My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - Page 566

No, this is not a joke/trolling thread. We don't need more filler posts asking if it is.

Remember to spoiler season 6 content, and clearly label your spoilers.

Camail

United States1030 Posts

April 28 2012 23:17 GMT

#11301

So I was going to do one on MysticAlpha, but when I was just on the verge of a much needed nap I came up with the perfect person. He's easily one of my favorite artists in the scene, and even after a quick scan of his gallery I got all giddy.

Look Up! Down! Over to the banner ads! Ok now look slightly bellow this comment and to the right >_>.

Discommunicator!!!

This was the first image I saw drawn by him (assuming he's a guy...hopefully I'm right this time) and I was taken aback by it. There are so few pony artists who work so well in traditional media. I feel like it represents all of the elements of an image that he does well. This spotlight is going to be pretty different, the first few parts are going to be focusing on the template I used for the last two, but there is so much more to say. Then the final section is going to be a a quest to find a particular motivation for a very cool thing that he likes to do.

On to the task at hand!

+ Show Spoiler +

The first thing I want to say is that these are all hilarious, which is a breath of fresh air for single panel pics. Now, on to the good stuff. As for pony faces we have a very strong resemblance to the show, DC is probably the closest of the three artists we've seen to the muzzle type and facial structure of the show. The only variation is that his muzzles are a bit shorter and more squared, which is interesting. This is a stylistic change on his part, I feel as if by compressing the muzzle the way he does it gives his lines more flow and direction with less obtrusion. This sounds like a judgment I know, but really I'm just mentioning style here.

The second picture is a slight variation, and there are probably better examples in his gallery, but it's funny so I don't care. He went for a more cartoony style by thinning Pinkie's limbs and changing the face to be a bit more curvy, but overall that's the only difference. In a way it serves as a nice contrast to the other two; even if Chrys and Pinkie have fairly expressive faces, its a different kind of expression than Photo Finish's, they have thinner and rounder muzzles and slightly disproportioned bodies that seem stretched. Meanwhile Photo's face is using the shorter frontal view muzzle that has no bearing on the mouth, not to mention that her entire body is as compact as you would expect a pony from the show to be.

Here's a neat little thing, his lines are actually quite clean. At first glance I was surprised as you probably are (you should be (or I'll find you)), but in every place where a line is need to create shape or make a distinction between two objects we have a smooth and solid line. They taper very nicely when they need to and overall its the type of quality you would expect from somebody who works exclusively with pencil. Even though they are continuous and clean, often times they aren't straight. There are probably two reasons, one pragmatic the other stylistic. On the one hand, these are all relatively rough sketches, and while I do believe a lot of effort went in to making each piece, I don't think this is the the utmost echelon of his technical skills. As for style, it gives a kind of rough and lively feel to his art that I really think is indicative of what he likes to draw, he is never drawing portraits or stills, there is so much action and movement going on that it is easy to see why rougher lines can sometimes be preferred.

Speaking of rough, on to the shading. His style of shading is very rough, recently he did a Gilda piece that actually had slightly smoother shadows, but other than that its been all hashing or different graphite densities for the shadows. Really there isn't much to say in terms of shallow aesthetics, its simple in action but complex in method.

+ Show Spoiler +

I mean, just look at it! It may only be solid lines but his knowledge of cloth and shading just makes me want to fangasm.

Now on to the fun part. Above we have the basics understanding of his style, but that only scratches the surface. I mentioned early that he draws nothing but action, and he does this very well. I want to take a look at how he draws with such expressive lines even though nothing is really moving.

+ Show Spoiler +

Omg these are so cool! Its all like swoooosh.

Anyway, DC really takes advantage of motion lines in this series and it looks amazing for that. Let's go from picture to picture to see how exactly he uses each line; I'm probably going to give names to lines that aren't technically accurate, but whatever.

