least hopefully, if nothing bad comes up in real life. Of course deadlines exist to be broken.
You can measure how bad a plan is by looking at how many "ifs" it has.

"Finish a major milestone project by the end of the year, barring catastrophe" isn't actually a bad plan as these things go!

You know, one thing I was playing with was Twilight being Sweetie Belle's tutor taking some odd inspiration from this pic, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Te..._for_girls.jpg. Granted, it might not actually show up in the story.
I need to organize my scenes and settings better and get a storyboard or something up...

So that brings Twilight into Rarity's side of the war?

Today I got home and drew! And it wasn't anything too ugly. It's another picture of Shrine Maiden Fluttershy, this time partial colored! Her mane isn't fully colored and the bird isn't either. she's off model, but I figure I will need to draw these ponies a lot, so may as well try to develop a workable style that I'm comfortable with. Still, her eyes need a bit of work and not satisfied with the snout and mouth. The pose is off a bit, not too sure how, may just be the leg to body length. But those skirts can be tricky because they wear them so high up on their bodies. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.

Nose is a bit square, and that's a style I see fairly regularly but personally don't quite care for.

On The Most Commonly Accepted Cosmology of the World Known Colloquially as Samurai-Equestria.

Also known as the blabberings of a mad man.

Spoiler

Most believe that all of reality follows a dualistic standard. There are positive and negative energies, law and chaos and so on and so on. For every coin which makes up reality, there are two sides of it. The world is no different. The world is divided into two, the physical or mortal realm, and the spirit/shadow or magical realm. The former is the world of ponies, griffins, diamond dogs and so on, the other is a mirror realm that is the place of spirits and deities both big and small and various odd beasties that feed off of magical energy.
However, the realms are connected to each other just as the two sides of a bit, all things have a imprint on both realms, physical things and beings generally have a small ghostly shadow in the spirit realm, and spirits generally have an anchor in the physical realm, such as a stone, shrine, tree or so on. Some powerful beings are said to have a powerful presence in both realms at once, such as the Empresses and her sister.
In this view, a earth pony's magical ability to coax a more bountiful harvest from crops is said to be because of it's ability to interact better with the crops in the magical realm, while a pegasus's ability to move the clouds around is due to it's power to interact with the clouds' shade in the other realm. In other words, their spirit shadows are more in sync for lack of a better term. Likewise a unicorn's ability to change something magical is due to it's power to move or manipulate the shade or form on the magical plane.
Despite all this, it must be said that the spirit realm is pretty boring and is generally viewed as foggy and it seems to be permanently at either dusk or day break. The spirit realm is a mirror realm, the geography is the same, natural non-living things have a similar, if somewhat different appearance in both. Things such as mountains, the ground and soil and so on. Living things, however, are different, trees and plants have a equal weight in both realms, but their shadow appearances can be off putting. It is in the sentient beings and animals were the most drastic change is. In the spirit realm they appear as ghostly shadows, wandering around following the paths of their physical-selves.
A creature can survive the destruction of one of their forms on either plane but generally not their major one and not for long. For example, a guardian spirit can survive the destruction of their anchor and move to another, though it will have to be quick about it or dissolve into oblivion. How long it has depends on how powerful it is. And a pony can survive the destruction of their shadow in the magical realm but not for long. Bad luck and sickness is believed to follow and the necessary rituals would have to be carried out to establish a new shadow or presence in the other realm. However there are expectations, at times, a pony can lose it's body in death, yet exist as a ghostly shadow in the other realm for quite some time and attach themselves to an anchor such as a grave. If they survive long enough without passing over into oblivion, it is believed that they can become more powerful and may become spirits of either good or evil.
To truly kill something completely and certainly, one most kill it in both realms. Beings with a powerful presence in both realms such as Celestia have no problem with this.
If that is not possible, for whatever reason, some spirits, with the right ritual, can be bind to a certain object or area in the physical realm and be also trapped there in the spirit realm as well.

Some ponies believe when both parts are truly gone and dead, they pass over into oblivion or nirvana. Others think there is some afterlife or other world, others don't. In this there is more disagreement.

tl:dr:
The most common cosmology is that the world is divided into a spiritual and physical. Spirits and deities live more in the spirit realm and ponies and stuff live more in the physical, but all things generally have a presence in both. We're dancing on the dualism. See Japanese (and a bit of Chinese) traditional beliefs for the inspiration.

Well familiar with this cosmology and it's applications, good stuff.

Spoiler

In the beginning Celestia and Luna were not the first goddesses, nor the original rulers of Equestria, but there were many more and they were free. Free to bring blessings or curses to the mortal realm as they saw fit and lead groups of ponies to do whatever.
Celestia ascended and became the mighty sun and appointed her sister to the moon. Together they brought order to both the spirit and the physical realms. Most spirits lost their physical forms and were reduced to mere anchors in the physical realm, others sealed away, some went into hiding and others were put to order. Others were of course destroyed. She united the daiymos and brought order establishing laws for both spirit and mortals.

As time went on shrines begun to be established and they served a variety of functions. However most can be divided into two types,

1. Shrines for powerful evil spirits. These are calm and joyous so that the tranquility of the people and scenery may deny the spirit any negative energy to feed on (think the CMC's antics which caused the release of Discord). Also it is hoped that the positive feelings may even lead to the spirit becoming less evil with time.

2. Shrines dedicated to local guardian spirits/land deities were people seek to appease and ask for favors from. These beings are believed to be of varying strengths however, most are viewed as less powerful then the alicorn sisters. Most are to be believed to be the spirits of former ponies from long ago who, for some odd reason or another, stuck around and became attached to a certain area. They are far from all powerful, but are viewed more as helpers and if asked, they aid the people. Some believe they use the prayers and positive energy of the people as power to do good in the spirit/shadow realm, which leads to corresponding good fortune in the physical.

tl:dr
Celestia commands and rules both the physical and spiritual realm. See the Chinese and Japanese Emperors as well as the Roman Emperor's religious duties for the inspiration.

