[Advice Wanted] Pony OC in PS

[CaptainPink 13]

I was wondering if any of y'all could help me with the task of creating a OC Pony w/ Photoshop (CS4 in my case), I don't want any redirection to Pony Creator as I've tried before and absolutely despised it; The UI is terribly layed out and It lags or glitches out quite a bit. If any of you could offer any worthwhile advice I'd be eternally greatful.

[icyfire 433]

I would be open to helping you. What type of advice do you want?

[CaptainPink 13]

Just something minimal, but not abysmal, I can't stand recolors or using terribly pixelated bases found on DeviantArt so that's completely out of the question. I just need any help anybody can give (given is not a redirect to pony creator)

[SFyr 1,982]

Assuming you're looking for very basic advice for PS, and not advice to study up on drawing ponies in general...

I'd recommend looking through a good bit of showstyle art or images/videos of the show itself. Basically, try to fill your head up with it a little bit, and pay close attention to how ponies are proportioned and how they look. You won't have to match the style exactly, but sometimes some solid references and exposure can help quite a lot. If you're wanting to do better than a recolor, copy, sketch, etc, I'd still recommend keeping a few particularly inspirational images on hand for proportions, look, or general reference.

 

As for actually working with PS, I recommend first starting off with a gesture sketch--basically, make a new layer, and either at the start or when you're done, change the opacity/transparency to something around 15-40%. Basically, this is your planning layer. Go wild. Find something that 'looks' right, even if it's a very loose skeleton of lines.

 

After that, I'd recommend a layer over that, where you take your sketch/plan and try to solidify the lineart. I usually find black or dark gray to work best, but everyone has their preference, and plenty prefer something a little more dynamic, or light in some areas (which can be achieved by creating a layer over it, and linking it via clipping mask). Different brushes may also produce different effects, especially if you have a tablet to work with. If you don't, you may have a harder time of it, and might want to read up on how to use the pen tool, or master the art of erasing the curves and ends of rounded lines to create the illusion of pressure control.

 

Between the lineart and sketch layer, you can fill in the space as needed with your base color. This is where I'll color up the body, hair, and the eyes of the pony. For any shading or further details I use a seperate layer that using the base layer as a mask (so I don't have to define the boundaries of the body more than once).

 

 

 

 

So yeah, basic advice... draw from inspirational bits of the show, and work off of at least three layers: sketch (and later hide it if you want), lineart, and base color. Any additional layers for me tend to be fluff, decoration, or ease of keeping areas seperated, but largely they're unnecessary in the end if you want to go the simpler route.

 

(( Ftr, I use CS6, and I have no clue how much it is different when compared to CS4 ))

Edited August 20, 2015 by SFyr

[CaptainPink 13]

Thanks for the advice I have actually collected quite a bit on the subject, Pony anatomy, Photoshop skills, Proportioning etc... and equipped myself with a makeshift Drawing tablet (UDraw PS3 drawing tablet) Which I've been testing out and it works and does what I want it to do.

[NO_LONGER_AVAILABLE 22]

If u have a computer u could use MSPaint (microsoft paint) then u can use bases from deviantart