First pony drawing

[Nuclear Rainboom 29]

Hey every pony this my first drawing and post I wanted to get comments and constructive criticism from fellow bronies cause most people I know don't understand. I made a template of the drawing and tweaked it until I liked it then transferred it on to the final medium then matched the colors from eye to what looked right and finished by adding the color and outline. The whole process took about two hours and I will post more as I finish them so I can get the opinions of other bronies

Edited April 8, 2013 by Jj25140

[TomokoKuroki 1,707]

It is pretty nice, and very cute. There are only 2 things i see you doing to improve the drawing.

 

1: try to see if you can add any depth, it looks very flat.

2: It is just a small thing, but you forgot to finish her face. Her left hoof seems to be over her cheek, but under her eye which is impossible for this style of pony.

 

It is very nice, but with some shading i think you could really make it more stimulating for the eye. As for just the basic form of Rainbow, you have the anatomy down pretty decently.

[Nuclear Rainboom 29]

It is pretty nice, and very cute. There are only 2 things i see you doing to improve the drawing.

 

1: try to see if you can add any depth, it looks very flat.

2: It is just a small thing, but you forgot to finish her face. Her left hoof seems to be over her cheek, but under her eye which is impossible for this style of pony.

 

It is very nice, but with some shading i think you could really make it more stimulating for the eye. As for just the basic form of Rainbow, you have the anatomy down pretty decently.

Thanks again I am quite new to this drawing form and to get the view from some one who knows more about the style and forms of pony art work help me a lot. Also I see what you're talking about when it comes down to shading and the flat tone and as an artist I have been working on that skill.

[TomokoKuroki 1,707]

I would also like to say that I think you did a good job on coloring her mane. It isn't so color devided like in the show, but not so soft to not see the color progression from red to orance, ect. It is blended nicely.

[Asher 101]

I think that this is a wonderful first attempt! Way better than my first try! I think that really knowing the anatomy of a pony will help you to draw an original. I would recommend drawing a picture that someone else has drawn. Try to see how the curves work, how the eyes look... Good job! Keep it up!

[SasQ 1,380]

If this is your first pony drawing, then it is very good.

Of course it could always be better, and you'll improve with time and practice ;-)

What you can improve is this:

 

1. Proportions.

Every cartoon character has sort of a skeleton made of simple shapes, like circles or bean-like ovals. Every other body parts are attached to them as some curvy lines. And it is very important to have them in right sizes and orientations relative to each other, because even small deviations from these proportions would make the drawing feel "odd" or "wrong", even if it's not always obvious what's wrong exactly. (So if you don't know why your drawing looks odd, this is most often by wrong proportions.)

 

For example, head of a pony is nearly half of the apparent "volume" or "weight" of its torso, and the height of a pony is around three times the height of his head.

The head is mostly a circle, but a little bit flattened on top and front sides. And when you draw it as a front view, it's a little bit narrower.

 

Search some tutorials about drawing ponies on Deviant Art, there are plenty of them, and most of them very good. There are several of them about proportions.

 

2. Anatomy.

Your front legs are pretty much OK and in shape, but I think they are attached to the body a little bit too close to the head, making your pony look like if it wouldn't have neck. Or the neck is somewhat too short.

 

Her snout seems to me a bit odd, like in a hedgehog and not a pony. Try to make it some more snub/upturned and more round on top, and its line should follow the line of the eye.

 

The ear lines could be a bit longer and overlap the head. This should add some depth to the picture.

 

And add one small line on the right of her face, just between the eye line and the snout, because now her face fuses with the far-range front leg.

 

But all these are minor details. The overall anatomy of your pony is nevertheless very good.

 

3. Lines.

Original ponies in the show are rarely (if ever) outlined with black. Most of the time, they're outlined with thick color lines. Look up on Deviant Art for the official color reference guides for ponies and choose similar colors for your outline crayons or color pens. But if you can't, it's OK to use black.

 

Just make it somewhat thicker and try to draw with single, quick, sure-handed strokes. Because when you draw slowly, your hand is more likely to vibrate and this will be seen in your lines as abrupt changes of directions and little zig-zagging. But when you draw your strokes quick, they should seem more sure-handed and softer.

 

Also, in the original show, the strokes change thickness. They are very thin and sharp-ended on the ends, and thicker in between the ends, like in a calligraphy. This effect is to simulate pen strokes, but you don't need to simulate: you're actually making strokes with your pen ;-)

 

4. Background & setting.

Your pony seems to float in a void. If it is supposed to sleep on a cloud, then make its body to sink into that cloud like in a pillow. Let some parts of that cloud obscure the body of your pony, as if it were sinked into that cloud. Make the cloud more fluffy, add some details, e.g. some wavy lines here and there, to make it appear more like a real cloud.

 

5. References.

If you want your drawing to appear "just as in the show", and not to show your original style of drawing (different from the show), then use the show as your reference guide. Try to draw from screenshots or stop-images from the show by looking at them and drawing them on the paper from watching (or, later, you can try to draw them from your memory, when you remember them well enough to visualize them at will).

 

6. Dynamics.

For your future drawings, especially for ponies in motion or some dynamic poses, start with a "motion curve": a single curvy stroke which goes straight through the whole body of your pony, like a spine. It should bend in the direction of its motion, and bend the more the faster it is moving in that direction. Then you can attach other parts of your skeleton to it. Such a line helps in weighting the pose and make it look more natural in motion. There should be some tutorials on that on Deviant Art too.