And a lot of Japanese festivals are indeed about appeasing/binding demons! I'm thinking in particular about the bean throwing festival; where men put on demon masks and people pelt them with beans until they run away. Good stuff.

This is a description of the guardian spirit of the region in which our tale takes place. And a small snippet on Rarity.

Spoiler

Tomo is the kami of the (Ponyville) shrine. A rock that has stood in that spot from time long gone, it's weird shape and irregular position has marked it as auspicious and the place of the local guardian spirit. No one knows when the rope was first placed around it or who did it, but it was long before Ponyville was founded and the land untamed. When ponyville was first founded and the wilderness which stood around it cleared away and replaced with farmland, a shrine was built around the rock so to appease the spirit said to be living there. The shrine is really a large enclosed space of several odd acres or so of gardens which houses a large number of native plants and animals. The gate is also the main building were the shrine maidens and priests live. To call the enclosed space gardens is only half right, while there are pathways and parts of it are kept gardenlike for visitors, other parts are given over the wilderness to appease the nature spirit. It is said that Tomo is kind, generous, and virtuous, but also sad, serious and melancholy. Some say that he can be quietly mischievous to those he likes and at times, trollish. But this criticism has been leveled against all the spirits, both great and small, even against the ever wise Celestia, thus it can be ignored.
He aids the farmers in their work, and is well known amongst the old earth pony families in the region. Small shrines dedicated him can be seen besides roads or in the old farm houses. Often with a stone and sometimes with a veiled guardian spirit doll with his symbol on top of it. Personally, he is said to come to people in dreams and give guidance in moments of uncertainty. He prefers to quietly work for the forces of good from the background pushing ponies in the right direction and aiding them in their work. Tomo dislikes large loud praise and worship, preferring quiet thanks and meditation. Of course, skeptics say that the "quiet" spirit has long since moved on, if it ever existed. Yet even to unbelievers the shrine is one of the symbols of Ponyville and to stop it's upkeep is almost unthinkable. Both believer and unbeliever can be seen wandering it's grounds and enjoying it's scenery and the wilder parts are viewed as a symbol of the wilderness which has been pushed far away from the city and surrounding farmland. A link to the region's past. While ponyville may be in the middle of nowhere, this at least is something worth seeing. Even if the rock is a bit ugly (even to rock enthusiasts).

It is not generally known, but Rarity is one of the followers of Tomo. If we stretch the meaning of "follower", since it carries some idea of subservience. Rarity can be seen, often at night, pacing all around the large rock. Sometimes somewhat peaceable, but often if one stands nearer to her you can hear her muttering curses in Tomo's direction. She often comes to the shrine when she needs inspiration or guidance in her life and is stressed. Yet the combination can be viewed as odd. Rarity is flamboyant, cultured, fashionable and certainly not quiet and melancholy. And above all Rarity is civilized, coming to a nature spirit for guidance is a odd match up.
It is said that Rarity's connection to Tomo involves how she got her cutie mark, but the details are obscure. It is known that in Rarity's childhood she became sick and feverous, the sickness was complicated by a magic build up in her horn. Her parents consulted the best doctors but all they could do was subscribe medicine and advice them to wait and hope for the best, her horn's wild magic making any spell casting dangerous. One night while asleep, her horn magic began to overreact and Rarity was overheard muttering something about a "rock" and "why'd it have to be a rock?", and later, "Oh... Tomo~... I see it now... It's... so beautiful...". What is known that in the morning her fever was gone and her childhood had ended, her parents saw that she had gained her mark. Her kimonos quickly increased in creativity and beauty and became well known locally. However, when asked about the story or about the dream Rarity often becomes flustered and defensive and denies anything and everything.

A philosopher might say that while it is an odd match up, it is good. For, though Rarity is civilized and far removed from the wilderness, all of the products of civilization, stone, wood, silk, the precious metals .etc, come from the resources from the natural world. In that view, Rarity's devotion to a nature deity is both proper and correct.
On the other hand, she may just be crazy.
Nonetheless, she is one of the shrines prolific anonymous donators. If one visits the shrine at night and hides in the bushes around the rock, if you are lucky you may see this fashionable pony pacing around Tomo in one of her best kimonos. Sometimes, leaning against the stone deep in thought. However, if she's in a very bad mood you may see her give the holy boulder a swift kick.


It is at night around Tomo where Fluttershy overhears Rarity ranting to the rock and steps forward and offers her and Dash's services to sneak into the Apple family mansion. And thus the history is not too important, the shrine is one of the scenes.

[/spoiler]

It took me way too long to figure out "Tomo". Then I clapped via the means of facepalming. Excellent.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Those colored sketches look great, Bakuel! You should do more of them. Though AJ looks weird without any nostrils to define the snout's position.

No spectacular progress from me today. Some messing around with that old Discord-vs-Rangers pic, and a new sketchy thing that resulted from a whole day of blasting my head with the Interrobang Pie's Final Day Area for some sort of inspiration.

Spoiler

Really sketchy, not too useful, but it's practice. Tried to get an idea for Celestia's proportions and general appearance, the poor mare doesn't get nearly enough attention from artists.

[Diego Havoc]

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

I know how funks feel... Still working out of mine; some of it is a need for better scheduling of drawtime, and I'm going to work on that, I promise!

Also, the head in Day 109 is looking much better! Keep at it, and don't be afraid to take time on the details. Getting things really right, even if it takes a long time, is totally worth it, and you can always abstract your way back if a realistic style isn't your ultimate goal.

Thanks. I'm still not sure how to do shading right though. Everything I do seems wrong to me.

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

That's actually a really neat character story. DD has grown on me in a somewhat similar way...

And now my own finale-based contribution (Spoilers ahead! Awesome spoilers! I enjoyed the ep, if you can't tell!)

Spoiler

Very well done there. No nitpicks here.