In the first set of three Lyra scenes the action progresses from peaceful to chaotic. The first pose is just that, an action pose. It isn't Lyra just standing there bein' Lyra, she is taking a combative and agile stance (just as a quick note, I have no idea how he manages to make this pose work with pony anatomy...I'm not even going to ask that question). Now when we get to the second image we get something interesting, an energetic ball of Lyre seems to be bursting from a magical dimension. How exactly does he get this powerful effect? Well, a key feature is the tail it leaves. There is a single thick band with multiple coiled lines around it, giving a sense to the onlooker of how this sphere is behaving. We can easily imagine the ball of energy spinning on the corkscrew pattern because it was given to us by the lines. We also get a nice sense of speed by all of the dust that is being kicked up, he uses this a lot to give an action more presence; drawing the wind lets an artist use something that is very light to make the object at hand (or in this case hoof) feel very heavy and powerful.

Now, there is one more small element near the summoning ring that gives the final pop, and that is used in the later drawings to a much more obvious effect. These lines are really faint so it may be hard to see all of them, but there is a kind of conal burst coming from the ring. I've been trying to think of what to to call them, to find a word that describes the kind of boom that they make you think about. So I'm going to call them impact lines. They have a sense of immediacy, they don't stretch the entire length, they are small bursts in all directions. Circles lining the expanding air giving more weight to the motion, going from a tight base in the origin to a flared rim; expansiveness and motion and fullness are the hallmarks of impact lines.

This is plain to see in the “Nonaggression” stance; whirling winds and forceful lines pushing into the ground and lifting upwards in an elegant arc parallel to the curve of the bubble. Lyra is quite the bad ass! And so the next pic is a few more moves with the same basic concept, lots of spiraling and booming lines. It's pretty obvious that he was going for a musical effect with the conal lines plus the circles. Fear her wub powers (I want to summon bench >.<)!

Lyra's move set has very good examples of motion lines in a kind of single flowing motion, always aimed in a certain direction and moving the viewers eye to the left, even if they are radial. Now I'm not sure which of the next two to look at first, both provide different type of motion for different reasons, but I think the less complex one theoretically (but possible even more difficult technically) is the Lyra ground stomp. The first thing you probably notice is the huge stone fist that looks like it could liquify your bones, yea. By now if you've been following me you have already noticed the straight lines surrounding the fist to give it this very quick jutting motion out of the ground, if you haven't then please stop reading and re-read this again as punishment. Now comes the difference though, you notice that while the fist is heading off at a 60-ish degree angle to the left (along with its motion lines as well as a very light set of circles emanating from the wrist), there is motion going on that is neither parallel nor perpendicular, its heading straight up from the ground. Now the way I wrote that may make it seem like it isn't part of the 'flow' of the image, but just think about how things in real life work. It is often the case that when force is transferred from on thing to another that it will go off in a manner that seems like with would make everything aesthetically awkward, but because reality tends to not bend to an artist's whim they must see when objects acting on each other will produce these off-angle motions. The reality of it is almost besides the point in this situation (magical fighting pony >_>) anyway, its just a really good way to give the ground a part in the action, rather than being passive it is flying upwards in an intricate and fractured pattern that looks like a visual orgasm.

It's Pinkie Pie time! I really enjoy this scene, there is a mix of complete chaos and still bliss that makes it enjoyable to look at. This is just a more complex use of varying motion lines, but I would like to point out an interesting choice DC made. The impact lines around the end of the cannon are actually inverted compared to the other drawings. Well, why would that be? What was the intent, what is the context that makes it the right choice? In the previous cases we wanted to see big booming lines giving volume to the action, and I think in this case he wanted more piercing speed than punch. After all, its coming out of a cannon at a rather high rate, he focused on impact lines that would give it speed as opposed to sheer power. The next cool thing is how pinkie is almost at a complete stand still in this pic, this can be done precisely because of the way DC manipulates motion. Notice which types of lines he uses on either side of pinkie pie. On the cannon side we have the usual abstract motion lines that give a direction solely because of how they interact with the objects they are close to, but in the back he uses almost no lines like that. If he decided to use lines in the back like that we couldn't be able to see what direction anything was moving in the back. We have such a forward presence from the cannon that any attempt at conveying backward motion by using horizontal lines would look ambiguous at best. By using the wind as a form, a thing that does not need context for us to know how it is behaving, he is allowed to have this dichotomy between the motions, and place pinkie right in the middle f it. She has a few motion lines, yes, but overall her and the cannon are almost at a point of peace.

Ok...that was the first of three special parts, the next one will be really short though, because its the field I am the least knowledgeable on. Composition!

