Pixel Twilight Sparkle -- Wrong Side of the Hay

[Ashbad]

Just something I threw together recently   I tried a few new techniques with the shading and outlining this pony pixel around, and I think it actually turned out pretty well.



On DeviantArt: http://theashbad.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Twilight-Sparkle-Wrong-Side-of-the-Hay-300192548

[Seiseki]

Nice work!
Had some fun experimenting on your twilight.. (lol that sounds kinda sinister)



First thing I changed was the eyes, they should be more slanted, in opposite directions, to follow the head. \ /
Also, nostrils (or what it's called on a horse) same shape there \ /
Is the head supposed to be looking upwards? If so the mouth and nose should probably be moved further up.

Changed the colors a bit to be less saturated and more pastel-y.
And I played around a bit with some AA and shading.

I also removed the noise in the hair, personally I prefer it clean, especially if it's ponies.
I didn't dare to mess around with the hair too much though, it seemed rather intricate and complex.

edit:

I tried matching the color from the show more accurately.
Seems like the difference was way more radical than I had thought.

[Ashbad]

Nice edit!  I think your edit looks great, but it doesn't quite fit my personal style (I like noisy pony hair, for some reason).  I think your new choice of colors and outlining was rather interesting, though, it gave a cool personality to Twilight's body!  I'm going to experiment with it some more myself today, after seeing what you did.

[Seiseki]

Thanks, had to make an edit because.. ponies!
Hm, looking at the reference I noticed something just now, it would probably look more like the show if you removed the outline below the eye.

[Ashbad]

I think you're probably right.  Here's what it looks like without:



When I zoom in on your edit more, the more I like it just noticed the light shadow below Twi, the addition of more glare on her legs and right face, and some small anti-aliasing fixes.  I actually like the style!

[Seiseki]

Thanks, I couldn't help but try some stuff myself.

[Ashbad]

While I notice the edits in this version are more minor, they make a nice difference!  I noticed you added a shadow between the eyes, and cast some light onto the nose area more.  I like it, it gives it nice dimension You also edited a few pixels around the ears to add some extra shadow effects, which is minor but I love it!  And finally, I notice you retracted the shadow and skewed it to be an a tilted-oval shape, so it fit the size and shape of Twilight better.

I think I'm learning a lot from your edits!  I have some less up-to-par ponies I did as well I haven't posted, and I think I'm going to go back over them and make them better!  I'll post the originals and my fixes (hopefully) later today.

[Ashbad]

Well, I've decided to go do my own edits from what I learned from yours (editing not from yours, but rather from my original), and it's to a point where I'm proud of it ^_^



The eyes are different than those in your edit, I felt there was more of a "d'aww" effect with the eyes closer together.  Also, I anti-aliased the eyes like crazy, which made them a bit blurry but gives them what I feel is a nice 3D effect.  And, I of course made the colors closer to the show's colors like you did,  since the ones I had before where really dark in comparison.

[Cyangmou]

Huuuuuuge improvement since start - the next thing you have to tackle is getting rid of jaggies and improving your AA 

[Ashbad]

Thanks! and indeed, I do need to do that to an extent still; I'll study your edit and see what I can do about them on my own from what you pointed out.

[Seiseki]

By the way, pony tongues are orange
It's a nice little detail that is easy to miss.

I really like how you can see the eye whites at the sides now, that looks much better for some reason!
I guess it's because the eyes get more defined instead of just being a huge dark blob.

I do think the eyes need more slant for it to look like twilight though.

[Ashbad]

Oh yeah, you are right, their tongues are orange, aren't they.. I need to be sure to fix that in the next revision!

As for the eyes, I experimented around with the whites of the eyes and I figured out that a small sliver of white adds a nice, pony-anime effect to the eyes   And for the slant, I'll actually have to disagree; I might slant them a bit more than they are now, but not by a radical degree.  From a face-forward view it seems that her eyes are a bit less slanted than normal:



I think the slant needs to be more defined than where it is now, but not quite as slanted as they were in your original edits.  I'll experiment around with it to see what comes out best

[Seiseki]

Yes, that's true, the eyes aren't that slanted from this perspective.
But the real question here is how much is her head tilted upwards?

I tried to break it down a bit by comparing it to the twilight picture in this thread.
It seems like we've underestimated the slant on the bottom of the eye.

Also, the ratios for neck, legs, etc seem pretty accurate, well done
But the position of the eyes makes it look like she's looking up into the sky.
Although the mouth and nose should be moved upwards too, if that's what you want.

[BTW, you can click the image to zoom in, so you don't have to post it at double size.]


Another thing I realized is, shouldn't the jaw be more pointy and also stretched down a bit because her mouth is open?
Edit: Tried to fix that, resized the head a bit.



Of course, it depends on how far you want to go.
Looking at the comparison again, the eyes should be a lot further apart. Possible the head needs to be wider.

[Ashbad]

Yeah, I'm thinking the eyes need to be at least 1 pixel further away (2 or 3 at max, though), and I think you're also right about the head needing to come down a bit (from what I saw in your suggestion edit) -- not sure if I like the idea of the pointy chin, though; it'll be more anatomically correct, but it might take away some of the "d'aww" effect from the pudginess of the face.  I'll work around with it later today and post my next edit taking in all of the new suggestions you guys gave