MLP: FiM – Twilight Plays FF Tactics

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

Uh, oh, somepony saved over her only slot in Riovanes.

Anyway, this is my first submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 25 theme: draw a pony inspired by a book. It’s been a long time since I’ve done wordplay with the theme, but I just had to do this. Twi is inspired by the strategy guide (it’s totally still a book) to kick Wiegraf’s butt after having failed to defeat him the first time. Anyone who has played the game knows exactly which Wiegraf fight I’m talking about.

This was supposed to be a quick one, but I got a little carried away on Twi, despite going back to my hybrid shading for a bit. So this ran me 90 minutes. The TV and stand also look like crap, but I guess they get the idea across.

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MLP: FiM – Twilight Looks Like She Should Be a Dancer

Posted on December 12, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

Toying with some little tweaks tonight with regards to what I learned from doing the style imitation bonus theme. And, of course, like with 95% of the times I try new stuff, I draw Twi. So yay, Twi!

I usually like Twi with her hair down more, but I was in a bit of a mood for something different and, well, Twi with her hair in a bun is pretty cute, so I went with that.

Ran me about 3 hours with the 2H-HB-2B trio.

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MLP: FiM – Spike and Rarity’s Gems

Posted on December 11, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

This is my third submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 24 theme: draw a pony helping someone in need. This is kind of a mutual one (although Spike isn’t a pony) where Spike is helping Rarity find gems again and Rarity is helping Spike get some good eats in the form of his share of the haul.

Anyway, this is my first time drawing Spike, despite my rather large amount of Twi drawings and scenes. Today’s episode really made me want to draw Spike and Rarity together, although I don’t usually do spoiler drawings until after Sunday ends. So I went with this idea.

I’m a little annoyed with some of the blending on Spike, especially the belly. It didn’t look as good on the drawing itself as when I was doing sample blending and the scanner only makes it worse than it is. Other than that, I think things worked out fairly well.

This took roughly 4 hours. Still experimenting with the no graphite/inked outlines style from last night. Sketched out in my 2H, then coloured with Prismacolor.

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MLP: FiM – Applejack Winding Up

Posted on December 10, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

Because something is about to get clobbered.

This was a strange pose and I’m not sure I got it entirely right. It’s very twisty and odd, but I really wanted to give the impression that Applejack was about to mess something up pretty badly with that buck of hers.

Doing some more stylistic experimentation with the Prismacolors. Went back to trying the borderless Prismacoloring (sketched out with 2H, and then erased the borders, replacing with colour as I went), but relied a little more heavily on the black for shading (partly due to not being able to find a great orange-orange blend… and same with the type of yellow her hair uses… and partly to keep the form more defined). It worked great for everything but the ear, where it worked soso.

This ran me about 3 hours overall.

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MLP: FiM – We Need More Parties!

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

This is my second submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 24 theme: draw a pony helping someone in need. As the title implies, we need more parties. Pinkie being Pinkie, is happy to lend us the party cannon. Or maybe just point it straight at us.

Anyway, took about 3 hours and I’m back to using the 2H-HB-2B trio. Still working on refining the furred look, as well as pushing for greater variation in shading values.

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MLP: FiM – Twilight Sparkle Style Imitation

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

This is my submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 24 bonus theme: draw a pony in another artist’s style. For the reason that this particular artist’s works inspired me to take up graphite shading again, I shot for the stars and tried to imitate Carlotta-guidicelli.

Can’t say I really succeeded overall. There’s a lot of things about her style I just don’t have the technique for. I had a fair amount of trouble attempting the more complex shading and highlights in the hair and the coat shading I generally couldn’t get to look as smooth. Although I did come pretty close to getting the eyelashes. >.>

Oh, well, I ended up with a pretty decent looking Twi and learned a lot of things, so it all turned out okay in the end.