+ Show Spoiler +

So I'm not sure exactly how he does it, I've been trying and failing for a few days now. Somehow there is a ton of stuff going on in both these pictures, but to me they don't feel overly complex at all. But enough useless drivel! Lets see if I can figure out why I feel this way. Well, one thing that comes to mind after comparing the two pictures is that they both have a clearly defined object of focus, but I think the two differ in exactly how they get the attention.

In the first pic everything seems to go along the lines of pinkie's hair in a circular fashion. The entire piece is a tightly coiled ball that looks like a single entity because everything has a place in the circular puzzle. The next method of focus is simply to use straight lines to point to Trixie. Whether it is the rocks, the light, or the flare of her coat, everything is involved in framing Trixie. By giving us something to latch onto we understand the complexities of the picture and have a general idea of what it is about. I'm pretty sure this is all just basic composition stuff.

Anywhooooo, on to the super awesome third part (I told you the composition section would be short, it was mostly just an excuse to show those two artz). You've seen a little glimmer of it in a few of the pictures above, but what it seems like he distinctly lacks is in truth the most tantalizing thing about his work: color.

+ Show Spoiler +

To my knowledge he is the only person who does this, and it is really really cool. Following my form of inquiry until the very end, I want to know why he places the colors where he does. Because he reserves coloring for specific parts, it allows him to do more with color than other artists, the fact that something is colored means something in itself (I'll explain that a little later).

Looking at the Pinkie and Lyra scenes again, they feel almost completely different. The intensity added by the colors is astounding. The obvious goal here is to highlight the motion lines and emphasize the movement of the cannon and fist in their respective pics, but amidst all of the highlighting we see something fascinating; there is a reflection of the light on the ponies. Whether its Lyra herself or the changeling to the right, the highlights are actually [i]in[/in] the picture. We see the objects getting a tinge of the light on them to make the flashy additions become a part of the scene. The same points can be made about the robot pony and her jets. They are just being used as a technique, but they interact with the world around them. I just find this really cool because it removes any artificial feel, and the amount of care he put into making sure the lighting fit with the sketch was epic.

He also does this for hair, like you see in the Luna and Twilight art the hair pops out as vividly as it can. Now, this is a puzzle to me because I'm not sure what he wanted this to do. Certainly it looks really cool, but why put so much emphasis on the hair. The hair must be important somehow, and now I'll try to understand why. When we watch the show, how do we differentiate the ponies? All mares have the same body type, so we have to rely on color and hair style. Discommunicator is taking the most personal parts of a pony, her color and hairstyle, and actively forcing you to look at them. Color is so important that when we are deprived of it almost entirely we cling to whatever remnants are left, and I think he uses this to great affect.

Now comes the coolest part, the Fluttershy.

+ Show Spoiler +

Just take it in for a second, notice the somber expression of disdain and loose posture. Look at the dirty edges of the paper and the rotting wooden stool.

Then look at the butterfly.

This is what I was talking about before. No doubt before reading this part you immediately looked at the butterfly and the color (like I said before, this really can't be helped), but taking the picture as a whole means so much more. This isn't just a highlight, the colors simply being there is a message. And the fact that he is able to say something so clearly with such a subtle move is really awesome. We all know what is being said here. The butterfly, her cutie mark, is bringing life back into discorded Fluttershy. Taking a jaded pony and reminding her of why she is who she is. The color is seeping into her slowly, it isn't like the hair of Luna or Twilight, because it also includes her skin color, this means it has to have a different meaning than the other two. All of this can be gleaned from her expression, her clothes, and the color. It is the faintest of changes, barely noticeable yet absolutely crucial.

This is what I love about his stuff the most, he aims to take away what we hold for granted and then when he gives us just a little of it back it means so much more. As a whole his pictures are all about impact on the viewer, there is always something that emanates force or importance. Whether its the power of a massive object in motion or the pristine serenity of still color, his goal is always poignant and hard-hitting.

((This sure was a long one. Congrats to anyone who actually read the entire thing, you get a cookie!))

EDIT: It came to my attention due to a certain lazy aussie that I did not link. So here ya go:
http://discommunicator.deviantart.com/

StarDragon

United States283 Posts

April 29 2012 01:57 GMT

#11302

Traditional and Digital is fine, come and join us, doesn't matter if you know how to draw a pony or not, just come out and have fun each Saturday, and maybe learn a bit of art with homework and from teh pro's!

