//------------------------------// // Chapter 84- Off The Pages // Story: Reformed Unicorn Group Podcast // by Quoterific //------------------------------// “Hope you have your creative minds for today’s crafts session,” Starlight welcomed every creature to another edition of the R.U.G., “Today’s crafts session is brought to you by Sunset again. So showed us painting and street art, so why don’t you introduce to us what we are doing today?” The group turned to Sunset who smiled and clapped her hooves together. “Today, I am going to show you all pop and comic art,” Sunset smiled as she got out sets of card paper, stencils, coloured pens, pencils and rulers, “I love drawing little comic strips of me and the girls on our adventures.” “Adventures like you fighting Equestrian magic in your world?” Tempest asked in curiosity. “From time to time,” Sunset explained, “But also of small adventures as well. There was this one time we were at the mall thinking of having cupcakes, when all of a sudden, someone was robbing a jewellers shop. We pony-ed up and went after the robber.” “Sounds thrilling!” Trixie leaned closer, “Did you manage to capture the thief?” “We cornered him, and I used my empathy to see why he was robbing a jewellers shop. I just wanted to impress his girlfriend of all things, but he had to have time behind bars. We got our cupcakes as a well-earned treat.” “Anyways, let’s get creating,” Starlight urged the group on before pausing, “I sounded like Rarity didn’t I?” The others nodded with knowing smiles. “So what is the best way to do pop comic art, Sunset?” Tempest looked at the various craft tools with interest of where today’s show was going. “First, let’s start with fonts and letters,” Sunset smiled, “You can use the stencils with letters, or go freestyle.” The others chose to go free style. “The best way to start is with a pencil to create an outline of the letter and font. The fonts should reflect the mood, sound or movement,” Sunset explained, “Forever, if Rainbow Dash is going fast, you want something that shows her speed like zoom, zap or whoosh. Then you need to decide the font. For something like going fast, you may want something with sharp lines and corners. Something bold and pops out of the page, like as if Rainbow Dash is flying out of the page.” Sunset began drawing Rainbow Dash flying with a pencil in her magic, the others leaning in to get a good look at Sunset doing her work. Sunset drew a determined look on Rainbow Face, also with a hint of confidence. She included a sharp rainbow trail from behind her. She then went over the pencil lines with a black marker, colouring Rainbow’s body, cutie mark, mane and tail in the right colour and order. She then went to the rainbow trail coming off from Rainbow to add the font. She decided to include the word ‘zoom’ at the back. She first added sharp lines for each letter with sharp corners. She also drew some indicators of highlights for the letters. After going over the pencil line with the black marker, she coloured the letters in red and lighter red for the highlights. She then turned her attention to the background. “For the background, colour and shading are key. You want a colour that also reflects what the reader should feel and the character. Shading helps your character stand out as well as the texts to help draw the reader’s attention to them,” Sunset further explained before continuing with her work. She chose a light yellow background and shaded around the letters and Rainbow Dash dark, moving to a light yellow the further away she went. For the rainbow trail, she chose a lighter colour of each colour to fade away from where the prismatic pegasus was flying. Finally, she added shards of broken glass around Rainbow Dash, first doing them in pencil and a thin black marker. She shaded the glass in a light blue. When she finished, it looked as if Rainbow was flying off the page. The others gave claps of appreciation and admired Sunset’s work. “You made it look so easy,” Tempest complimented, “Doubt we’ll be any good on the first go.” “Like all things, it took a lot of time, patience and practice,” Sunset waved a hoof, “I’m not expecting you to be great at this on the first go, but let’s see what we can do for one crafts session.” The others nodded at started on their piece of work, copying the steps Sunset took for her example work. Trixie, as usually, made a piece of herself in a dramatic standing pose, with multi-coloured fireworks around her. She included the words, boom, pop and bang to show the sounds of the fireworks going off. Her cape and hat was flying in some breeze as she stood proudly in front of a blurred audience. Sunset chuckled, expecting something like this from Trixie, then turned her attention to Tempest’s work. She quirked an eyebrow at what she saw. Tempest wanted to show her travels in and beyond Equestria, telling every creature the news of the Storm King’s defeat. She chose a moment when she was trekking across the harsh outland deserts. Tempest was down and hunched over, panting sounds coming from her mouth and sweat dripping from her body. The font was slack and drooping, as if the letters were going to drizzle down the page. The background showed the heat of the desert, Tempest choosing hot colours of reds, oranges and yellows, a white baking sun in the background as well. “This was a time where I whished I had taken off my old Storm King armour,” Tempest chuckled wryly, “Although, I am thankful to Rarity for making me a scarf when I went to the cold places.” Sunset giggled, knowing Rarity’s skills, before turning her attention to Starlight’s work. Starlight chose to do herself practising magic, reading off a book. She was sitting down, her horn glowing and tendrils of light turquoise emitting off of it. The words she chose to convey the scene were fizzle, zap and sparkle, showing the way the magic moved on the paper. The fonts were in a slithering movement, following the actions of the magic lights. Her background was dark to highlight herself in the middle of the paper and the light of her magic. “You’ve all done a great job, everypony,” Sunset clapped as their time drawing came to an end, “I’m sure we can display all our work in Ponyville’s café. I have even been asked by Cheerilee from Ponyville’s day school if I would take up a arts and crafts class with the foals.” “I think that’s a great idea,” Starlight smiled as she, and the others, admired each other’s works, “Well, hope you were inspired to have a go and pop and comic art too every creature. That is all we have time for on the Reformed Unicorn Podcast group, and we hope to see you all again soon!”