SFyr

Sans, he's the real comic of the group, always quick with a skelepun, and frankly he's quite humerus. Best worst joke you can think of?

I wanna see a movie based on Metroid, personally. I think it has some solid potential for action/suspense/scifi crud. Though really, there's a ton of worthy games that could make for an interesting (if strange) movie idea. Legend of Zelda, Front Mission, Elder Scrolls...

I see a potential issue with the free advertising argument though... If it's uncredited, it's not really advertising. Generally people will already know the artist/artwork, or not, and continue not to.

What kind of advice are you looking for? There's a lot of specifics you could get into, but for general "getting better" purposes, I think all of these would be applicable: Draw from real life examples, or find artist's work you admire for inspiration. Experiment. Don't get cozy in a small niche in terms of subject or poses. Find your fun in drawing. If drawing becomes a chore, it'll kill motivation. Practice a lot of fundamentals, like gesture and shape. Don't get hung up on polishing things to perfection. Ideally, get opinions or criticism; sometimes it really helps pick out things you missed when you're working on improving something. Make time for art. Generally speaking, the more you draw, the more you'll see see your ability grow. :grin2: Stay humble, but not fearful.

My current favorites list is over 100 strong, last I checked. ...Though most of the entries are a bit older. What kind of stories are you interested in?

Receives a hastily-written IOU. Inserts half a bagel, a mayo packet, and a picture of Gandhi.

Sure. I've walked to all the way to class only to realize it was clearly posted online that class was canceled. Have you ever gone 24 hours or more without sleep?

Rune

1.#INF000

Pretty much any government office that has a well-used waiting room. What weird social faux pas would you commit (if any) if it was somehow socially acceptable?

I see you have good taste in characters. Very nice. Also they're all just adorable, haha. Especially Paps.

What I'm about to say has been touched on a lot above, but I'ma finish this reply anyways. Key point though: even if your story is amazing, you're not gonna get much attention unless you post it to places. Often, people develop a little bit of a following, or other people give them a bit of publicity (such as features, or posting it to the front page of someplace). But, you'll still need those readers. So yeah, make it accessible. Post it to major sites. See if you can get a little word of mouth or attention thrown at it if it's sliding under the radar. Over time, you'll ideally build at least a minor following, which makes getting each story noticed progressively easier than the last. Anyways, here's some other general bits: Make what the reader first sees, reads, and judges to your advantage. Sink a solid hook in as soon as you can, be it with the image, summary, or preferably both. Tags; pay attention to why they're there, and what the people sifting through tags are looking for. If your story involves a really interesting idea, or controversial topic, highlight it to heck. If your general idea is a bit cliche, sell the unique hook or angle twice as hard in what ways you can.

Well, the level of cliche you're repeating is gonna make it a lot more delicate; what's your general concept? Either way, the majority of pointers remain the same. Standing out often comes down to first impressions quite a bit. First comes the split second readers glance over your image. Then, they probably skim your tags and brief summary, which only takes seconds to decide if they should go further. After that, comes several minutes of reading through the beginning before they're fully invested in seeing where everything is going. After that, well... it's often a matter of just keeping their interest, and letting the story unfold, evolve, and grow. Still, the beginning needs to be particularly solid for obvious reasons. Right, umm... Use an eye-catching, relevant, and pleasing image for your cover if possible. Make sure the introduction, summary, and all that has some kind of fresh angle to it. Pay special attention to this area, and make sure the first few sentences they read are interesting. Pay special attention to grammar, word choice, and writing conventions of the like. I've passed over plenty of stories because I suspected they wouldn't be well written... solely by the writer's lack of proper basics. Use visual language when it adds to the story; sentences with detail and 'life' leave a better impression than dry sentences that do little more than convey something that happens. Don't be afraid to spoil a little to hook your reader in sometimes. The reader should never be able to guess major plot points, but they'll need some kind of idea of what they're reading going in. (I make this point because I've much preferred the "OC finds out friendship is harder won than he thought" story summaries to "What happens when OC enters equestria?," unless it's a crossover of some kind. Zerg + Equestria still has me sold every time.) Mane 6; use them wisely, especially if you're shipping them in some capacity. If you're using an OC, don't make everything work out in their favor. Fight the urge to always/often have them look great/in the right/damaged in a way that others feel bad for them. Find cliches that are unnecessary to the plot and see if you can do something more interesting or unique. Waking up in the everfree and saving the CMC from timber wolves is officially the bane of my interest in a story, along with Twilight taking in an alien creature to exchange details of their worlds, or Fluttershy finding a wounded human and nursing him back to health.

@, that's actually really adorable. I love the sparkle and glamor of her, haha. The detail on the mane and accessories and such is also just amazing. Dang. Lovely work as always.

@@AbsolJack, awesome to hear. I'm hoping it lives up to the hype I've built up for myself, haha.

Honestly, I see her almost as begging to be made into the zealously devoted type, like Harlequin working under Joker--only perhaps her devotion stems from believing in Gold Standard and his ideals, rather than because she loves him. It would explain her intolerance for failure, full belief in a boss she could overpower, and would allow her to get some sympathy/realistic motivation if written right. Often, people like that are misguided, perhaps a lot unstable sometimes, but also fanatical/dangerous to a high degree.

Just adorable art as always, dang. I love it!

Pretty much everyone else has beat me to the punch. Self insertion, wish fulfillment... one of the worst things you can do with a fic is make it seem like the author's own private fantasy shared for others to upvote/praise. When you ship a bunch of canon characters together, it's pretty safe to assume you're taking liberties, having fun with things, or playing with an idea. There's little to no danger of the story aggrandizing the author indirectly through an OC. WITH an OC being the center of attention... there's no such luxury. The reader will be left to question if it was really necessary, or in character for these mares/stallions to fall for the protagonist. It just... comes under greater scrutiny, so if it's not handled well, it'll probably get some nice flak for feeling like a self-insert or vicarious power trip. And, in all honesty, even single pairings (no herds or harems) come off at least a little awkwardly the vast majority of cases I've seen.

@@Emerald Meteor, interesting stuff, and I'll definitely agree that if you know how to use Illustrator well, you can accomplish a lot. Though personally, I've mostly experienced the quality drop you mentioned when trying to scale upwards--scaling down from an image 2x or 3x the size doesn't seem to lose any quality, and you still get to keep a messier, more paint-like style. Plus, I never really figured out an easy way to do light and shadow effects in Illustrator. Though it's awesome you found the interesting effect you mentioned above. I honestly wouldn't have thought of doing what you described, and was kinda curious as to how you did the tears/water effect. :grin2:

I think you made a mistake. There are other ponies on this poll, when clearly Fluttershy is already listed as an option. (But seriously, sounds like a fun idea, haha.)

@@Emerald Meteor, oh yeah, I totally get it. I was more referring to the "most of the pony art on here is bad" bit, not suggesting you were flaunting your own. Also, I think you could totally spin pony art into being presentable in a more professional setting, depending on where you go of course. :grin2: Especially if you make money off of it or demonstrate a high level of skill.

Awh. This is actually rather cute. Nice work! Also, your style is pretty interesting. Kinda reminds me of the older gens a little bit.

Honestly I like a decent bit of the art here on the forum; though, it seems like most people here are more interested in the joy of making art, rather than showing off something professional. Makes the community fun that way, haha. Regardless, this is a pretty interesting piece. I like that it tells a bit of a story, or attempts a "peak" into Luna's pivotal fall. Props for doing it in Illustrator, too; I've always found it a little more cumbersome than PS for doing larger pieces or textures/effects, but it generally winds up looking a lot cleaner (that and it scales amazingly well, unlike PS).