DuB phool

United States1003 Posts

April 29 2012 02:01 GMT

#11303

On April 29 2012 10:57 StarDragon wrote:
Weekend art drawoff event #2!!!!!

http://i.imgur.com/tnMPv.jpg

Last the best of all. Guess who?
I have declared art-war on Frek, and will soon depose him as master-mouse-painter. There can only be one.

...
Also, MUHAHAHA I got some spapony art.

Saurabhinator

Australia347 Posts

April 29 2012 04:42 GMT

#11304

On April 29 2012 10:57 StarDragon wrote:
+ Show Spoiler +

I'll see everyone next Saturday! at 3pm PST - 4pm MST - 6pm EST - midnight CET and 9 am Saurab time

*7:30 am Saurabh Time.
For those of you interested, I am keeping all my sketches from these sessions in here:
http://sta.sh/#stack=97boa2nli3

skfanaav

United States9 Posts

April 29 2012 05:01 GMT

#11305

EveShadowshy.
193
twilight sparkle hands down
Zerg

[Agony]x90

United States853 Posts

April 29 2012 06:07 GMT

#11306

Additional Analysis on Discommunicator's Lyra Fighter

So after reading Camail's art analysis on Discommunicator's work, I wanted to give my own analysis and thoughts. In particular using the concepts explored by figure drawers. In my case, much of what I will discuss here was learned in George Bridgman's work.

The purpose of this analysis is to hopefully help catalyze the learning process for our new artist group (flutteryay!) and to bring some new concepts and ideas to the party. Keep in mind that I am giving a brief introduction to these concepts, as I am not qualified enough to teach these in their fullness (or halfness or quarterness). Likewise, much of these concepts are based upon observation, studying and practice, all of which must be done individually.

Likewise, bear with me, as what I may say may be boringly apparent and simple. However, I want you to consider these concepts anyways, as the apparent simplicity of motion and figure drawing is a result of the visual arts. This is because visual recognition is universally achieved by all who can see. However, visual understanding is a whole different monster. Often our brains process and minimize visual facts, meaning that we can recognize what we see without fully understanding how it works visually. Half my fight in all aspects of drawing has involved fighting to understand what I see, which includes everything from anatomy, perspective, symmetry and everything in between. I cannot properly reproduce something without first understanding. For this reason, what seems to be basic physics or physiology suddenly becomes shrouded to the beginning artist.

The reason I am attacking this analysis from this angle is because of the nature of animation. In my opinion, given the extreme simplification found in MLP:FiM, expressive motions and actions must come through proper building and structuring. I will break this down into two parts: The Structure and The Action.

The Structure
Although concepts regarding the structure can be broken down into multiple categories, schools of thought, opinions, etc., I will break this section down into anatomy, proportions and building blocks.

Anatomy and Proportions
I could talk on these two forever and at the same time have nothing to say on either, simply because they are both so important, but that I don't focus enough on either. Any good artist, Discommunicator or otherwise, to be able to draw any figure well must be able to execute these two without difficulty or second though. Like everything else that I will bring up here, these two require a little bit of knowledge (the more the better) and a crap ton of practice (the more the EVEN better!). I won't go any further in this section.

Building Blocks
Building blocks will act as the basis of everything else I discuss in this post. To anyone that wants to learn how to draw ponies and to anyone that has asked about how to draw ponies, I always link to the same image, which is the one below:

Credit goes to I actually don't know who. But this shit is golden! Learn and memorize pony artists to be!

This also has a lot to do with pony anatomy and proportions, but below you can also see the building blocks, which for ponies consist of three spheres - the head, the chest cavity and the hips. You may think ponies are simple, but surprisingly, Bridgman and a lot of figure artists begin teaching human figure drawing using these same three building blocks - The head, the chest cavity and the hips.

From here, the body can be broken down even more, including limbs, portions of limbs, facial features, hair, etc. The number of building blocks is up to the artists, but keep in mind that while more blocks introduce a more fluid and defined system, it also makes drawing the figure a lot slower. Besides, with enough practice, you should be able to build a figure with a minimun amount of blocks, if any at all (JJ barely uses any guidelines at all when drawing ponies). For the sake of these explanations, the pony bodies will be broken down into three groups - the head (the head), the body (the chest cavity and hips) and the limbs (all four legs).

