lostpony tries to draw *updated with latest attempt

[lostpony]

OK so I could never draw a dang thing ever, barely even write my letters legibly (somewhat).  So.....I tried again over the last 3 weeks, and after a one-page G3.5 face-drawing exercise from Lore-Lei, I drew a few things from physical models and here is how it's turned out so far:

Drawing #1 cadance:  this went pretty easy and was pretty fast and people seem to like it, so I did some more.
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Drawing #2 Sky Skimmer....this was really hard, no actual lines on a G2 and trying to learn shading with kinda bad lighting...
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Shoulda tried it in light like this:
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Drawing #3 G1 Rainbow Dash A friend challenged me to draw Rainbow Dash with the front left hoof raised and so I grabbed the nearest G1 with the right posture and combined Merriweather with Cadance's wings...for good measure used G3 RD's symbol ....not very good but was fast and fun
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Drawing #4 I used tracing paper to redraw G1 RD trying to fix proportions and improve wings and work without 3d model for features...it's starting to get fun!
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update 10-17-2016 (first day practicing since July)
Drawing #5, still trying to get G1 Rainbow Dash right....camera pic, will have scan of it within 24 hours and edit to replace this one.
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OK scanning was problematic, the soft colors don't pick up very well but this is the best I was able to do, and I touched up the white spaces and the edges basically one pixel at a time in MSPaint.
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[Lore-Lei]

You're doing good, keep up the good work! I may give you some more 'excercises' in the future if you're up to them that we could do together. Facial expressions, head rotations, these kind of things.

[lostpony]

[thesugarpuppie]

They really look good for starting out.  Proportions come with developing your observation which are things that'll take a while so just keep it up.

[Griffin]

I think they look marvellous for your first drawings! After seeing Cadence I could hardly believe it was your first time drawing ponies. The others look great too, keep up the good work!

I agree with gothicsugar, improvement comes with practice and training your eye. Sketching with basic shapes like circles often helps getting the proportions right. Looking forward to seeing your next drawings!

[Shaiyeh]

Those are really cute! Wouldn't have guessed it was your first time drawing ponies. I like the shading on Sky Skimmer keep up the good work ^-^

[hathorcat]

They look great You are managing to capture them incredibly accurately. I like your Sky Skimmer especially.

[lostpony]

Thanks everypony for the encouragement!

After months of doing nothing, I revisited this same thing again and did what I could.  Here's a bad foto of it:  (going to add a scan tomorrow)

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I just couldn't figure out what was wrong with the snout so I took a picture of G1 Merriweather, then traced the face with paper held up to the screen (matching the size to the drawings so far).  Once I did that I could see how the lines were supposed to go then used tracing paper to combine the last attempt with the new face lines and it looked good enough to go ahead and color it.  I guess considering I haven't practiced I'm pleased with how it came out.

[Griffin]

You did a great job, the tracing method really did the trick!

[lostpony]

Thanks!  If at first I don't succeed, I'll trace it until I am happy with it...or learn how to draw it right the first time, like, in my dreams tee hee.  I'm already seeing things I could improve if I do it over just one more time...ack time to move on to a new piece I think.

[Griffin]

I agree it's a good idea to move on. There is always something that could be improved, and I think it's a sign of improvement in itself that you are able to see the things that need fixing. You're on the right track!

[lostpony]

I'm having a hard time getting the subtle colors to scan.  I'm trying to submit this to an art site to use for my avatar pic there but they have standards for not using "low quality photos" and I can't seem to get my work into the computer intact and just don't want to draw or color on the computer.

Any suggestions??  so frustrating.

[lostpony]

So  my G1 Rainbow Dash received criticism for incorrect anatomy (which seems odd cuz I drew all the anatomy a G1 actually has that I can see) and lack of emotion (I think I got the subtle smile G1s have) soo...for my next project I decided to do something with some emotional content and use a much more detailed Breyer pony model so....here's the model and initial sketch (waaay too much anatomy for a beginner like me) and the image in the lower right is the scene I'm going to ponify (it's an illustration from the Gunsligner where an entire town attacks him with bricks, knives and sticks; they are lined up like that because he retreated into the desert while shooting them).  I think I got a good dose of emotion into the initial sketch, hope it survives into the finished work!  and managed to capture some of the anatomy anyway...

Challenges include not just drawing what I see but also morphing the entire body shape to get the standing posture and the slightly spread arms...and when I manage to do that i still have to complete the rest of the scene and draw the secondary ponies.  I like a good stretch!  Helps me grow...right now I have 5 finished pieces (actually 3 plus 2 redraws of the third) and about 30 total hours drawing.  This sketch was less than a half-hour so far so...this'll keep me busy for a little while, Yay.

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