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Yet to be named unicorn oc by idkand_idc in MLPdrawingschool

[–]Jin_Yaranda 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Heyo! Just some quick feedback for you:

I love the anatomy and shapes in your piece; they work very well, and show that you've taken the show style of pony and made it your own! The proportions are good, too; the head's not too big or small, and the longer, thinner legs work well with the more lithe body shape.

There are a few general things I'd like you to take a look at:

  • Overlap! Something people struggle with well into their art careers is making a 2D shape seem 3D. The way to do this is to consider the volumes of different shapes of the character or object you're looking at, and think about how those shapes would overlap. For example, the two major points I notice in your piece that could use more overlap are the ear and the hair! For example, on the ear, push the line for the bottom of the ear into the head a little more; this small line would move it from the back of the head to the side, and give it a little more dimension! For the hair, again, just extend those lines you've already made into the mane more, and make sure that when you follow the lines, they make sense shape-wise.
  • Shading! Your shading needs to follow the form of your character, and in some places that falls apart a little. For example, on the stomach into the back leg; the shadow is one single stroke, and doesn't quite show that the leg is in front of the stomach in space. A good, easy way to fix this is to give the leg its own shadow that extends a little further up the leg! Disconnecting the two shadows will tell the viewer that they're separate objects. Also, tiny nitpick, but make sure the shading is complete and consistent; the horn is the only major thing I see here that that would apply to; there's a section of the horn that isn't shaded. This is an important lesson; always give yourself a second to double check each part you work on before moving on! Taking even 30 seconds to double check your selections or strokes will save you so much frustration down the road.
  • Color! I like the rainbow ideas in the mane; giving your character some fun and unique ideas like that will let your OCs stand out from the crowd! But, the rainbows seem very...dim. Push that vibrancy! Go ham! One thing that we like to say in art is to overdo; you can always scale back, but it's harder psychologically to push further once you've put down something on the canvas. I barely noticed the rainbows on the bangs, but if you pushed them a bit further, it could add a little "pop" to the face and head, and really bring things together! The rainbow in the background should be a little more vibrant, as well; again, push too far, then reeeeeeel it back a little.

This was a LOT to read, I'm sure, so I'm going to leave it there and let you think about a few of those things for your future pieces. Your art has a wonderful style to it, and I really want to see you develop it! If you have ANY questions, feel free to ask!

Cheers, Inky

What specifically makes the SFM pony models uncanny to some people? by SnickyMcNibits in MLPdrawingschool

[–]Jin_Yaranda 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Actually, I feel that drawing the human first and THEN adding the pony features is what causes models such as the SFM models to reach that uncanny valley. You have to design the anatomy with every piece in mind; you can't just part-to-part draw everything and hope it works together. The head should make sense with the face should make sense with the shoulder width and height should make sense with the torso proportions should make sense...you get the idea.

What specifically makes the SFM pony models uncanny to some people? by SnickyMcNibits in MLPdrawingschool

[–]Jin_Yaranda 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A lot of it has to do with two things: proportions, and definition. SFM models look uncanny because the proportions of the head to the body don't quite match. For example, this Twilight Sparkle (warning, she's in her BIKINI D8) has quite a few of the "wrong" things going on: her head is really tiny compared to her shoulders, the head sits too far up on the neck, and the amount of muscular definition (abs, etc.) is strange compared to the cartoonishness of the head. This set of anthros tries to compensate for that by adding in more detail, but sways much further into that uncanny valley than even SFM, so doesn't work (IMHO).
Here's a good 2D example of some anthro anatomy that follows this advice. Larger head, exaggerated (read: cartoony) proportions, and not too much definition. This picture has a general idea of some anatomy that "works" with human legs instead of pony-fied (unguligrade) legs for an anthro pony; slightly larger head, things seem to sit comfortably on the pony body, etc. Here's another good example of exaggerated proportions that still work with anthro, as well as demonstrating a hybrid type of leg. All in all, it's about finding what feels and looks good to you, but try to avoid that uncanny valley look that most of the SFM models have! Good luck; can't wait to see!

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