Now we come upon Saurab's homework, which are building cubes and boxes. Everything can ultimately be simplified into some form of a box, and understanding a box in perspective can lead to understanding anything that is built from boxes in perspective.

Here I show how a pony can be simplified into building blocks. I realize these are not perfect, but this should illustrate my point.

Once these boxes are understood, the now 3-d sections of the pony's bodies can be isolated as their unique shapes, rather than that of a simple cube.

I suck at tracing, but the point stands. The cubes can then be broken into shapes with unique sizes, shapes, weights, etc.

Both recognizing and understanding these building blocks will help immensly when trying to build pony positions that you have no reference for. This is how people invent and create new poses, while also maintaining proper proportions and anatomy. Looking at Discommunicator's lyra drawing, this artist has a clear understanding of all things structure, from anatomy to building blocks. For this reason, I'll let you take a look yourself and find the building blocks.

[image loading]

Discommunicator constructs his Lyra in a way (with a little bit of help from values) that each pose is possible in the 3d world and makes sense.

As mentioned before, these building blocks will also play a vital role for understanding The Action portion of figure drawing.

The Action

Whereas The Structure is an absolute must for any artist to succeed, The Action can vary between artists and tends to become a deciding factor of how interesting the figure drawing is. This is because of the fact that The Structure determines how "realistic" or "viable" a character is, while The Action gives the character life, purpose and meaning. I will simplify The Action into three catagory, although once again, there are many more. These are Balance, Wedging and Rhythem.

[*]Disclaimer. From here on, my inability to art will inhibit my ability to explain. I will try anyways.

Balance
In physics we learn that an object is considered static if it isn't moving, and that if a force is applied to the object in one direction, the object must somehow be able to compensate and apply force elsewhere in order to remain static. This is the same for figure drawing. Alot of these Lyra images suggest a lot of force and movement, most of which would probably knock Lyra on her plot if she were standing straight up like a plank. In order to ensure proper balance in his character, Discommunicator must at all times put Lyra in a stance or position that would suggest stability and resistance. How he does this, is predominantly through Lyra's hind legs in comparison to her body mass. Given the MLP style, all flesh is provided in one homogenous flesh material that is near indistinguishable from body part to body part. It is safe to say, then, that all flesh is essentially of the same density. For this reason, the only way to suggest shifting weight on the legs is the shape of the leg and the position the leg sits in. If you look at the legs, you will notice that each hind leg comes to a point, which is standard in the MLP art style. If all flesh is of the same density, the part of the leg that comes to a point would be "heavier" than the rest. Therefore, in order to suggest balance with the legs, Discommunicator positions the leg and the direction in which it is pointing in order to best resist a force.

[image loading]

Balancing using the limbs; By compensating her weight and applying resistance in the right direction (as indicated by the yellow), Lyra can resist the oncoming force.

This is balance for primarily just Lyra's legs. If not moving, all building blocks and not only her legs must be balanced and in the right positions. Too much shifting without a loss of balance or actual movement will lead to awkward poses and images.

Wedging
Wedging is related to balance and has to do with the interlocking nature of the building blocks that are found in the body. Normally for humans wedging is very important, as most of our joints act that a ball and socket mechanism. Similarly, ponies work the same way, except it is harder to recognize. The location where wedging is most noticable is at the connection between the hip and the thighs. Therefore, when drawing ponies, keeping wedging in mind is most important here in order to avoid awkward looking set ups. It would not be kind to make Lyra appear as if she had dislocated both her hips, or if her thigh was actually located somewhere not-so-pleasant rather than where it should be. This can be applied to the forelimbs as well, as popping should blades can create bizzare images as well. However, if done correctly, wedging should create a sense of tension or relaxing between the building blocks, depending upon what you are aiming for.

