No Contest Creations

I just noticed that this was at the top of my top searches. I didn’t realize people liked this so much. 🙂 Anyway, I figured that was my cue to make this a reupload priority, so here it is (remember to click the image for the full size). And for completion’s sake, here’s the original description from during my first week learning GIMP:

I wanted to do something small and simple to get myself learning. The result wasn’t anything small, but what I needed to do did stay relatively simple. Since I had a lot of screen caps of really good Twilight Sparkle expressions, I decided to try my hand at a wallpaper. It took a couple passes, but I ended up with an arrangement I’m fairly proud of. My original design had the official Twilight Sparkle art in the center, but trying to work an assymmetrical picture like that into the assymmetrical cutie mark design just made things end up not looking all that great. I also used to have all screen caps be square, but for Twilight’s friends, that didn’t really mesh too well with the satellite stars. The editting there was pretty time consuming, but really gave me too practice with the magic wand tool (the backgrounds were too diverse to get a one-shot outline extraction).

This was my Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 29: Draw a pony reading.

I jumped to the very end of the narration here as the theme was conducive to that part. This allowed me to take a bit more of an easy way out, since I was staying up unusually late to create time to do the drawing, since otherwise I wouldn’t have had any time during the rest of the day due
to being out. Anyway, this ties up some loose ends left from the original. Plus I got to do a ‘Pinkie Pie the unrelatable narrator’ gag while I was at it. I also did the blogpony bonus theme there, drawing ponified Cereal Velocity and Sethisto (for those unfamiliar with Equestria Daily, they are two of the admins). I totally forgot the horn in my interpretation of Cereal (as I did intend to stick with popular opinion that he’d be a unicorn), but after looking at it again, I think it would have messed up his Cave Johnson (see Portal series) style hairdo (he’s done pony parodies of the Portal 2 commercials), so he gets to stay an earth pony in my interpretation. Sethisto is a mare, well, because of a comment Phoe made on the training grounds that he prefers the way mares are drawn (I’ll be honest here, I have to agree with him). So naturally I produced Seth the pretty filly.

This was my Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 19: Draw a pony in love.

I don’t really like to do shipping. I can’t say I actually really have anything against it (some of the cutest pictures other people draw are shipping) other than it’s just not my style most of the time. So instead, I interpretted the theme as the love shared between a tightly knit group of friends. I had a lot of fun experimenting with odd poses and expressions here and I was quite happy with how the faces in panel 4 turned out. Panel 3 was also a little tough to work out with toppled over Twilight. The final panel was rushed and is pretty rough, but I hope the d’aw factor makes up for that.

Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 24: Draw a pony dancing.

I’ll admit it, I’m a sap. I have an aversion to writing in irrevocable injury or downer moments for the main six, even alternate dimension versions of them (see theme 25 for what happens when I try). I had a bit of a rough time with drawing prone Twilight, especially with all the hair being all over the place. I’m a little unhappy with how my altered perspective interpretation of a dancing Pinkie Pie frame I was referencing didn’t turn out quite as good or dancy as I’d hoped, but the ending group shot is also among my favourites (it also took a long time because of all the overlapping ponies).

This was my Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 23: Draw a pony crying.

This was a five hour drawathon. I ran out of time and had to rush at the end (I even forgot to draw the back of evil Twilight’s hair V_V). Still, I think I managed to capture most of the emotion I wanted to. The third panel here is another one of my favourites this week since the ponies look just as badass as I envisioned. The parallel is lost a little bit for people who haven’t seen the first two episodes. Also, it was brought to my attention that there is a possible reading order flaw (if priority is given to left to right no matter what), so I’m really sorry if the flow confuses anyone. I’m also unhappy with the 20% cooler reference. It was pointed out to me that it sounds weird and looking back on it, I have to admit it does. I was going for a high level of bravado, but I think I missed the mark a bit.

This was my Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 22: Draw a pony building something.

More fun with general practice here, doing different perspectives as the action demands. I forgot to draw the ground underneath Twilight in the 4th panel, which, in addition to the odd pose, makes it unfortunately look pretty off. Basically, the idea is that she can barely stand at this point.

This was my Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 21: Draw a pony doing a maritime activity.

Ok, this one was a bit of a stretch, as the theme didn’t come into play until the last panel and it was kind of out of nowhere. But Pinkie Pie is queen of coming completely out of left field, so she had me covered there. I had a lot of fun with the action sequences, even if Rarity’s hair was still giving me a bit of a rough time. Oh and for those who don’t know and are wondering about the first panel, Fluttershy doesn’t engage in melee, she gives stuff death glares to cow them.

This was my Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 20: Draw a pony laughing.

I had a lot of fun with different perspectives here. I had a bit of difficulty in detailing the ponies in the farther out shots, but they get the point across, I guess. Twilight’s elements crown gave me a bunch of trouble with the third panel, because it’s a really different perspective than what I’m used to drawing in. Nonetheless, the third panel is one of my favourite things drawn the week this submission occurred in.

This was my Equestria Daily Artist Training Grounds submission for theme 18: Draw a pony’s evil twin or alternate interpretation.

I chose Twilight here because my imagination got revving when I thought of the unicorn with the strongest magical power in the canon facing off against herself. I’m not sure if I really got the mouth right on Applejack, but it was kind of a tough perspective and I got her hair and hat down, which made me happy. I think I got both poses for both Twilights pretty well, although evil Twilight’s seemed to come more naturally for me. I kind of sucked at effects here, though. It’s supposed to be something of a magical telekinetic battle, but the magic just kind of looks more like amorphous blobs than directed magic.