This is my first submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 46 theme: draw a pony at a celebration. Wow, I spent too many days on this. It’s another roughly 15 hour (give or take) drawing, this time with plans to try to get a signature from each other Lauren Faust and Nicole Oliver when I got to BronyCon.

Nearly a third of my time was spent fussing with the initial pose. It’s basically what Celestia does in Cutie Mark Chronicles at the Summer Sun Celebration, but I didn’t like the angle the show presents, so in all my brilliance, I decided I’d try to figure it out from a different angle. Yeaaaaa, almost wish I hadn’t. Mostly because I pretty much had zero references to go off of, so I was winging it almost the entire time. But what’s done is done, I guess. I initially wanted to try to fit that ornamental sun prop in as well, but it would have prevented me from detailing Celestia at the resolution I wanted to.

What was probably most interesting about this was how reversed the lighting is compared to what I normally do. That is, instead of heavy shadows, this was tons of light, practically to the point of washing out some parts. Which meant I basically spent a bunch of time drawing parts of her and then hours dabbing with a kneaded eraser it to get it just right.

All and all, I’m pretty happy with it, even if I probably wouldn’t name it among my best.