Rhythm
Rhythm, which is the point that Cam hits on the most, is the sensation of movement through the characters. However, although the movement lines do much to help suggest movement, it is important to remember that these are just simplification and symbolization for moving wind/sound/distortion/debris/etc., and that Lyra herself must likewise be drawn in order to suggest fluid and believable movement. The best example here involves comparing Lyra "taunting" and Lyra "HP Regen"-ing. Comparing the two, even if the movement lines did not exist in the "taunt" image, it would still be more apparent that she is moving in that image than in the "HP Regen"ing image. Similar to the idea with balance, this is because there is still noticable tension and force being applied in the first image, while the second image is relaxed and in no tension what so ever. This is especially true when looking at Lyra's arm in the "taunt" phase. While her hoof comes to a position of resistance and apparent halting, it appears as if the rest of the arm behind it continues a little bit beyond. This suggests a jerk (change in acceleration you perverts), which indicates harsh movement of sorts. This is stretching it a bit, but this becomes more and more apparent with more radical jumping/running movements, in which the characters building block positions and apparent moment provide interesting displays of "movement" when there really isn't any, since it really is just ink on paper.

Saurabhinator displaying rhythm in its full glory! Embrace the jumping Twi!

Also, as cam mentions, hair plays a massive role in movement notification, which I'll allow y'all to read about in his artist spot light :D.

Once again, this post does not dispute anything Camail stated, all it does it present an analysis in a different light. For those learning ponies, figure drawing is a very important part, along with facial expressions. Learn both of these and you'll be well on your way to making cutesie pony wubby dubby art. I'd greatly appreciate any additional critiques to my points, disputes from Cam or disagreement from any artist out there. Aka, let me know if I'm wrong and put me in the right direction :D.

Ags out.

Camail

United States1030 Posts

April 29 2012 06:29 GMT

#11307

I DISAGREE WITH ALL OF THAT FUCK YOU.

jpak

United States5045 Posts

April 29 2012 11:50 GMT

#11308

The BBBFF song is stuck in my head now. It's SO CATCHY!!

Witten

United States2094 Posts

April 29 2012 12:03 GMT

#11309

Is there anything better than coming home from a hard day of work, making a big glass of water, lying in bed and winding down for the night to MLP:FIP?

If there is please tell me, because I'd love to experience pleasure beyond that :D.

Caumen

Denmark42 Posts

April 29 2012 16:02 GMT

#11310

On April 29 2012 20:50 jpak wrote:
The BBBFF song is stuck in my head now. It's SO CATCHY!!

That is so incredderdibly otterly right ma gud sir.

It is indeedyfully weely easily to catch on to.

Daralii

United States16991 Posts

April 29 2012 17:01 GMT

#11311

http://ziom05.deviantart.com/art/Chrysalis-The-Dark-Queen-299086934

Kinda surprised there haven't been more Zerg/Tyranid-y drawings with Chrysalis.

Camail

United States1030 Posts

April 29 2012 18:47 GMT

#11312

Indolent

Poland137 Posts

April 29 2012 20:24 GMT

#11313

+ Show Spoiler +

On April 30 2012 02:01 Daralii wrote:
[image loading]

http://ziom05.deviantart.com/art/Chrysalis-The-Dark-Queen-299086934

Kinda surprised there haven't been more Zerg/Tyranid-y drawings with Chrysalis.

Holy Pony, this is the greatest MLP art I've ever seen.

Chairman Ray

United States11903 Posts

April 30 2012 00:34 GMT

#11314

SPOILER FOR SEASON 3
+ Show Spoiler +

Gonna be a Discord episode!

Brutaxilos

United States2622 Posts

April 30 2012 00:45 GMT

#11315

On April 30 2012 09:34 Chairman Ray wrote:
SPOILER FOR SEASON 3
+ Show Spoiler +

Gonna be a Discord episode!

Link?

Gary Oak

Canada2381 Posts

April 30 2012 01:03 GMT

#11316

On April 30 2012 09:45 Brutaxilos wrote:

Show nested quote +

Link?

John de Lancie confirmed it at FanExpo Vancouver. I should know; I was there in the audience when he confirmed it during the panel.

hacklebeast

United States5090 Posts

April 30 2012 02:41 GMT

#11317

On April 30 2012 09:34 Chairman Ray wrote:
SPOILER FOR SEASON 3
+ Show Spoiler +

Gonna be a Discord episode!

+ Show Spoiler +

If I'm not mistaken, he only said he was doing more work with them. Probably discord, but there are a lot of people on the show who voice multiple characters.

edit: ah, I was thinking of a different interview