My super amazing OC that I need to improve.

[Cerbyrus 63]

Closed wings.

 

 

 

Open Wings

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her name is Tempest. Prolly' going to use her for a fanfic or something. Are there any colours or something that need to be improved? I dunno, I only have the basic design, I plan on giving her some back story in the future.

 

Any tips on how to improve?

Edited May 11, 2014 by Someone Else

[Teabee 59]

I think the reason why you're not getting a whole lot of replies here is because (a) you've got a basic pony creator design so there's not much to say design-wise and ( b ) your colors work pretty well together even though they're not entirely complementary.

 

This isn't a bad thing, it means that from what you've shown us here, your OC is pretty much okay as is and there's not much to comment intelligently on.  Are you planning on doing additional artwork?  Is she going to be in an ask blog or is this concept art for a fic?  What is her special talent supposed to be?

Edited May 12, 2014 by Teabee

[Cerbyrus 63]

I think the reason why you're not getting a whole lot of replies here is because (a) you've got a basic pony creator design so there's not much to say design-wise and ( b ) your colors work pretty well together even though they're not entirely complementary.

 

This isn't a bad thing, it means that from what you've shown us here, your OC is pretty much okay as is and there's not much to comment intelligently on.  Are you planning on doing additional artwork?  Is she going to be in an ask blog or is this concept art for a fic?  What is her special talent supposed to be?

Obviously, I plan on getting additional artwork, and she's probably going to be a part of a fic. Her cutie mark represent, wel... a tempest, so I'm thinking of something related to weather.

 

Obviously this is a rather basic pony-creator (not General Zoi's, luckily :L) design, I was just only curious what others thought of the colours, because that's really the only advice I am needing right now.

Edited May 12, 2014 by Someone Else

[Silverwisp the Bard 2,353]

The design is pretty good, the colours could use some work, specifically the black part of the mane and the eye.

 

Black on an Oc rarely works, consider replacing it with another shade of brown or maybe orange.

The green of the eye is a bit too saturated.

Edited May 16, 2014 by Silverwisp the Bard

[Kay Dreamer 884]

@@Cerbyrus, 

 

The colours are a little jarring. Picking nice colours can be super difficult without a solid knowledge of colour theory. That's waaaaay too deep to dive into if you're just using the pony-creator program. Any artist you hire who's worth their salt won't be eyedropping colours anyway - they'd find some way to make it work. Take a look at this - 

 

 

(Forgive the terrible writing, I'm using a trackpad.)

 

The first palette contains the colours you originally picked. They clash with each other a lot. A few are right at the saturation edge of photoshops colour picker - you only want that in very small amounts. (Never for the primary colour in a design.)

 

The second are the colours I would have chosen instead. I've pulled back the saturation, and ensured they all have a better relationship with one another. Notice there's no black? Never use black. Better to go with a dark grey, with a slight saturation toward one of the other colours.

7f6aa2 : bd5850 : 494252 : 90c098

 

The third is kind of a 'mid point' between the two palettes. The colours are still unified, but a little more 'powerful' than the first one I made. The green sticks out, but clever blending from an artist could pull it back a little overall.

7d5d9e : a13727 : 3b3543 : 34bc58

 

Hope that helps a little!

[SFyr 1,982]

My concerns would pretty much follow what's already been pointed out--black on an OC is kinda wierd sometimes (I think black+red is stereotypically 'cool'), and as a whole you have 4 very different hues/colors, being two primary colors (red and green), one secondary color (purple), and the other solid black.

I'm glad you at least have red+purple in this bit as they're nearby colors, but you still have four very dominant yet different colorations together, with none taking a background seat. Ponies get away with vivid colorations easier, but it's still something you have to be careful with to make complementary/not-jarring.

 

I personally would either take the suggestions of the above, or play with alternative hair colors/remove both solid black and solid red as a choice. Or just play with it a bit.

 

I wish you the best. 

[SasQ 1,376]

Notice there's no black? Never use black. Better to go with a dark grey, with a slight saturation toward one of the other colours.

black on an OC is kinda wierd sometimes

This is because one doesn't see pure black in Nature too often. A pure black would mean it doesn't reflect ANY light, but absorbs it all, like a black hole or something. In reality, even black-tinted objects reflects some light, and it is usually some hint of blue reflected from the skies.

 

The same reasoning goes with other pure colors: A pure color is just one single wavelength of light, which is odd in natural lighting conditions. In Nature, light comes mostly from the Sun which radiates with a rich spectrum of different wavelengths we call "rainbow". It often bounces from one object to another until it ultimately gets into your eyes, so it still has a lot of harmonics contained in it, instead of just one pure color. And even if it is really a pure color, it still mixes with the blue color cast from the sky.

 

For my works I often use actual photos of Nature, e.g. some forest or a beach, to probe colors from there, because then they're taken from Nature and, because of that, they look more natural and fit each other better (especially when they come from the same photo, because of the same lighting conditions).

 

Obviously this is a rather basic pony-creator (not General Zoi's, luckily :L) design

Huh? Are there any other pony generators? This is new. Could you post a link?

Edited May 16, 2014 by SasQ

[Cerbyrus 63]

Huh? Are there any other pony generators? This is new. Could you post a link?

http://www.hubnetwork.com/shows/my-little-pony-friendship-is-magic/games/the-fabulous-ponymaker

It IMO looks better than the Zoi one. It's not art-quality, but it's better.

 

And thanks everyone else for your tips! I'll be looking into it! :3

[SFyr 1,982]

Perhaps that a bit of it is that pure black just feels unnatural, as @@SasQ said, but part of my concern is also that a pony with black and red as a strong part of their color palette nowadays just strikes me as someone trying to pick something 'cool', when it doesn't feel fitting in the common colors showing up in ponies of the show.

But, perhaps black/red have been ruined a bit for me because of the OC's I've seen sporting both or at least the former as a huge part of their coloration.

 

Regardless, I'm a fan of neutral/medium/light colors, so take my words however you want~ 

Edited May 16, 2014 by SFyr

[SasQ 1,376]

In a thread nearby someone posted a link to a blog where some guy presents other people's bad OCs he found in the Internet. There's a huge collection of these bad OCs. And although I don't approve the harsh and non-constructive critique presented at the aforementioned blog, it has one useful and important feature: When you look through the collection of these bad OCs, you hould be able to figure out the "pattern" of what makes a bad OC by comparison and generalization. They have much in common, so the pattern is made obvious by the multitude of anti-examples. I guess there will be many OCs with clashing, contrasting or pure colors. Edited May 16, 2014 by SasQ