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

Oh gosh, my brain just made the connection about which Gummi Bears you meant! I used to love that show! I should really dig up some episodes on Youtube or something, I haven't seen it in ages.

Ditto. I'd completely forgotten about that guy until I saw that pic. Nice work!

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Diego: Yeah I do miss the Toons from the 90s and morn the tragic death of saturday morning cartoons. I liked hearing about the character that inspired your screen name. It's cool whenever you can find pleasure in something you've created yourself, in this case a character/persona. I think he deserves an updated pic to do him justice. I'd rather see a humanoid version but either way is cool.

Yeah, I want to do more human pics of him too. I have a few ideas on how to redesign his outfit too, so that he's no longer using the default costume from the game.

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Nice! Are you going to color it?

Nah, probably not. It's not a pic that I really feel the need to colour. I'm happy to leave this one as a sketch.

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Genius. Simply genius.

Do it!

Heh, thanks.

And yes, I will do it, eventually.

Gah, there's that to do, and I need to get back to working on my animation. I haven't had time to do anything for it in ages.

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Day 38-39 and 40. Ponies, colors and setting musings!

Hehe, silly AJ, what are you even going to do with that gun?

Day 113. UGH. I just- yeah, I admit it, I gave up midway through this one. I know I shouldn't but... ugh. :/

Spoiler

Day 114. Practicing human poses.

Spoiler

Day 115 (today). Attemping my character. Half-finished because my hands were hurting. I'll continue tomorrow.

Spoiler

[the_druid_droid]

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Thanks. I'm still not sure how to do shading right though. Everything I do seems wrong to me.

Shading is still something I'm struggling with, but I'll pass on what I've noticed in the hopes that maybe something will click.

First off, shading really adds a level of realism to a drawing. I've noticed many times that something which looked kind of cartoonish or sketchy looked vastly different if I persevered and put in different tones to describe detail and texture. You probably don't need me to tell you this, but think of it as encouragement, especially if you feel like the linework alone isn't capturing what you want. Additionally, I find it much easier to shade with traditional media, since you can actually get your hands dirty and smudge things around until it starts to look better, soften hard shading lines, etc. I realize you can accomplish this on the PC too, but I think at the very beginning it's more intuitive when you have something on paper right in front of you.

The other big thing is that shading almost always looks wonky mid-way through. You really have to persevere to get it looking right, and you make a thousand little modifications along the way (or at least I do, in the learning process). What I'm getting at is that you shouldn't give up if it doesn't seem to be turning out right, but try to push on to a finished picture. Usually, it'll look better than you expect, and in either case you'll hopefully learn something for next time.

Finally, on a more technical note, the thing that helped me some was dividing an image into a couple different tones. You have darks, mids and lights in a picture and when you're drawing, ask yourself where the dark parts are, where the highlights are, etc. and try to classify the area you're working on as one of the three. For me, that helps decide how much (or even if) I'm going to shade that area.

Like I said, I still have a long way to go myself, but those are some of the things I've learned so far. And actually, I really need to work on shading some more now...

[Humbug]

Hey Diego, just wanted to say your new face looks loads better than your first. The eyes look really flat though, a lot of people have this problem when starting out at drawing faces. To add more depth, make the upper line of the eyes thicker as that's where the eyelashes are. And you don't have to join all of the lines, leaving blanks at the edges is fine.

My friend asked me to do studies on lighting, I'm not even sure I'm doing this right, Looking at it now, I think her eye needs more light. Oh well, this was a super fast painting. Still need to do more.

Spoiler

[Bakuel]

Originally Posted by Thanqol

My contract requires me to inform you that keeping a little momentum makes it so much easier to keep going, even on a day you're otherwise feeling blargh. Adding one sentence to a story or doing a quick and terrible sketch will leave you thinking about it for hours before and after, which quickly resurges into productivity.

Noted. I will try to keep the momentum going.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

We-eeeell, I'm currently thinking the shogun might be Discord. I dunno though. It's all a bit of a mess.

The best things start as a mess! :D
At least I think...
Discord as the shogun would be interesting. Would he be in disguise, slowly leading the realm into chaos?

Originally Posted by Thanqol

So that brings Twilight into Rarity's side of the war?

Yes! Honestly, I was partly attracted to Twilight and Rarity's subordinate and superior interaction in Hearth's Warming Eve, Samurai-Equestria Rarity won't be that bad though. I'll get on writing Twilight a blurb.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

Nose is a bit square, and that's a style I see fairly regularly but personally don't quite care for.

I'm still experimenting with the nose thing. I really don't like the square either, but it's the most simplest shape thus the easiest to quickly sketch. That's probably why many people fall into the habit. During the pre-draw phase, draw circle head, with square-ish circle for nose. Just like drawing cartoon cats and dogs and things like that. Yet it's lacking a certain zing, for lack of a better term.
Pony noses are something that I've always struggled with. It's not so bad when I'm working on the poses and head positions from the show, but as soon as I try to deviate anyway from it, it all goes to tartarus via hand-basket. Something about the nose in the common three quarters view and the profile that my mind has trouble wrapping around. I feel like the profile nose should be a bit longer or the three quarters view one a bit shorter. I don't know. Any help and suggestions on this would be appreciated.

Originally Posted by Thanqol

It took me way too long to figure out "Tomo". Then I clapped via the means of facepalming. Excellent.

I'm glad you approve of the fluff! The demon binding/appeasing thing kind of came naturally. I figured, if Discord can feed off of some random fillies argument to break lose, shouldn't Celestia enshrine him someplace were this won't happen?
Also I had to use Tom.

Need to draw Pinkie throwing beans at someone during a festival.

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

Those colored sketches look great, Bakuel! You should do more of them. Though AJ looks weird without any nostrils to define the snout's position.

I forgot the nostrils! *mentally kicks self*
Thanks! I'm going to try to color something everyday, I want to work on getting a fast coloring style somewhere between a painting and a cell shaded style.

