Newbie Artist Training Grounds XIII - Day 8: Seafilly Crusaders · 10:35am Jun 16th, 2023

Newbie Artist Training Grounds XIII - Day 8: Seafilly Crusaders

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I learned two things when drawing this picture. First, I draw the best when I'm completely and 100% relaxed. Not surprising, I know, but so far, I never noticed any difference between drawing while stressed and drawing while relaxed, neither in quality nor in feeling. For some reason, it was the first time today that pure relaxation had that effect on me.
Second, I feel the most relaxed when I'm sitting in a park, have nature around me and just chill. When I drew Scootaloo (I've drawn Sweetie Belle and Applebloom later, when I was back in my room), drawing each line went like a breeze, it felt so natural and I knew exactly what I was doing, I could translate every line from my reference screenshot with ease. But when I drew Sweetie Belle and Applebloom and had some time constraints, as well as was sitting in front of my computer again, I felt rather tense. And it wasn't just the time running out, I feel it's the drawing location too.
So, conclusion, I draw the best when I'm sitting chilled in a park. I won't be able to do this every time, at least not before I make drawing a regular thing, but for special pictures that mean a lot to me, such as this one, I want to draw in a park from now on.

This is my biggest, most complex picture that I've drawn for this year, so far. I thought my picture of Day 1 will be the one that's the most complex of them all, I truly thought I couldn't surpass that anymore, but this one does that. It took me more than five hours to draw. And it's not even finished yet.
I could finally draw my Crusaders as sea fillies for the "Ponies as Different Species" prompt. I already wanted to do this in 2020 or 2021 (I don't remember which year exactly it was), but I couldn't find enough time. Now it finally happened. The first time I drew them as sea fillies and the first time I drew sea ponies at all. There are minor errors, as usual related to drawing body parts in the right size, but overall I am very pleased with this picture. Scootaloo was easy to draw, like I said, because of the park relaxation. It became tense later with Sweetie Belle and Applebloom, but I got some much-needed practice in drawing filly noses. Drawing three filly noses in a row really helped my progress, Applebloom's nose looks much better than Scootaloo's and Sweetie Belle's and is nearly perfect. I want to boop it the entire day.
And I'm going to finish this picture, too. On the first Makeup Day on Sunday, I will color them and also draw the background from my reference screenshot and then submit it. It's a very simple background, this will be do-able for me, and I think this will be the first background I draw that is going to look actually good.

This picture was drawn for Day 8 of the Newbie Artist Training Grounds XIII with the prompt Draw a pony as a different species / Draw a pony starting over.

Stay easy as a filly!

~ Fluttercheer