 

7. Facial expressions.

As Zachary Rich said in his pony animation tutorials, the head is the most important part of a pony, and the rest of it's body is mostly used for transporting that head from place to place ;-) It's because the head displays all the facial expressions of a pony, which shows its emotions. So use the show as a reference and study facial expressions in different situations. You can create a cheat-sheet of these expressions, as I've tried to do below. This will help you in the future.

 

OK, so much for now.

As I've said, your first drawing is very good after all.

My first sketches weren't so good ;-)

 

 

Bueheh ;-J

And here are some sketches using the show as a reference:

 

 

You can see how inside each head I first sketched a spherical skeleton with a pencil to use it as a guide for proportions of the head parts and orienting it in the pseudo-3D perspective.

 

But with time, they become better and better.

(Unfortunately I didn't scan them yet. Maybe next time.)

Edited April 9, 2013 by SasQ

[Blaaaze 100]

good job it's more then expected for the first time drawing! some (just little) details are wrong but all in all it great) keep it up^^

[Nuclear Rainboom 29]

If this is your first pony drawing, then it is very good.

Of course it could always be better, and you'll improve with time and practice ;-)

What you can improve is this:

 

1. Proportions.

Every cartoon character has sort of a skeleton made of simple shapes, like circles or bean-like ovals. Every other body parts are attached to them as some curvy lines. And it is very important to have them in right sizes and orientations relative to each other, because even small deviations from these proportions would make the drawing feel "odd" or "wrong", even if it's not always obvious what's wrong exactly. (So if you don't know why your drawing looks odd, this is most often by wrong proportions.)

 

For example, head of a pony is nearly half of the apparent "volume" or "weight" of its torso, and the height of a pony is around three times the height of his head.

The head is mostly a circle, but a little bit flattened on top and front sides. And when you draw it as a front view, it's a little bit narrower.

 

Search some tutorials about drawing ponies on Deviant Art, there are plenty of them, and most of them very good. There are several of them about proportions.

 

2. Anatomy.

Your front legs are pretty much OK and in shape, but I think they are attached to the body a little bit too close to the head, making your pony look like if it wouldn't have neck. Or the neck is somewhat too short.

 

His snout seems to me a bit odd, like in a hedgehog and not a pony. Try to make it some more snub/upturned and more round on top, and its line should follow the line of the eye.

 

The ear lines could be a bit longer and overlap the head. This should add some depth to the picture.

 

And add one small line on the right of her face, just between the eye line and the snout, because now her face fuses with the far-range front leg.

 

But all these are minor details. The overall anatomy of your pony is nevertheless very good.

 

3. Lines.

Original ponies in the show are rarely (if ever) outlined with black. Most of the time, they're outlined with thick color lines. Look up on Deviant Art for the official color reference guides for ponies and choose similar colors for your outline crayons or color pens. But if you can't, it's OK to use black.

 

Just make it somewhat thicker and try to draw with single, quick, sure-handed strokes. Because when you draw slowly, your hand is more likely to vibrate and this will be seen in your lines as abrupt changes of directions and little zig-zagging. But when you draw your strokes quick, they should seem more sure-handed and softer.

 

Also, in the original show, the strokes change thickness. They are very thin and sharp-ended on the ends, and thicker in between the ends, like in a calligraphy. This effect is to simulate pen strokes, but you don't need to simulate: you're actually making strokes with your pen ;-)

 

4. Background & setting.

Your pony seems to float in a void. If it is supposed to sleep on a cloud, then make its body to sink into that cloud like in a pillow. Let some parts of that cloud obscure the body of your pony, as if it were sinked into that cloud. Make the cloud more fluffy, add some details, e.g. some wavy lines here and there, to make it appear more like a real cloud.

 

5. References.

If you want your drawing to appear "just as in the show", and not to show your original style of drawing (different from the show), then use the show as your reference guide. Try to draw from screenshots or stop-images from the show by looking at them and drawing them on the paper from watching (or, later, you can try to draw them from your memory, when you remember them well enough to visualize them at will).

 

6. Dynamics.

For your future drawings, especially for ponies in motion or some dynamic poses, start with a "motion curve": a single curvy stroke which goes straight through the whole body of your pony, like a spine. It should bend in the direction of its motion, and bend the more the faster it is moving in that direction. Then you can attach other parts of your skeleton to it. Such a line helps in weighting the pose and make it look more natural in motion. There should be some tutorials on that on Deviant Art too.

 

7. Facial expressions.

As Zachary Rich said in his pony animation tutorials, the head is the most important part of a pony, and the rest of it's body is mostly used for transporting that head from place to place ;-) It's because the head displays all the facial expressions of a pony, which shows its emotions. So use the show as a reference and study facial expressions in different situations. You can create a cheat-sheet of these expressions, as I've tried to do below. This will help you in the future.

 

OK, so much for now.

As I've said, your first drawing is very good after all.

My first sketches weren't so good ;-)

 

 

Bueheh ;-J

And here are some sketches using the show as a reference:

 

 

You can see how inside each head I first sketched a spherical skeleton with a pencil to use it as a guide for proportions of the head parts and orienting it in the pseudo-3D perspective.

 

But with time, they become better and better.

(Unfortunately I didn't scan them yet. Maybe next time.)

Thanks I will Check ou deviant art and work with your suggustions and I will post my out comes so I can continue to make progress