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

No spectacular progress from me today. Some messing around with that old Discord-vs-Rangers pic, and a new sketchy thing that resulted from a whole day of blasting my head with the Interrobang Pie's Final Day Area for some sort of inspiration.

Spoiler

Really sketchy, not too useful, but it's practice. Tried to get an idea for Celestia's proportions and general appearance, the poor mare doesn't get nearly enough attention from artists.

Those are some very smooth Celestia drawings, easpically the profiles one on the right. My only nitpick on the scene is that the eyes on Celestia look too close together when you compare them to your close up profile on the right, it looks like there should be more space between them. But this is probably just because it's a quick sketch.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Gah, there's that to do, and I need to get back to working on my animation. I haven't had time to do anything for it in ages.

Wait! You do animations?! What type?! What program do you use?! Where are they?!

Spoiler

Seriously though, I didn't know that. Have you finished any and are they posted somewhere?

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Hehe, silly AJ, what are you even going to do with that gun?

She could throw it at bad guys!
Ok, maybe throwing guns at the enemy isn't such a good idea...

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Day 113. UGH. I just- yeah, I admit it, I gave up midway through this one. I know I shouldn't but... ugh. :/

Spoiler

*snip*

Day 114. Practicing human poses.

Spoiler

*snip*

Day 115 (today). Attemping my character. Half-finished because my hands were hurting. I'll continue tomorrow.

Spoiler

*snip*

Can't really comment on anatomy and realistic faces.
But an annoying nit pick: Your character's hat seems small compared to your old sketch.

Hope your hands are ok.

Originally Posted by Humbug

My friend asked me to do studies on lighting, I'm not even sure I'm doing this right, Looking at it now, I think her eye needs more light. Oh well, this was a super fast painting. Still need to do more.

Spoiler

Looking nice! Just curious, how fast is super fast?

Day 41,

Spoiler

More fun in attempts at color!
Can't say much, some head doodles and Twilight with a abacus. Bad anatomy off model Samurai Equestria Twilight. Even off model following my own standards. She's more shapless grub then pony, but it was a quick one. Her eyes are probably a bit too far apart by a tad. Still fooling around with pony noses.

And she's writing on copier style white paper. Because that exists in Samurai-Equestria. This is canon.

[Humbug]

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Looking nice! Just curious, how fast is super fast?

I think I spent 15-20 minutes on it? Was working on it on an off among other stuff.

[Purple Tentacle]

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Your drawings are very nice! I especially like Igthorn! How long have you been drawing? If you don't mind me being an inquisitive fool.

On Speedy, technique wise it looks nice and is great. But I must agree with Diego Havoc, I really don't care much for the more realistic design either.

Spoiler

It's the face and eyes for me. Something about them seems uncanny valley-ish, the eyes and nose proportions are still somewhat close to the show, but with your realistic style it seems odd. It's stuck in the odd place between nice funny cartoon cat and a real cat. Now, commenting on design is hard as you didn't say what you were going for when you posted it. But to reduce this effect have you thought about working more of a real cat's face into it? Smaller nose/snout, eyes .etc and so on? It can still be cartoony as far as expressions go, take a look at Puss in Boots from Shrek for example of a good idea of a more realistic yet cartoony cat face. You may not want to go that far of course.

All this is subjective design mutterings of course, feel free to ignore them.

On MLP,

Go ahead and give the show a spin! However, I will admit that while there are plenty of reasons to like the show, there are plenty of reasons not to. It all depends on you're taste. Just make sure you don't get too swayed by yay or nay sayers, lovers or haters, and watch it with a open mind and form your own opinions on it. I personally find that hard to do with polarizing shows like this, one can fall into the trap of watching the show to "get" why it's awesome to another person or why another one hates it instead of just watching it and seeing if you like. If that makes sense.

Thanks. Been casually drawing forever really. But I've done practically nothing over the past 4 years with it taking a backseat to work and education. All of a sudden I've taken it back up and I'm approaching it fairly seriously. I don't just want to randomly doodle anymore I want to learn to draw better. That means looking at art books, practicing things I sux at, trying different techniques. The ultimate goal is for my drawings to have personality/life and to be able to competently convey that to the viewer. The Speedy pic is a perfect example of a drawing that while somewhat proficient is devoid of any character.

Now I've seen a few MLP episodes I can safely say it's a good show. The character moments are the crux of the show and thankfully the character interactions are a hoot. One thing I would like to see are the stakes on the show increased. I understand there are antagonists on the show, shame they just didn't turn up in the episodes I watched. Probably don't expect any fan art out of me. While I liked the show a lot the art style and animation arn't very appealing to me. If I could I'd ban all animators from using flash animation.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Day 113. UGH. I just- yeah, I admit it, I gave up midway through this one. I know I shouldn't but... ugh. :/

Spoiler

Hey Diego hope this doesn't come across as presumptuous but I remember having my own trouble with faces. But this guy showed me some tricks with my facial features that worked for me maybe they could give you some assistance too.

For the nose focus your attention on the nostrils and the tip of the nose much like anime artist do. After that depending on the sketch I usually draw a single line from near the top point of one side of the nose up to and around the eye or brow. I might leave it like that or use some shading on the other side of nose in a longish triangle shape to make the nose look like it depth.

The eyes I just usually think of as two elongated semi circles that I often don't have touching but there is nothing wrong with that. I usually use a thicker darker line on the bottom eyelid but like Humbug said you can do that on the upper eyelid to give some depth. The iris usually overlaps the bottom or top eyelid line unless the subject is very wide eye, that should be taken into account when placing it .

For the lips I rarely draw the lower lip rather I use a bit of shading around the base of the bottom lip to give volume and suggest the size and shape of the lower lip.

Remember these are tips not rules. There is no right technique at least I haven't found it. The techniques I've presented to you are mostly shortcuts that cut down on detail work and give me a pleasing visual. I'd recommend you continue drawing from reference photos until you start to nail the facial features. With that should come greater understanding why something does work and why something doesn't. I don't know if any of this made any sense so I tried drawing a picture to aid me.

