Gaviera

I'm afraid that my limited knowledge is more based around digital painting than vector art, which is a lot more of a cell-shaded look. Hopefully this can help you, though! It's obviously geared more towards Photoshop, but most of that should carry over onto any program that lets you vector. (Unless you DO happen to have a tablet and have an interest in digital painting, I could introduce you to some basic concepts I learned as a beginner, though I am by no means a master or even an expert.)

@@SFyr Hey, really sorry to respond so late. Thanks for taking your time to give this a critique. BLUH, I completely missed those bare spots and forgot about brush direction (Still pretty new to actually having a direction when brushing! It's a cool painterly effect, but I gotta get used to it.) I definitely feel like gravitating towards cleaner work, and am trying to go more towards this type of cleanliness as well as color mastery (and expression in form and hella creative thought, though that's not really covered in this work, this one is just a color study). True! It does look separate, somehow the lines were harsher. I think it might have been attributable to using such low values in a particularily delicate parts of the palette, especially referring to his chest bands. Adding shadow to the arms would have also been useful, it kinda looks like a tattoo of an actual arm in retrospect, lol Also, I actually really like the idea of using colors to imply shade more than a higher value contrast! It's a lot more subtle, I think the artist that I linked above does it a lot better. It's one of those kinda goals, Thanks broseidon

Let's have another go at it. This is a bit of an experiment- I've been playing around with colour theory and techniques and have finally been able to manage something worth looking at. I'm still green with colours, (kek) so, I'd like to know what you think. I don't quite have a set technique down, but what I did and will try playing with a bit more, is setting up a base colour under the sketch, painting basic colours over that (same layer, so the brush blends 'em), then airbrush some more colours into the whole thing and colour pick from there with my painting brush. I'm thinking the beginning layer with the base colour (In this case, red.) could actually be skipped, and then I could add it later in the airbrush phase. I think the colours would end up the same... maybe? Maybe. Probably not, actually. A little observation I had was that making new linework, as opposed to my last image, which I basically just carved my final image from the sketch, is very difficult. It's also very difficult to get a good colour, as sometimes the lines could be too subtle or too harsh, or I could have just messed up a curve or something. Maybe difficult isn't the right word, maybe it's a little frustrating, is all. Stabilizers feel too awkward and clean, though. Also, cleaning up was a mess, but with airbrushing, I feel as though the technique is more intended towards images with backgrounds, so the colours blend nicely.

@@Melon Blitz Really sorry I didn't respond earlier, either the message didn't get to me despite following the topic, or I probably accidentally skipped over it. Since the time I posted the topic, I have finished it and left it here. I should probably mention, I was advised not to use the colour selection tool on the actual reference, early on in using color, or I might develop a habit of using it as a crutch. I found it really hard to keep colours consistent, and the blending was real pain to manage. Since I finished it, I've also managed to get a grasp of what hue, saturation, and value were and how they were different through this color study, and have been reading up on this thingy to act as a sort of guide. My initial question when I started this topic was along the lines of: How should I proceed? To learn, I mean (and also, techniques 'cause I need to actually apply it). How I planned to proceed when I thought no-one would reply, and still now, are to keep studying that color theory link and apply the knowledge learned from there. The painting was extremely awkward by the way, I just spammed layers until it looked vaguely okay . What sort of questions? Also, what do you mean, by shape control?

too much swagger to forget this https://soundcloud.com/californiaexempt/no-diggity-blackstreet no diggity, no doubt.

Hello. Gaviera here. Was working on a drawing, just sketching things out, and marking the scenery with basic flowy lines, and nailing down some anatomy, when I thought I would whip up some colours to take up space, just see how it would work, kinda like how I put those loose, flowy lines to indicate generally where something would be and how it would work. But then I realized, I have no idea how to use colours. I just plain never used them. All I know is the colour selecting tool, and that's it. I don't even know where to begin with colouring. It all looks like a mess of solid colour when I tried it, and didn't really help quite the way those loose lines do. I know it's something better artists use, though, a kind of sketch for the colouring phase, just laying out the foundation, but I just plain don't know where to even start. Could any artists out there give me a little help here? As a reference, the type of things I really want to learn to do and apply to my own artwork are like these, or like these or even these ones I really like lines, you see. Anyway, like I said, I could really use some help from any of you artists out there. Thank you.

Just getting caught up, I stopped on Amending Fences, and Moondancer totally had a crush on Twilight. No diggity, no doubt. I ship it forever.

The best designs go beyond the show style, and play around with different types of bodies, different builds based off different types of real life horses. Also, clothing, and hair and tail is pretty important, as well as expressiveness, if we're talking different styles here. Markings are kinda cheap if you don't have good story to back it up. Tattoos are a bit of a rarity, but could probably be executed well by someone that knows what he's doing. Otherwise, it looks like another cutie mark, Show-style MLP OC's get pretty boring pretty fast. It's like an assembly line. But, bottom line, OC's have to, at least, follow basic colour theory, if nothing else.

brush that messy mane

I'll be honest, you're probably not going to like this. I'll give you a hint it's- (or I Got a Name by Jim Croce) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHVBzLGAIbU