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But we're already naked, unless you have some kind of 'final form'?

You knew what was to come

Well, I've slept with worse. At least you're fluffy!

I wouldn't exactly qualify myself as "experienced" but here are some "tips" I think will be most helpful for you. Grab some reference shots! We don't know exactly how every single thing is built, nor do we know how every curve flows on an object. It's important to grab something you want to draw, study it and then try to replicate it. You may think of this as cheating, but if you go to ANY drawing class, you'll most likely be drawing the objects straight in front of you. This leads to my next suggestion... Draw from life! Now you may think of this as being counter productive, but it's an incredibly important thing to learn my friend! Sure, we could grab an image from the net, but this flattens the object and you loose a great deal of learning how light and shadow forms on an object. Chiaroscuro is a vital thing to learn if you wish to lean towards adding value to your illustrations. Besides, something tells me you don't want to be drawing ponies forever based on what's on your DA. READ A BOOK, TAKE A CLASS! This is the most difficult thing to do I believe, because this takes quite a chunk of willpower to do. You could purchase a drawing book, but you'll most likely need to do the exercises and go through the book several times over before it sticks. Even if you enrolled into a class, you'll need to actually draw outside of the class to really acquire the full potential of what you can get out it. To be honest though, most high school art classes will be meh quality. Of course, the last time I took a high school class was YEARS AGO, so it could have changed for the better. Either way, I'd suggest waiting for College. DRAW AT LEAST ONCE A DAY! Out of everything I've said in this wall of text, you should at least draw once a day to help further improve yourself. It will not only help further increase your understanding in the medium of choice, but it'll also help prevent getting rusty and keep your 'drawing limbs' in shape. It doesn't need to be anything complicated, it could be a box, a pony, or a box pony! Now, why on earth would you want to draw something as simple as a box? Well, think about it, do you REALLY know how to draw a box? Lets say you do, do you know how to make it look more on the realism side? How would you make a convincing box which was hollow on the inside? Even if you mastered the box, do you know how every medium will react? What about pen versus charcoal, pastel versus coloured pencil? You get the point, there's so many things you may not think of where a simple little doodle can help you further understand what you're drawing. Alright, I think that's enough text for now. My throat's parched and all I did was type the bloody thing! I'll just take my leave here, hope this helps.

I have no OC's, choose any character from the show and give it your all. Would you like to do a full body shot or something like a bust? I'm curious about this program, how is it when comparing it to something like GIMP or Open Canvas?

Sure, lets give it a go. What would you like to have drawn today?

My friends, as @D1SC0RD has said you're all way too hard on yourselves! What I see currently here, for everyone, is great potential and the awakening of your inner artist. You may think that I'm being silly, but you've already accomplished the most difficult task anyone can undertake when drawing for the first time: simply applying pencil/pen to paper. Most individuals whom want to learn how to draw don't even get past this hurdle, be proud of yourselves for what you've done! Now there are some of you whom are not proud of what you have drawn and posted, or perchance you're twisting at yourself from within. My friends, you can't beat yourself up over something which comes natural with learning any new skill. Mistakes are bound to happen, they will happen, for it's an incredibly important part of learning anything! So ya missed giving eye lashes to Twi or perchance you made her taller than usual, try your best to remember those mistakes for the next drawing and do your best. Sometimes though, no matter how good we get, we can't help but compare our images to someone elses and feel inferior. It's easy to compare your drawing to another and dishearten yourself. In fact, this toxic act can be enough to have us throw in the towel and quit drawing all together. It's as though every good quality of your image is thrown out the window and all you see is garbage. You can't do this to yourself. Remember, the same person you've compared your image to knows what you're going through. In fact, there's a good chance that an artist you may see as "a god in which you'll never be able to compare yourself to" is feeling the exact same way as you after they to compared their image to another experienced artist. We are all at our own skill level. Whether it's simply learning how to walk or drawing ponies, we all grow at our own rates. Just as we all have our own unique personalities and traits, our manifestations of our style and methods are our own as well. Stop beating yourselves up over natural progress and give yourself a pat on the back. I'm looking forward to everyone's drawings, give it your all and have fun! Twilight Flitter Edit: Added replay files for both drawings in Open Canvas.