Spoiler

You know how sometimes you get that itch? When there's only one thing your interested in drawing. Well today it was Mexican wrestlers. I don't much care for wrestling but I love the aesthetics of the Luchador and the mystery around their identity. First up some doodles that range from good to ugly.

Spoiler

More fan art, I was either going to do King or El Furete. Ended up going with King.

Spoiler

[Bakuel]

Originally Posted by Humbug

I think I spent 15-20 minutes on it? Was working on it on an off among other stuff.

The art of speed painting is still mystifying to me. Awesome though!

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

The ultimate goal is for my drawings to have personality/life and to be able to competently convey that to the viewer.

An admirable goal!

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Now I've seen a few MLP episodes I can safely say it's a good show. The character moments are the crux of the show and thankfully the character interactions are a hoot. One thing I would like to see are the stakes on the show increased. I understand there are antagonists on the show, shame they just didn't turn up in the episodes I watched. Probably don't expect any fan art out of me. While I liked the show a lot the art style and animation arn't very appealing to me. If I could I'd ban all animators from using flash animation.

I'm glad you approve of the show. I had a feeling it would get a passing grade based on your love of older cartoons. Most of the episodes are slice of life-ish character driven with a few more adventure-ish type episodes thrown in, while the season openers and the recently aired season 2 finale are closer to the original G1 My Little Pony plots, cute ponies fight against diabolical threats against their happy land.
I actually agree with you on the animation and the use of flash. Now I love flash for small groups/individual animators to easily produce stuff, but (in a grumpy old man way) it always feels weird seeing large studios use it. I remember the first generation of mainstream flash cartoons being fairly bad. While the animation was fine for cartoons like Foster's Home for Imaginary friends (the writing saved it and the flash can be said to have suited it's style at least), "action" shows like Chaotic were laughably bad.
Believe it or not, last year I originally put Wakfu! and MLP in my watching schedule more so I could see if they ever improved it. And also shake my fist in a grumpy old man type of way. It took a few action squences in Wakfu! for me to finally admit that maybe it wasn't that bad. And the recent MLP season finale was also very nicely animated.
Still prefer non-flash though.

As for the style, I like it (if you couldn't tell) but understand if you don't. I was in a similar boat with Transformers Animated, liked most of the episodes, the story arcs, the fact that decepticons were an actual deadly threat, the throw backs to the original transformers.etc. Best new Transformers series in my opinion. But disliked the art style. Still do.

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

You know how sometimes you get that itch? When there's only one thing your interested in drawing. Well today it was Mexican wrestlers. I don't much care for wrestling but I love the aesthetics of the Luchador and the mystery around their identity. First up some doodles that range from good to ugly.

Spoiler

More fan art, I was either going to do King or El Furete. Ended up going with King.

Spoiler

Can't go wrong with Luchadores! Also, the tips on facial structure were nice. Will be trying those.

Day 42, Colored Twilight and Trandoshan doodle.

Spoiler

Nothing much, just sitting Twilight (closer to on model now) and a doodle of a Trandoshan! My mind was wandering to Star Wars. I always felt sorry for the poor lizard guys, they generally become mooks in various star wars related games like so many orcs and goblins. Ever since I was young I thought that Bossk was cool though.

Still having fun coloring ponies, even if they are just simply colors it's fun. I need to try to color something else. Would have colored the trandoshan but ran out of time.

[Diego Havoc]

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

Shading is still something I'm struggling with, but I'll pass on what I've noticed in the hopes that maybe something will click.

*snip*

Thanks, that helps. I'll bare all that in mind. I'm thinking that if I'm going to do shading, learning with pencil will probably be much easier for me. I have no idea how to change the Photoshop brush settings to get the effects I want, but an HB pencil has never let me down so far.

Originally Posted by Humbug

Hey Diego, just wanted to say your new face looks loads better than your first. The eyes look really flat though, a lot of people have this problem when starting out at drawing faces. To add more depth, make the upper line of the eyes thicker as that's where the eyelashes are. And you don't have to join all of the lines, leaving blanks at the edges is fine.

Alright, I'll give that a try. When you say leave blanks at the edges, you mean on the corners of the eyes?

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Wait! You do animations?! What type?! What program do you use?! Where are they?!

Spoiler

Seriously though, I didn't know that. Have you finished any and are they posted somewhere?

Oh, yeah, I mentioned it in ponythread, but not here. About a year ago I started a little project. The goal was to create an anime opening parody using ponies (You may have seen this or this a while back. That's a similar thing to what I had in mind).

In hindsight this was overly ambitious of me, but I've always been one to throw myself in the deep end when learning something new (except swimming, ironically).

Anyway, this was brought about by seeing a parody of the 2nd Soul Eater opening based on Smash Brothers (seen here, with a karaoke version because the original was removed for ToS violation :/). I thought to myself, "Yeah, this is good, but wouldn't it be better with ponies?"

The answer was, of course, yes it would. So, rather than sit around wishing it would happen, I decided that I would learn Flash animation and how to draw ponies in order to make it happen. I got, oh, let's say 40% though before I realised exactly how much trouble I was going to have with certain scenes (the fight scene especially). I also got stuck on how to do the piano scene (which was why I was practicing ponies sitting from various angles before). I would post some of the animation I've done, but I don't really know how to export it properly yet... ¬_¬ So instead, you get stills.

Not that all this was drawn in Flash using a mouse, before I started learning how to do thing properly. Also some of these shots have the original video visible underneath.

Spoiler

Speaking of Flash, what's wrong with making cartoons with it?

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Can't really comment on anatomy and realistic faces.
But an annoying nit pick: Your character's hat seems small compared to your old sketch.

Hope your hands are ok.

Yeah, I noticed the hat was off so I fixed it when I finished off the picture yesterday (day 116)

Spoiler

Not overly please with this one, I'll have another go at it soon. Hat could still probably stand to be a little bigger. The hands and feet are bad, and I'm not sure what he's doing with his arm like that (I think I was going to put a pocket there), but I'm happy with the overall proportions.