I spent nearly 4 hours fighting with this. Had to bench my 2B since Carlotta just uses a 2H and HB. Mine aren’t mechanical too, so that made things interesting. I actually shaded with my 2H a bit when I needed things to be really light. Although the HB is a lot more versatile than I remember. Definitely didn’t expect to be able to do all this with pretty much just it (although I still couldn’t get things nearly as dark as what’s apparently possible).

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MLP: FiM – Rarity Helping Dashie Be Stylish

Posted on December 7, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

This is my first submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ week 24 theme: draw a pony helping another pony in need. For some reason, Dashie needs to be stylish and Rarity is only happy to oblige (by putting her in her predecessor’s outfit no less).

This is actually a bit of an expansion and do over on a submission for months ago. So this is kind of a benchmark to contrast against this to see how far I’ve come. Also, there’s totally no wings missing in this newer version.

This took me about 3.5 hours. I decided to do a little bit of stylistic experimentation. I basically attempted to transfer what I’ve been doing with my Prismacolours to graphite. I did the hairy outline in 2B, then for the shading, laid the first layer in HB and darkened up with 2B. Sketch was done with 2H as usual.

EDIT: Now “slightly less embarrassing” edition.

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MLP: FiM – Festive Filly Twi

Posted on December 6, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

Felt like drawing filly Twi, so I did some simple practice work. Which, as always, my brain took to mean picking one of the hardest poses I could find. Then I decided I wanted my filly Twi to be festive, so I added a hat.

Done in a little shy of 2 hours using my 2H to sketch, 0.1mm pen to ink and Prismacolors to colour.

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MLP: FiM – If, Wherever We Go Promotion: The Cell

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

The Cadence guy pointed and said “That one’s cute.”

“CUTE?! Listen bud, I, Rainbow Dash, am many things. I’m awesome, I’m radical, I am the Iron Pony, the loyalest of friends. But I am not ‘cute’!”

“She’s right,” that Rose person said. “She’s not cute.”

Cadence and Rose both smiled like they knew some big joke was coming

Then Cadence said “Yeah, SHE’S ADORABLE!”

“All right, that’s it!” Rainbow Dash swung her hooves at Cadence, who put his arms up and laughed. It was like he thought she was playing.

—

This is a promotional image I threw together to help drum up some interest for the upcoming reboot of the fanfic If, Wherever We Go (by NoGiantRobots1983). It’s an epic adventure fic that makes use of (and lampshades) some video game RPG elements. I’ll link to it once the re-release happens. Until then, enjoy this little teaser.

Doing a big scene like this really made me feel like my skills almost weren’t up to the task. There’s lots of little things that bug me, not the least of which is sometimes a line well laid in graphite ends up looking a bit off after inking. Also, bare bones holding cells don’t make great backgrounds.

On the other hand, I got to find out just how great this style works with Dashie. And overall, this is my best blending work to date.

This ran me something like… I kind of lost track. 10 hours I guess? Sketched in 2H, inked in 0.1mm pigment liner and coloured in Prismacolor.

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MLP: FiM – Determined Shy

Posted on December 4, 2011 by Kuroi Tsubasa Tenshi

This is my third submission for the Artist Training Grounds’ day 23 theme: draw a superhero pony. Yes, it’s Fluttershy in her Element necklace. My reasoning being with all the stuff the girls have done both with and without the Elements, they practically ARE superheroes already.

I had a lot of trouble with her coat colour. I primed with creme and layered on lemon yellow and canary yellow where needed and it still turned out yellower than I wanted. My scanner sapping colour integrity actually helped me out here since here it’s about the right colour. Had to fight with the eye colour too, layering peacock green with a couple different blues.

Something feels a little weird, but I’m not entirely sure what. I triple checked the proportions and they seem to about right. Although it might just be because her mane is all over and I’m not used to seeing her neck fully exposed.

Anyway, this one ran me a little shy of 3 hours. Sketched with my 2H, inked with my 0.1mm pigment liner and then coloured with Prismacolor.

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