I'm still new to SFM myself so my advice is a guess as to what you need to do. From what I've read from other users on the net, you'll need to decomplile the original map and recompile it in the SFM version of hammer. There's several decompilers you can acquire via the net, search it up. Keep in mind though that if the original map maker didn't put in HDR lighting, then you'll need to add it in yourself within hammer. Edit: The best tool to use to decompile your map is BSPsource. Keep in mind though that decompiled variants WILL NOT be exact copies of the original source file. What I mean by this is that most entities which had certain fields, triggers or goodies will most likely not be reproduced. For example, a trigger_hurt entity may still be in there, but if it was linked to anything or had any special fields/names then it'll be gone. So if the map has any special qualities to it, you'll have to recreate it. Maybe send an e-mail to the original creator and ask for a SFM variant?

I'm not a legal expert and I haven't done research for quite a while, take what I'm about to give with a bit of salt. Technically what you want to do is illegal but the same could be said about the majority of fan works for any show. The reason why companies don't put down a majority of fan works is because it's just not worth it in the long run. The reality is that so long as you DO NOT put adds on your goodies or make dosh off it in any way shape or form, you won't have to worry. What you'll really need to worry about is the bots on Youtube who may automatically flag your videos for either video or audio content. Keep in mind that most videos on youtube get flagged/removed not due to video clips, but by its audio. But lets say your videos did get flagged or removed from youtube, will you be thrown into jail or fined? It's a big nope, nothing's really going to happen. The most you'll have to do is have the option to contest whether or not the goodies you were flagged for is indeed your content or not. As for acquiring episodes you wish to edit, well, everything's just a search engine away.

Hard to say, on one hand it can be a powerful tool to rid this world of 'evil' and those who would flee justice's wrath. If properly used, it can bring order and peace to the world by having everyone unanimously living in fear of committing horrid crimes in the first place. On the other, one cannot be 100% sure if an individual is truly 'evil' due do how they're depicted by the world/local medias. Unless I could thoroughly read minds and KNOW 100% why they did their acts, if they even did such acts, it'd be a most heinous tool to use. Individuals have been falsely claimed and sentenced to jail in the past, for all I know that 'bad guy' I'm about to kill could easily be an innocent person who was misjudged by the court. The winning move is to not use the note at all.

If you really want to get better, I'd suggest the following: Ditch digital and stick with the good 'ol paper + pencil combo! It's easier to manipulate this medium, especially if you're inexperienced with drawing and/or you're doing digital goods with a mouse instead of a Wacom tablet. Even with a Wacom tablet, it can be incredibly difficult to control the digital medium in comparison to traditional methods. Go in with a positive attitude! Learning any skill is difficult and requires a lot of patience with yourself and what you're trying to study. We're our own worst critiques, never ever be hard on yourself when you're trying to learn something new. Draw from reference and check out some tuts! Until you know how to compose a pony, you need to know what makes a pony. All the reference materials and tutorials you need are a Google search away! Accept your mistakes and move on. Being able to produce a perfect image of your pony is nice, but you only truly learn when you make mistakes. You can't be hard on yourself if your image isn't 100% show accurate, it's incredibly difficult without vectoring or using certain tools to help assist you in this. Making mistakes is a cornerstone of self improvement, don't fear it, embrace it. Take note of what you did wrong and do your best to not make it again in the next image. "What the heck, I thought you were going to help me!" you may be saying, or perchance you feel strongly about what your gut's saying and don't want to listen to any of these not so quick tips. Trust me when I say this, learning a new skill is difficult. You won't see much improvements in your drawings until you put in the time and effort to study not only reference images but your own drawings. You must be willing to change yourself and the method in which you draw. There is no true formula or shortcuts for drawing ponies, cars, people, anything in real life. If there was, everyone would be able to draw hyper realistic illustrations with little to no imperfections. Whatever you choose to do, I wish you the best of luck!

No problem, sorry to say that I couldn't keep it up until you returned. But what can ya do about exploding Mobos? I say we do a complete reboot, give a fresh start for everyone.

Wha- what the heck are you doing in my bed?! This is a holy place where things such as yourself do not belong! Seriously, this bed is not meant for your folk and was created solely for bear kind! The last time someone such as yourself was in my bed was when they were trying to kill me with roses and other objects I'm deathly allergic to! Oh god, I think I'm going to be si-

I wouldn't mind getting this thread back up on its feet, it'd be nice to have it back up and running once more. What do you think @D1SC0RD?

It is Cakebandit, they are known to steal cakes while holding the occupation of "bandit" in the pastry world! They're also quite fond of taking long walks on the beach, TwiDash, dislikes out of place objects and even has a secret cake room located somewhere within the walls of Canterlot. May or may not be delicious, this user hopes so!

I'm okay with this, carry on!

I'm going to kiss you whether you like it or not!

Well, since you want it that bad, you can have my Lolli.

Everything's going according to plan...