Oops, got carried away again. This started as a small facial portrait. But I wanted to add her wings, but that meant I had to add most of the rest of her body. So I ended up spending 3 hours on this, hehe.
This is probably among my best for shorter drawings (2-3 hours) as far as shading goes. One thing that annoys me that I didn’t notice is the way her one bang falls, it makes her look kind of cocky because of the way it obscures her right eye. 
Anyway, happy holidays from Dusky and myself!
This is my second submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 26 theme: draw a pony in a box.
Well, I’m pretty sure I’m going to be one out of a dozen people doing this one, but I couldn’t resist. I decided to go with a pony other than Pinkie since she seems to get attributed to this more often than not. Over a Barrel reminded me that Dashie can be sneaky if she really tries, so she got the part.
The perspective on the box was surprisingly a big pain. And I think that angle also makes it look like it’s not wide enough too.
Took about 2.5 hours using the 2H-HB-2B trio.
We can dream, can’t we? Hopefully we get the real deal at some point (and hopefully not using my thrown together box design).
This is my first submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 26 theme: draw a pony in a box. I drew three, although there’s six in the box. I originally wanted to draw all of them hanging out, but the scale wouldn’t have worked very well, so I improvised.
The logo was surprisingly annoying to do and it was a little tough to draw and detail ponies that small and still have them look decent.
Took 2.5 hours using the 2H-HB-2B trio.
The Artist Training Grounds is doing a joint Ask Equestria Tumblr (http://ask-equestria.tumblr.com/) where we have a variety of artists drawing multiple characters answering various questions (as asked by the blog’s readers). Come check us out.
OC Time. Namely Dusky Down for those unfamiliar (not all that unlikely, since I rarely draw her, or any OC, for that matter).
Oi, this pose… I followed the reference I used pretty closely, but it doesn’t quite translate to 3D as well as I’d hoped. Still, it looks all right and I got to dissect the skeletal positioning of a tough, dynamic pose.
Got to work with 96 lb. bristol (I’m used to working with 70 lb. paper) and it was really nice to work with, although it did add a lot of effort. It makes more gradual shading a lot easier, but I also need more layers of graphite to get the really dark stuff. So this ran me close to 6 hours using ye olde 2H-HB-2B trio (2B is looking a little short these days too…).
I don’t see the outfit this hairstyle and headband come with drawn too often and I think it’s a little under-appreciated. I did want to do a portrait, though, so I compromised and did the portrait as though she’s wearing the outfit. I did need to make a few improvisations, chiefly due to the fact that with the show, the way the headband ended with the inner ear made no sense. Namely that the ear didn’t appear to be drawn, although the best shot I could get was pretty blurry, so who knows? The headband itself suffered a bit from the blurry picture, so I had to do a bit of guesswork there too.
Ran me 3 hours total using the 2H-HB-2B trio.
Oh, Twi, why are you so adorkable?
Some might remember how I did Twilight’s “YESYESYES!” grin back in the day, when I was first learning to shade. I’ve been itching to do something similar since I’ve gotten a lot better since then. It has a lot of little things modified compared to the actual grin (since I did the initial framework of the sketch entirely from memory and then went back to reference the grin for clean up, it’s got a different perspective).
Done in 3 hours using the 2H-HB-2B trio.
This is my third submission for the Artists Training Grounds’ week 25 theme: draw a pony inspired by a book. I don’t normally subscribe to the Tyrant Celestia theory, but she was the only one to really fit the role. I haven’t actually read 1984 in a very long time, but for whatever reason, it popped into my head while I was brainstorming. And away I went.
This is the first time in a very long time where I’ve just flat out gone off model. Canon Celestia when viewed head on just doesn’t sit right with me if I look at her for too long (and while drawing that’s pretty much a guarantee). So I went with a pose that ended up being more difficult than I thought and tried to make her look even more horse like. I don’t think I quite got the perspective down, though.
I was kind of dreading doing Celestia’s mane, but it turned out to be the funnest part of the drawing.
Done in about 2 hours using the 2H-HB-2B trio.
This is my second submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 25 theme: draw a pony inspired by a book. So I decided it was time to ponify something niche. Being a long time Breath of Fire fan, this seemed appropriate. “But Kuroi, Breath of Fire is a video game!” one might say. To which I would respond that this is true, however, Breath of Fire 4 also had a manga made of it. And that just happened to be what caught my eye when I was going through my book shelf.
As Nina has always been my favourite Breath of Fire character, I chose her for the ponification. At first I was a little apprehensive about making her an alicorn, but she’s a magic user AND the wings are iconic. So I eventually had to admit that it just makes sense and that I couldn’t cut one out.
I basically lifted her bangs wholesale from the manga itself. Kept the hairband, but pushed it back a little (it feels… really odd to put one on a pony). Manestyle is a very slightly tweaked version of the rest of her hair. I converted the shawl into something of a large choker, sort of like what Celestia and Luna had, but still cloth and not full on metal jewelry. The cutie mark required a little bit of thought. I pretty much knew I wanted it to be wind magic from the start, but thinking of a good way to represent that was a bit hard. I ended up going with a wand crossed with a small tornado. For her tail I vaguely mimicked her bangs. I tried to mimic them closely at first, but it looked really terrible, so I changed it to what it is now.
Took me roughly 2 hours. 2H-HB-2B trio in my hybrid style.
In celebration of the arrival of my giant Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie plushies, I decided to draw the real deal together. This was supposed to be another quick one, but still ran me about 3 hours. Aside from getting a little carried away, as usual, Pinkie’s pose was pretty tough to get. I think I spent nearly half an hour trying to muddle out her hind legs.
Anyway, hybrid style with my 2H-HB-2B trio. I tried using only the HB for detailing hair this time, to keep myself from overdarkening Fluttershy’s hair. I think it more or less worked out.
No Contest Creations 