My First Artwork

[SomeGuyCamping 8]

Hello, saw there was a forum area for posting art, and I made my own cover art for a MLP:FiM story inspired by post-apocalyptic games set in Eastern Europe like S.T.A.L.K.E.R and Escape from Tarkov. It's also in a slightly alternate universe from the show, mostly to fit the OC country of Starcove into the world.

The premise is that a mare named Emerald Speaker returns to her home country of Starcove, which is sandwiched between Equestria and Griffonia for the most part until you reach the coast. Starcove is home to Wolf-like ponies that come in regular, unicorn, and pegasi variants, though the Pegasi have large griffon-like wings to help fly their heavier bodies, as Starcove ponies are a little bigger than normal ponies (but on average are smaller than Big Macintosh), and unicorns are the rarest of the three Starcove-pony variants.

Emerald is returning to her birth country to do some work for a news station she works for in Equestria. This takes place 30-40 years after the end of FiM, so Twilight has been on the throne for decades at this point, and the whole world has experienced a technological renaissance by this point (which is why firearms are now a thing in the setting). Anyways, she and her news crew end up trapped inside the borders of Starcove in the middle of a civil war/coup, and are separated. Emerald is loyal to her friends, and will not leave until she rescues them, so also taking some inspiration from Far Cry 3.

The artwork itself started its life in Microsoft Paint as I was trying to make a simple reference picture for someone I wanted to commission, but it spiraled out of control from there, lol. Eventually I imported the MS Paint drawing into Krita, and added shadows, and eventually drew the main character. I hope you have a good day and maybe are inspired by this newbie artist's pretty rough work made with love

[SomeGuyCamping 8]

After some honest critique from one of my close friends, my OC is now no longer crosseyed and the leg looks better. The first picture is the old one for comparison. (Edited 8/14/23, uploaded the wrong version of my edits which left out some details on the crate) Made another few edits where I changed up her ears, lowered her horn down, and changed her helmet.

 

 

Edited August 15, 2023 by SomeGuyCamping

[NomadSpellbrush 1,288]

I love the way you made everything textured like a crayon. Makes it look like a children's book.

 

[SomeGuyCamping 8]

22 hours ago, NomadSpellbrush said:

I love the way you made everything textured like a crayon. Makes it look like a children's book.

 

Lol, about that, actually. I made the background of the ruined house mostly in MS paint, and the Crayon tool was my go-to because it covered the most area and made some good worn-looking textures. I made a singular tree by starting with brown, then modifying the color to a different shade and layering to give it a bark texture, then added the leaves using the same method with green to make them look like conifers or pine trees. I then used the copy and paste tool to copy the tree, changing height and width as needed to give variation.

This all got it start because I wanted to make a simple ref for a commission, but as I went on with the project, I got more confident in my own art skills and imported the background into Krita, then drew everything else like the pony, her armor, gun, and everything else. And because I refuse to stop tinkering with this picture, I've added more details since my last post. Here's my latest version. Given her a helmet camera as a callback to the fact that she's supposed to be a reporter. I also made the word 'PRESS' more legible on the side of her armor.