Silvermist in an Ancient Castle

[Phaeston-e12 173]

I've decided to include this vector even though the background hasn't been finished... just because of the sheer amount of time it took to finish her and the darn staff.

 

It took perhaps 12~16 hours of going through mythological references, ideas and taking in some real life reference to design the whole darn thing. Virtually every single design and the color scheme included in this vector alone have certain meanings and specific purposes.

 

Thankfully the staff vector is completely finished so I can actually use the vector over and over again in any time in future.

 

Constructive criticism is always welcomed, the character was part of a large compositional sketch I've made, I probably will start on doing the background sometime 2 days later since I have some studyings to do and finish a promise I've made for a certain brony in this forum.

 

Click the picture if it looks fuzzy, should show a bigger version.

 

Edit:

 

Updated: Shadow and magic effect added. Going to work on background sometime later.

Updated: Finished the piece, took too much time so I have decided enough is enough.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Phaeston-e12

[Alaxandir 93]

Wow! This work is incredible. You've gone way beyond the average here and the fact that this is a WIP is just stunning.

 

Great work! Maybe you could give me some pointers on vectoring? I just completed my first one today!

[Phaeston-e12 173]

Wow! This work is incredible. You've gone way beyond the average here and the fact that this is a WIP is just stunning.

 

Great work! Maybe you could give me some pointers on vectoring? I just completed my first one today!

 

The first thing to do for any vector you start from scratch is to get a solid under sketch, I usually use Photoshop to do that and the first thing I think about is what kind of perspective am I looking at this particular character? and getting the basic character skeleton correctly. Then I flesh it out and import the sketched piece into the illustrator and start vectoring.

 

90~95% of the time I use pressure variable calligraphic brush (while continuously tinkering with fidelity, roundness, transfer and brush roundness setting for different purposes), few basic tools (pencil, basic shapes, transform) and the shape builder tool.

 

Rest are using things like gradient tool, Gaussian blur effect, some random predetermined tools like wrinkle and things.

 

Edit: I've literally spent perhaps 12 hours just on vectoring, it takes lot of patience and time because unlike traditional-digital painting, vectoring really puts me under pressure to get everything precise and perfect.

Edited August 14, 2012 by Phaeston-e12

[Ethan Pow 332]

This is turning out very good, watching this makes me glee like a girl to know that your skill is amazing.

[Phaeston-e12 173]

This is turning out very good, watching this makes me glee like a girl to know that your skill is amazing.

 

It's helpful when you know what you are going after and know exactly what you are looking for. However I still have some improvements to make and I'm sure I will find few flaws when the piece is done. I any case, I very much appreciate your input.

[Motion Spark 7,807]

as always excelent work, your are becoming an excelent vector artist, I followed the guide that you gave me and didn't got positive results, but you are making me to try it again...this looks excelent! no criticism to give

[Phaeston-e12 173]

as always excelent work, your are becoming an excelent vector artist, I followed the guide that you gave me and didn't got positive results, but you are making me to try it again...this looks excelent! no criticism to give

 

I am always willing to help out. It took some courage from my end to start learning the Illustrator, which took quite some time. But once I've decided to be serious about learning how to use the software and never gave up, I started to learn many tricks and the underlying concept behind how the program works rather fast. Just need to remember to never give up.

 

And thanks for the compliment.

[Silverwisp the Bard 2,354]

Great as always. The outline of her right eye shouldn't extend past the eyelashes and the area of the hood behind the neck needs filling out.

[Phaeston-e12 173]

Great as always. The outline of her right eye shouldn't extend past the eyelashes and the area of the hood behind the neck needs filling out.

 

Thank you, eyelash problem probably won't get fixed since it's too late at this point. But yes I realized the color fill which I forgot to do, so I fixed that problem along with adding few stuffs and effects.

 

"The guardian's ultimate responsibility is to make sure the world doesn't need its existence." - Silvermist

 

I had few other ambitious ideas I wanted to try, but doing this background along with juggling with my own university class has taken far too long and I've decided that enough is enough as I've learned a tremendous amount of new ideas and tricks just from doing this piece alone.

 

Since I've finally decided to put an end to this piece, I can finally work on some different ideas.

 

Her personality perhaps doesn't fit that well within MLP universe since I consider her to be more a Freudian/Existential creature compared to characters in MLP. But it's an experiment I'm going to do in what should be my future.. comic (5~6 month of juggling through university work and improving my art skill first at least.).

 

Regardless, constructive criticism is always welcomed.

 

Pony and other misc. original concept belongs to Hasbro and artists involved in making MLP:FiM series.

 

PS: On a side note, I wonder if I should try to see if I can get this piece into EqD. A comment on this idea would be appreciated.

Edited August 23, 2012 by Phaeston-e12