[WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene

[Ashbad]

edit: Ashbad, You saw my edit right?

I just realized before I got back online, "I totally forgot to respond to Seiseki's edit!" >_<  I think it's actually been the one I'm looking at the closest for my own edit.  It just seems to really work, and fixes the perspective problem  The way you fix the hair there also seems to give it better dimension.

EDIT:  also noticed a few fixes here and there for the shading of the flank, and the way you made the cutie mark blend a bit better (though I'm going to eventually try anti-aliasing it in to make it blend even better than that)

[Kcilc]

I think that most of her torso would be in shadow with how she's positioning herself, and that might be why you're having so much trouble making it look natural. I also really like what AI did with the mane, and I think that the main problem is the fact you're using one shade in 90% of her mane and tail. I think it would look much much better if you just spread those three values out a little bit.

Here's another edit for you:

[Ashbad]

thanks for yet another great edit!  I do indeed need to decrease the population of that bright mane/tail shade; I was thinking originally something along the style of what you did with the tail, but I wasn't able to get it to look right.  I'll definitely play around with it more.

[Ashbad]

Here's what I have so far:



Fixed up some of the things mentioned so far (still have a few to do), and quickly drew up the rough rendering of the scene she's going to be in.

Any suggestions of the pony herself would be still welcomed, but if it's urging me to do something mentioned already, don't worry; I'm just posting what I have done so far tonight so I can have some feedback for tomorrow   What I'd mostly like feedback on is the scene itself; I've never drawn clouds before, but a look out my window at some, and I figured out how they generally would look.  C+C?

[Ai]

General critique:
* You seem to have two different whites on the eye. I can barely distinguish them. If you can, consider calibrating your monitor using http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ and then seeing if it's still distinguishable. Currently, even for a subtle effect, it seems virtually invisible.

Scootaloo critique:
* Because you elected to use a semi-realistic style, the vividness of Scootaloo's coloring looks wrong; it seems to me that radiosity needs to effect her colors (ie. should pick up some degree of blueness from the cloud and sky around)
* I'm happy with the leg in my edit (below). Implied knee (or whatever it is called when one is a little horse).

Scene critique:

* Scootaloo's shadow is kind of ambiguous. I think it needs better definition.
* the BG looks fine. Of course you need to antialias the hell out of .. particularly the backmost cloud, to get the right focal effect.

A quick attempt at all of these fixes:


EDIT: cause that tail shading was annoying me, I tried to fix it.. and then this happened:


Note that this isn't a suggestion (it's too realistic to match the style). More of a monument to how much I love to render hair  

If I were to make a suggestion, it'd probably be more like this:

[Pizza Tom]

The only thing I can add is that the clouds seem kind of in the middle in terms of style. If you're going for a more realistic rendering, that's fine, but if you're trying to keep it all MLP style, why not reference clouds from the show?

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120121002457/mlp/images/2/25/Rainbow_Dash_shaking_her_head_S2E13.png
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120229011228/mlp/images/9/94/Rainbow_Dash_powerful_pose_S2E8.png

Note the BG clouds are usually more wispy and fun shaped, since characters don't need to interact with them.

[jengy]

Hi there, I'm new to the forums, but my best friend frequents these forums and I saw your post and wanted to pass on some feedback that may be helpful.

Note: Non-pixel edit. Also, I removed the BG cloud for clarity.

One thing I noticed about her rear end is, though it appears to be accurate to the Pony style, it might be nice if she had more of a curvy rear end, in order to create a plane change that would help build perspective and visual interest.

Here I took the butt in Photoshop and warped it:



As it is now, you're getting some still-image "twinning" extending from the straight legs to the bottom, which can flatten the form.

Here's an image showing what I mean:



By breaking up that line, you can create some interesting negative shapes and heighten the aesthetic in this portion of the drawing, as well as create more visual rhythm throughout the body.

Here's an example of visual rhythm at work with a fuller bottom:



It also engenders a feeling of perspective, which is always exciting.

I hope that helps, and good luck!

[yaomon17]

Here is my attempt at helping! Except not really! I have concluded that the leg is possessed, it cannot be fixed. I added highlights because I like highlights. Sotty about that.   

[Ashbad]

Don't worry, I'm seeing all of your edits, but there's a lot (which is really great -- I feel I'm learning a lot this time around especially) but I can only fix/edit/respond per each recommendation as I incorporate it

Anyways here's what had this morning, and after about 30 minutes of tinkering this is what I have now:



I apologize for the 2x zoom on this, but that's how I'm planning on displaying it eventually on dA/PJ; so, I'm trying to look at it at the right zoom level throughout the whole process to keep in mind that idea.

@jengy: At first I thought your suggestion was dumb, since I had the anatomy right already... but then I realized how wonderful your idea was.  You'll notice that I rounded out the butt more in my latest quick edit, and it looks a lot more interesting now.  I've never taken any art classes before, so I have next to no teaching on perspective (I'm going to fix that this summer however!), but from that simple edit you made I feel I've already learned to think in more of a cross-planar way, so that every plane (i.e. the one created by the back legs/butt, the side of her coat, the ones created by the sections of her face) works together with the other planes in a fluid motion.

@yaomon17: not exactly the style I'm going for, but I find it interesting how you shaded the tail in general (same with the mane), it'll help me when I finally get around to taking what has been Ai's suggestion for a few posts now and make it into reality

@Ai:  Not a fan of the dithering in the shadow, but I think I may have to add a darker shadow shade in there somewhere to define it better.  Thanks for the tips on the colors, it prompted me to "research" into color theory at school today, and I changed the palette around a lot.  I think that after this edit that I've gotten much better at picking colors with the H/S/L values, and I've realized that I was using insanely saturated colors (and I played with them as a result).  I didn't like how you used blue as the outline, I settled with more of a color that had a hue closer to the orange color (it ended up being something like a hue of 230 IIRC) and I think it's a bit less radical against the orange while still having the shadowy effect.

@Regulus Awesome: I would do MLP-styled clouds, but first of all those are really simple and boring (IMHO), and I want to kind of place Scootaloo in a bit more realistic environment ^_^


As for what I know I still need to do for sure:

- Anti-alias clouds completely
- FIX HER TAIL!  (been lazy on this one, I'll admit)
- Anti-alias different shades in Scootaloo, A-A her against the BG very slightly, and selout her outline (on second thought... just read a few topics here about selout.  Probably not a good idea to use it for this, or really at all.  Helm seems to condemn it for making ugly pixel art, and from the insight he gave I'm just dropping the idea)
- make the water actually look like water, by adding some simple waves or something
- play around with her shadow some more
- fix up the cloud she's standing on
- a few birds in the background or something to fill up the space in the top left corner better (or maybe another cloud)
- maybe play around with her facial expression some more.


I think a fair gauge for the completedness of this is probably around 60% ^_^ I'm excited with how this is turning out, and the incredible amount of things I'm learning from you guys.  I honestly have no idea how I'd learn so fast without you.

[Seiseki]

The washed out version looks extremely dull in comparison..
I assume you're going for a pastel color palette, not sure what can be done to improve that without increasing contrast and saturation.

I guess you could study the colors used in the show.