Still working on today's pic (gonna do something for that animation, I'm finally enthusiastic about it again).

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Day 41, *snip*

That's such a cute Twilight :3

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Hey Diego hope this doesn't come across as presumptuous but I remember having my own trouble with faces. But this guy showed me some tricks with my facial features that worked for me maybe they could give you some assistance too.

*snip*

I don't know if any of this made any sense so I tried drawing a picture to aid me.

Spoiler

Thanks for that, it's all very useful, especially the nose and mouth tips. The example drawing is very good too. Hope you don't mind me saving it for reference.

Oh, and don't be afraid to comment or critique here; we're all here to learn, after all ^^

[Humbug]

Originally Posted by Bakuel

The art of speed painting is still mystifying to me. Awesome though!

The idea is to be as loose as possible and not get hung up on the details. You just want a general impression of the piece. Unlike this one which I'm working on, which is taking considerably longer.

Spoiler

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Alright, I'll give that a try. When you say leave blanks at the edges, you mean on the corners of the eyes?

Pretty much, yeah. :)

[Sean Mirrsen]

Another nonconsecutive day, another sketch.

Spoiler

Nothing interesting, just switching back to human faces momentarily. Faces and hair. Please disregard the ears.

[Purple Tentacle]

Originally Posted by Bakuel

Day 42, Colored Twilight and Trandoshan doodle.

Spoiler

Nothing much, just sitting Twilight (closer to on model now) and a doodle of a Trandoshan! My mind was wandering to Star Wars. I always felt sorry for the poor lizard guys, they generally become mooks in various star wars related games like so many orcs and goblins. Ever since I was young I thought that Bossk was cool though.

Still having fun coloring ponies, even if they are just simply colors it's fun. I need to try to color something else. Would have colored the trandoshan but ran out of time.

The Star Wars lizard sketch is fun. Mas!
Ponies in anthropomorphic poses confuse my brain. Do you know what's going on underneath that fabric I can't quite imagine it myself. I'd be interested in seeing you draw a pony in a humanoid pose without clothes.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Speaking of Flash, what's wrong with making cartoons with it?

There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. It's an intensely personal dislike I've developed over the years. I find the animation resulting from flash to look as if the animated elements are made of rubber bands when done well, when not done well it looks more like a robotic train wreck. I guess one of the other reasons is I find vector art to be a bit flat and unsatisfying. In regards to MLP it has some of the best flash animation I've ever seen, it doesn't go overboard reusing art assets and animation is very smooth. But even when watching the pinnacle of flash animation I still find myself personally turned off by it. I'm being nickpicky but to me flash animation has still been unable to replicate the weight and fluidity of traditional animation. I was a bit harsh when I demanded banning of flash talent artists can make flash work just fine for their uses.

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

Another nonconsecutive day, another sketch.

Spoiler

Nothing interesting, just switching back to human faces momentarily. Faces and hair. Please disregard the ears.

Nice work on that angled upwards head, I've always found those difficult. I feel like the eyelids on the far right of the eyes should be more tapered coming to a more of a narrow point.


Some boring study work.

Spoiler

[Eakin]

Hey Drawthread, love y'all's work you're doing here. I actually have a request.

I've been putting fics up on FiMfiction, but I don't have any good images for them. Rather than steal something from someone's Deviant Art account that kinda-sorta works, I thought I would make a request here for some custom art. In exchange, if I pick your artwork for the story I will take a request to write a fic with the prompt of your choosing and post it/send it to you. BUT, if you request a fic you also need to give me a picture for your requested fic; the idea is not to trap me in a vicious cycle of writing fics for my relentless draw thread overlords.

So in summary: You draw a picture for my fic, I write a fic of your choosing, you draw something for that fic, transaction complete.

The three stories I need images for:

Writing is Hard

What Dreams May Come

Always Has Been (that one's in progress)

I've got a couple on the back burner as well so I'm sure if this works out I'll be coming back for more

EDIT: For a deadline, let's say Monday morning.

[Diego Havoc]

Mmm, I think I'll pass on the draw request, leave it to someone else. But I'm sure someone will help you out, Eakin.

Days 117-118. Went back into Flash and started putting something together with vectors. Not really all that pleased with it. I think I'd be better off drawing and importing, but if I want to animate anything... I really don't want to do frame-by-frame. It would drive me crazy.

Spoiler

Day 119. More human.

Spoiler

Much better. Still not quite right, but better than my last attempt.

[the_druid_droid]

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

Another nonconsecutive day, another sketch.

Spoiler

Nothing interesting, just switching back to human faces momentarily. Faces and hair. Please disregard the ears.

The head on the right seems a bit blocky, but otherwise they're looking pretty good!

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Some boring study work.

Spoiler

Hmm, I really need to do something along these lines, but I've been making excuses lately. Hopefully after finals are all done with...

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Mmm, I think I'll pass on the draw request, leave it to someone else. But I'm sure someone will help you out, Eakin.

Days 117-118. Went back into Flash and started putting something together with vectors. Not really all that pleased with it. I think I'd be better off drawing and importing, but if I want to animate anything... I really don't want to do frame-by-frame. It would drive me crazy.

Spoiler

Day 119. More human.

Spoiler

Much better. Still not quite right, but better than my last attempt.

The head is definitely looking better! Keep at it!

As for me, I didn't get a lot drawn yesterday, since I got sucked into watching a show recommended by a friend. As a result, you get the face of EVIL!

Spoiler

[Bakuel]

So I drew a little Thursday and took a nap, telling myself I would come home Friday and draw and post something. Got home the next day, all psyched up and ready to draw. Spilled coffee on my tablet. LOL
Today I woke up and opened it up and cleaned off the circuit board. It's working again so yay for that.

Then after that was done my keyboard started acting up, it acts like Alt is permanently being pressed... Or maybe it's still the tablet...

