DireDoe

*snickers uncontrollably* That's great! I was going for a bit of the creep factor, and you just made it better. Also, thanks to everyone else for the kind words. Yeah, while I see her becoming an Alicorn, I don't see it lasting. She'll give a reason like having much more to learn, or having grown so close to the other mane five she doesn't want to leave them just yet, and everything would turn back to normal.

So, I started off wanting to draw Twilight as an Alicorn, since it intrigues me. Apparently, my subconscious things she'd go mad with power, and this was the result. (click here for my Deviant Art) Edit: I forgot to mention - I'm willing to take any and all constructive crit - my feelings aren't hurt easily, and I recognize the only way I can improve is if I know what I did wrong.

Buck yes, I'm going to see it! The Hobbit is probably my favorite Children's Lit book ever, and I was a huge fan of the LoTR movies (I'm even okay with all they cut out - poor Tom Bombadil...) so I'm going to be heading to the theater tomorrow with a couple friends to watch it. I know they're adding more to it than what was strictly in the book, but I have faith in Peter Jackson to do a good job with it.

(I linked some images into this post - if any of them don't work, feel free to let me know so that I can change them) One of my biggest suggestions is to look at as many real-life reference pictures as possible when drawing. Even if you want to have a more cartoony style there's some 'rules' that you need to follow when it comes to anatomy (rules I keep breaking 'cause I get lazy - don't let yourself fall into the same trap!). Anyway, one of the biggest things that struck me off is the tail. It's really wiggly and snakelike, which you wont often see with mammals. If you have a cat, look at the way it holds it's tail - it's mostly going to be a gentle curve, maybe a sharp curve towards the tip, but that's about it. The hind quarters look like it's crouching, rather than sitting (though if that's what you're going for I apologize). Also, keep in mind that if an animal is covered in fur, you're going to lose a lot of muscle definition. The thicker or longer the fur, the less definition. Here's a good example of a mountain lion sitting in a similar pose. You can see how the belly goes to the ground in front of the legs, and how the legs are completely folded with no space in between. Also, the chest is merging into the front leg a bit. I'm gonna say one thing here - birds have some wonky-looking feet when they're flat. In this area, reference pictures are your best friend. Here's a good side-on view of bald eagle feet, and you can see that they're surprisngly skinny, but the claws are huuuge. Each 'finger' is a different length to help it hold onto prey. Your beak is also a bit off compared to a real life raptor beak - here's another bald eagle, showing it's head and beak from the side. If you're wanting it to be a bird of prey, the top part of the beak is going to be longer than the bottom. The bottom beak is fairly straight, with the dominant, overlapping part is the upper. The wings are okay, but again, look up some photo references just to make sure that they look perfect. There's only so many ways feathered wings look in nature, so artistic liberties is pretty constrained. When you're drawing a fantasy creature you do have a good bit of artistic leeway, but the rules of anatomy should still apply (except where it obviously doesn't, like giving a four-legged animal wings as well, but even then you should stive to have it make as much sense as possible). When you have a composite creature like a griffin, make sure each part flows smoothly into the next.

This guy is such a blowhard. He makes these ridiculous statements, and then either refuses to apologise when proven wrong, or double downs on them. "The tide goes in, the tide goes out. You can't explain that." Yes, yes you can. It's called gravity. "Christianity isn't a religion, it's a philosophy." His explanation on why the separation of church and state doesn't apply to Christianity. Paraphrased here, "You were right and I was wrong, and that has been proven to me. However, I still believe that my point of view is better, so I'm not going to apologise like I told you I would. Haha, I win."

Think of how it feels to go to school. Now think of school if you couldn't slack off at all. You have to do your homework, but you can't take your time with it - it needs to be done now, and you need to have done an awesome job on it, and have it done neatly. Have you ever had a teacher you just didn't get along with? A teacher that you absolutely hated, and they know it? That's going to be either your boss, customers you have to deal with, or both. And you have to keep smiling at them and take whatever crap they want to throw at you, because otherwise you'd get fired. And some days they make you stay later, and sometimes they call you to tell you to come in on Saturday or Sunday, and you cannot say no. And just think - you had 12 years of school - you're going to have about 40 years of this.