Re: Sean Mirrsen's generic pony art thread.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I am utterly unable to hold to any theme at all, as is normal for random thought processes. So, here. Have yet another alternate universe of mine, this time improved by very careful application of pony. She's nigh unnoticeable there, which is as it should be. The whole sun thing is not directly pony-related, but the universe follows similar themes.

Spoiler:

The TCF Sunbeam is the fastest fleet command ship of the surviving humans living in the floating city of New Dawn, the largest remaining human outpost on the shattered planet of Earth. Ever since the darkness descended onto the... ergh. For superstrings' sake, I can't even write a decent intro to the universe! I keep thinking in images, and words fail me.

Let's try again. This is a universe where a mysterious darkness descended onto the Earth, far in the future, and, overnight, mostly destroyed - or rather "subverted" everything on the side of Earth not lit by the Sun. As the world turned, more and more territory fell to the Darkness, even as it receded from the advancing dawn. With contact lost with everything on the dark side and the human population rapidly diminishing, the few existing sky-cities, mostly built by the Japanese and Chinese as resorts, became targets of a mass exodus, and as many people as could fit were transported to them before the Darkness traveled all the way around the Earth. In the end, just under three hundred million survived the Darkness, constantly circling the ravaged world, always keeping in the light of the Sun, expanding the cities to accommodate the growing population and building fleets to make ever dangerous forays into the night, searching for clues, reasons, and perhaps a cure for the dark corruption. But this life cannot last forever, and soon it is found that the Darkness had used the accumulated resources to turn the Moon into a giant shield against the Sun, and the super-eclipse coming within the next month will be the end of the human race... unless something can be done about it.

The Tactical Command Frigate Sunbeam is a somewhat small, but incredibly capable craft. It houses a complement of power-armor shock troops, a wing of multi-mission BattleField Fighters - the Spectral Squadron, a mixed armor unit, a battlefield support and artillery unit, and finally its own dropship group and special ops unit. I've got some of the story written out here... but none of it coherent enough yet.

(I'm not too good at putting these things into words, but I hope this is at least sorta interesting)

Time spent sketching: 30 minutes, give or take.
Time spent typing up the above paragraphs: 40 minutes. Seriously. *headdesk*
Music: random horrible things on the radio.

Now, I had some considerations here. Obviously, perspective is still my #1 nemesis, but I have to work on background details too, and a floating city seems perfect practice. Not when it's so small though. Therefore, I thought of scaling this thing up into desktop-size and try to carry it through to completion, rather than color it as it is. Good idea or not, how do you think?

[Kirbypowered]

I'm sure it'd look awesome, and no doubt would help with working on background details. Getting through the whole thing and making it all interesting would be a challenge.

As you may have noticed, I've seemingly come out of nowhere to comment on your stuff. However, I mainly wanted to take this moment to curse you and your Multiworld Madness for being in the Hall of Legends. I had plans of being productive, but now I've just barely got caught up with my school work and that RTD (first experience with one) has been keeping me up 'till 1-3 AM. I'm not even half way through the thing yet.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Slightly detailed and slightly colored WIP of the above:

Spoiler:

New pic for today.
One of the protagonist characters (did I mention this was written as a videogame plot? Because it was), Raileen "Crossbow" Deagan. Not quite ace, but very good pilot of the Spectral Squadron. Nicknamed "Crossbow" for her "slow, but sure" approach to attacking targets, which results in a near-perfect shot-to-kill ratio in aerial engagements. Serious problems with discipline cause her to never advance past "Spectral Blue", second-to-last position in the Squadron, despite her skill, which she seems fine with. Flies a custom blue-painted Icarus-class BFF.

Spoiler:

Only a sketch still, will get to lines and colors when I get home.
Advice on how to make a female face distinctly female-looking would be nice.

[Slag]

Looking at your picture, I can tell it doesn't look very feminine, but I honestly can't tell why. You could probably try reducing the lines around the eyes a bit, not connecting them at the corners of the eyes specifically to give a more vague outline of the eyes, but I doubt that would fix it (would probably make the eyes look a bit lighter, though). I guess that the best thing would be to figure out some way to add a bit of feminine detail, since she's pretty androgynous at the moment.

[Nighzmarquls]

try making the face/eyes a little rounder over all, that can help a lot towards making features feminine.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Tried that, and a few pointers from a "how to draw manga" handbook.

Spoiler:

[Slag]

Keep the first one. Androgyny is better than... that.

[Flying Dice]

Keep the first one. Androgyny is better than... that.

For the sake of our sanity, this.


I'd suggest narrowing the jaw a bit, though it could just be the perspective.

[Nighzmarquls]

Keep the first one. Androgyny is better than... that.

For the sake of our sanity, this.


I'd suggest narrowing the jaw a bit, though it could just be the perspective.

Yes, that went off into some deep end.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Hehee, my grasp of human anatomy is worse than ever these days, ain't it?

But no, I'll try to see what I can do to fix this. I mean, I can't have all characters wear full-face masks all the time, right?

Besides, sanity is overrated.

[Necro910]

But no, I'll try to see what I can do to fix this. I mean, I can't have all characters wear full-face masks all the time, right?

Besides, sanity is overrated.

>Potato sack
>Hockey Mask
>A few more hockey masks

We're done here.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Worst thing is, I can't even tell if any given change is an improvement! I basically have to scrap the whole thing and try to redraw it. Well, I think I know what I'll be doing for practice this evening.

Spoiler:

[Slag]

...If it makes you feel any better, I can't do faces either. ((Wish we had a sheepish, slightly apologetic smile emote, on that says 'I know I'm not very comforting, but it's the best I can do.' It's pretty much what my internal self is doing.))

[Necro910]

[Flying Dice]

Actually, the face looks good now, but the proportion of the legs versus the torso seems off. As in, each thigh is about as thick as her torso.

[Nighzmarquls]

Worst thing is, I can't even tell if any given change is an improvement! I basically have to scrap the whole thing and try to redraw it. Well, I think I know what I'll be doing for practice this evening.

Spoiler:

I figured out whats up the mouth is a bit too high up on the face, its making her look like she has a rather large chin/jawline you probably should constrain her mouth a bit closer to the chin/front of the face and that probably will fix it a bit.

[Sean Mirrsen]

I've been hit with some sort of mild disease, but I still spent some time practicing. The practical upshot of the practice so far is this:


Already not quite as abominable as before, I think. Reworked the hairdo while I was at it, too.
(So, anthropologist, biologist, engineer, clothesmaker, and now hairstylist. How many skills do you need to have to be an artist?)

[Nighzmarquls]

I've been hit with some sort of mild disease, but I still spent some time practicing. The practical upshot of the practice so far is this:


Already not quite as abominable as before, I think. Reworked the hairdo while I was at it, too.
(So, anthropologist, biologist, engineer, clothesmaker, and now hairstylist. How many skills do you need to have to be an artist?)

Why all the skills of course, ALL OF THEM.

why do you think I get so obsessively interested in everything? the art must be fed an endless diet of new data.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Random idea strikes again. Dragonshy:


(A pony has been turned into an adult dragon, of course Twilight Sparkle is involved.)

edit:

[Sean Mirrsen]

And shaded. Back to the regular stuff now.

[Armok]

Nice!

[Slag]

You never cease to amaze.

[Flying Dice]

Om nom.

[Nighzmarquls]

And shaded. Back to the regular stuff now.

Well that is one way to completely cure fluttershy of her adult-dragon phobia.

If the whole experience with the big red one didin't completely take.

Really I think she makes a very handsome wyrm... hmmm My little Dragons... I've seen one where their all essentialy baby dragons but perhaps we should do one where all of them are in a nice group pose... perhaps with a variety of 'kinds' of dragon such as oriental serpentine, big bulky and one of the more catlike or perhaps even exotic types?

[Sean Mirrsen]

Heh, maybe. I sure won't be drawing them all as dragons though.

In the meantime, refining that previous monstrosity in higher resolution and more detail:

Spoiler:

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