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Oh, yeah, I mentioned it in ponythread, but not here. About a year ago I started a little project. The goal was to create an anime opening parody using ponies (You may have seen this or this a while back. That's a similar thing to what I had in mind).

In hindsight this was overly ambitious of me, but I've always been one to throw myself in the deep end when learning something new (except swimming, ironically).

Anyway, this was brought about by seeing a parody of the 2nd Soul Eater opening based on Smash Brothers (seen here, with a karaoke version because the original was removed for ToS violation :/). I thought to myself, "Yeah, this is good, but wouldn't it be better with ponies?"

The answer was, of course, yes it would. So, rather than sit around wishing it would happen, I decided that I would learn Flash animation and how to draw ponies in order to make it happen. I got, oh, let's say 40% though before I realised exactly how much trouble I was going to have with certain scenes (the fight scene especially). I also got stuck on how to do the piano scene (which was why I was practicing ponies sitting from various angles before). I would post some of the animation I've done, but I don't really know how to export it properly yet... ¬_¬ So instead, you get stills.

Not that all this was drawn in Flash using a mouse, before I started learning how to do thing properly. Also some of these shots have the original video visible underneath.
*snip*

Speaking of Flash, what's wrong with making cartoons with it?

This is awesome! I hope you complete it. Something like this needs to exist.

Similar to Purple Tentacle I have to admit that I'm just bias against flash. The orgin of this bias is due to the first generation of flash cartoons. It seems while studios can use flash to make quality cartoons (like MLP), it seems like the first generation of flash cartoons were just lazy and used flash as a animation crutch. I've mostly gotten over it, and now I don't mind studios that use flash to make cartoons. Horrible animation isn't the program's fault.

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

That's such a cute Twilight :3

Thank you!

Originally Posted by Humbug

The idea is to be as loose as possible and not get hung up on the details. You just want a general impression of the piece. Unlike this one which I'm working on, which is taking considerably longer.

Spoiler

Pretty much, yeah. :)

Beautiful!

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

The Star Wars lizard sketch is fun. Mas!
Ponies in anthropomorphic poses confuse my brain. Do you know what's going on underneath that fabric I can't quite imagine it myself. I'd be interested in seeing you draw a pony in a humanoid pose without clothes.

Thanks!
On the ponies, they are just anthro ponies for my elseworld/alternate reality edo-period Samurai-Equestria work-in-progress fan fic comic thingy. Basically, take marshmallow ponies and then turn them into marshmallow anthros jointwise.

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Some boring study work.

Spoiler

Skulls are never boring.
Very nice stuff, I need to do something like that...

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

As for me, I didn't get a lot drawn yesterday, since I got sucked into watching a show recommended by a friend. As a result, you get the face of EVIL!

Spoiler

Kyubey is awesome, despite the evil. Very nice.

Originally Posted by Eakin

Hey Drawthread, love y'all's work you're doing here. I actually have a request.

I've been putting fics up on FiMfiction, but I don't have any good images for them. Rather than steal something from someone's Deviant Art account that kinda-sorta works, I thought I would make a request here for some custom art. In exchange, if I pick your artwork for the story I will take a request to write a fic with the prompt of your choosing and post it/send it to you. BUT, if you request a fic you also need to give me a picture for your requested fic; the idea is not to trap me in a vicious cycle of writing fics for my relentless draw thread overlords.

So in summary: You draw a picture for my fic, I write a fic of your choosing, you draw something for that fic, transaction complete.

EDIT: For a deadline, let's say Monday morning.

I really liked "Writing is Hard". Fluttershy's section was brilliant. I would be interested in making a cover image for it, but a Monday deadline is far too short of a time period. First I would have to brainstorm a good image which suits the story, then I would have to make a rough of the scene, then do line-work, then color and shade it .etc. It would probably take two weeks or so for me.


Day 44-45,

Spoiler

On day 44 I just drew Sweetie Belle and colored in her base colors and went to bed. After numerous hardware related shenanigans, today I finished coloring her and also drew and colored Rarity too! The sisters belong together after all. I discovered coloring flowers is fun! Researching and trying my hand at kimono designs was actually pretty darn entertaining. I enjoyed it a bit more then I should have. While Rarity hates green, Belle is willing to give it a chance. In hindsight I should have worked jewels into Rarity's kimono design. Oh well. Flowers are always nice. Not too happy with Belle's mane, but it is what it is.
I drew a Samuria-Equestria pony body rough to show how their anatomy is. They can grasp things without fingers. It's magic. Serious, it's because their spirits are interacting with the object in the shadow realm. This is canon.

[the_druid_droid]

Originally Posted by Bakuel

So I drew a little Thursday and took a nap, telling myself I would come home Friday and draw and post something. Got home the next day, all psyched up and ready to draw. Spilled coffee on my tablet. LOL
Today I woke up and opened it up and cleaned off the circuit board. It's working again so yay for that.

Then after that was done my keyboard started acting up, it acts like Alt is permanently being pressed... Or maybe it's still the tablet...

Oh, yikes! I hope it works itself out; a tablet out of commission wouldn't be any fun...

Kyubey is awesome, despite the evil. Very nice.

Yay! More Puella Magi watchers!

It was actually Topaz from these boards who got me to watch it. Unfortunately, the finale isn't up on the site I've been using yet...

I am now contractually obligated to link this:

Spoiler

I really liked "Writing is Hard". Fluttershy's section was brilliant. I would be interested in making a cover image for it, but a Monday deadline is far too short of a time period. First I would have to brainstorm a good image which suits the story, then I would have to make a rough of the scene, then do line-work, then color and shade it .etc. It would probably take two weeks or so for me.

This is a good point. Would you be able to extend the deadline, Eakin? I wouldn't object to making something myself, but I have a couple of projects I need to finish first...

