Fluttershy (Fanart, Night Magic 1/6)

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Another fanart for the animated series about the cloven-hoofed inhabitants of a conditionally fantasy kingdom, bringing the light of friendship to the wild lands of aggressive neighbors. He took only the basis from the image of one of the heroines, tried to create a magical atmosphere in which, on the one hand, there would be echoes of an elusive dream, and on the other, notes of magic, which, to paraphrase Arthur Clarke, is a technology that we are not yet able to understand (hence the holographic "halo" and pseudo-Scandinavian runes).

I like drawing these characters - letting them pass through myself, trying to do better and better every time, stepping over the fear of a blank slate and trying new tricks. Styling and cartoonish design is great, but I like a more classic, realistic approach to rendering. When an object can be stylized, but it is lit believably and its materials behave as they would in the real world. It is faster and easier to draw with lines, fill and simple shadow, like in cartoons - but this is not enough, this is not our way. Disney artists came up with this drawing as a necessary compromise between the beauty of the drawing and the speed of its execution, when in one second there should be no less than 24 such frames. We do not have such restrictions and we can draw anything and anything within one frame, so for me this is only part of the process - complex, long, demanding, but ultimately pleasurable.

What scheme do I usually use:

1. Pencil sketch
2. Fill with grayscale vector shapes
3. Basic shadows on a b / w figure
4. Color blending and grayscale correction on layers below the color
5. Colored highlights and reflections
6. More detailed lighting, highlights and shadows
7. Strokes like AO (ambient occlusion) and subsurface scattering (light scattering in skin / fur / hair / leaves …)
8. Effects and polish
9. Background

Drawing process:

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And remember - friendship is magic.