Speaking of, here's my progress so far on a vampony I'm making for a friend (actually, I can't remember if I linked this before or not...):

Spoiler

[Sean Mirrsen]

Originally Posted by Bakuel

So I drew a little Thursday and took a nap, telling myself I would come home Friday and draw and post something. Got home the next day, all psyched up and ready to draw. Spilled coffee on my tablet. LOL
Today I woke up and opened it up and cleaned off the circuit board. It's working again so yay for that.

Then after that was done my keyboard started acting up, it acts like Alt is permanently being pressed... Or maybe it's still the tablet...

Yeah, tablet troubles sometimes cause function keys to appear stuck. This is true for all touch-sensitive devices for some reason, including laptop touchpads.

Day 44-45,

Spoiler

On day 44 I just drew Sweetie Belle and colored in her base colors and went to bed. After numerous hardware related shenanigans, today I finished coloring her and also drew and colored Rarity too! The sisters belong together after all. I discovered coloring flowers is fun! Researching and trying my hand at kimono designs was actually pretty darn entertaining. I enjoyed it a bit more then I should have. While Rarity hates green, Belle is willing to give it a chance. In hindsight I should have worked jewels into Rarity's kimono design. Oh well. Flowers are always nice. Not too happy with Belle's mane, but it is what it is.
I drew a Samuria-Equestria pony body rough to show how their anatomy is. They can grasp things without fingers. It's magic. Serious, it's because their spirits are interacting with the object in the shadow realm. This is canon.

I really like the way you shade/light the hair, giving it texture. And your style is very neat in general, despite actually being sketchy around the edges. For some reason I can never quite get that sort of "wholeness" effect.

Rarity's face there looks odd though, the far eye seems off. Maybe it's just me.

----------------
Something different today, tried to imagine Bleakbane as a pony princess. Way sketchy as always, too little time.

Spoiler

[Purple Tentacle]

Originally Posted by Diego Havoc

Day 119. More human.

Spoiler

Much better. Still not quite right, but better than my last attempt.

That's a really good improvement I just had two little Suggestions. The line indicating the bridge of the nose should not come from the outside of the nostril you could have a shadow start from here but I wouldn't use a hard line in that position. Try moving that line a little closer towards the centre of the face. The other note was on the lip, try to make the upper lip a bit more organic, yours came out a little boxy oh and don't forget to strongly indicate the shape of the lower lip. Looks a little odd otherwise. Overall good effort.

Spoiler

Finished drawing a few hooters.

Spoiler

[Bakuel]

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

Oh, yikes! I hope it works itself out; a tablet out of commission wouldn't be any fun...

It works! Alt/Ctrl key shenanigans aside. Broken tablets won't be used as excuse to stop drawing!
I guess in the end I have my own clumsiness to blame, it's the most common faults which doom me in the end. I'm just glad it wasn't hot coffee.

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

Yay! More Puella Magi watchers!

It was actually Topaz from these boards who got me to watch it. Unfortunately, the finale isn't up on the site I've been using yet...

I am now contractually obligated to link this:

Spoiler

*saved*
Royal Tea is best pony. I see this clearly now.
With this revelation I can die happy.

Originally Posted by the_druid_droid

Speaking of, here's my progress so far on a vampony I'm making for a friend (actually, I can't remember if I linked this before or not...):

Spoiler

I like what you did with the ears. Nice touch.
A nitpick, the wings look a little too close to the hindlegs.

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

Yeah, tablet troubles sometimes cause function keys to appear stuck. This is true for all touch-sensitive devices for some reason, including laptop touchpads.

I see that now! I cleaned the circuit board again yesterday when the problem presisted and got rid off every trace of coffee or lint. It still happens, but much less often. So I just have to roll with it. The tablet is about six or seven years old now anyway, I'll have to see about getting a new one sometime. Could use an upgrade.

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

I really like the way you shade/light the hair, giving it texture. And your style is very neat in general, despite actually being sketchy around the edges. For some reason I can never quite get that sort of "wholeness" effect.

Rarity's face there looks odd though, the far eye seems off. Maybe it's just me.

Thanks! I'm just bumbling through with the whole painting thing, trying to improve as I go along. Ponies skin/hair/fur wise are simple, but I always hold that their manes should be given extra flourish. I'm glad it actually came through on that one. On the weekends I can actually take my time. Today's colored picture is pretty bad though.
On the sketchy edges, it occured to me when viewing this pic by CuteSkitty that you can get away with rough edges.
From the normal view it just looks like a well made cute pic of Luna and Dash, yet if you click the download and see the full canvas size, you can see that a lot of the brush strokes are actually rather rough around the edges and some of the shadows rather roughly applied. The artist does awesome fur though. For sketchy painting, it's not the outside lines that matter the most, but the ones in the inside of the figure, if that makes sense.

You are right on Rarity's eyes, the left (her right) one should be closer to the left. That's a common mistake on my ponies in 3rd quarter view. I need to work on that.

Originally Posted by Sean Mirrsen

----------------
Something different today, tried to imagine Bleakbane as a pony princess. Way sketchy as always, too little time.

Spoiler

I really like the bone structure and those hooves. If Celestia and Luna are the sun and moon, and Cadance is love, then is this one death?

Originally Posted by Purple Tentacle

Finished drawing a few hooters.

Spoiler

The top right one is clearly in league with evil. Nice owls and style variations!


Day 44, Or why I don't draw machines.

Spoiler

Today I couldn't decide what to draw, so I tried to draw everyone's favorite G1 transformer, RAMJET!
Yay!
I have a odd fascination with the conehead jet decepticons, as a child watching the show I hated their general look and goofiness, yet as I grew older I began to appreciate the subtle beauty of the design.
Anyway stupidity aside, still can't draw mechs worth three copper pieces. So I dunno! Bad G1 transformer is bad, got lazy three quarters through.
It warmed me up enough to try to draw a Cheerilee and Diamond Tiara. Havoc must be rubbing off of me with Tiara. They don't really look that good, but it's just a bad day for art I guess. May someone learn from my folly. The color is especially sloppy, but I ran out of time. Try again tomorrow.