Hi all, I'd like to show the work of the three artists who've collaborated to illustrate my story, and how they applied their different styles to different kinds of scene;

Chibionpu doing dramatic fantasy landscapes :

ValyceNegative tackling action scenes :

and DomiDeLance doing atmospheric / character scenes:

The above are all commissions; I do the maps;

and the concept sketches for the artists (some of these are still pending final art);

As you'd expect the artists take those and do their own sketches for approval before the final, e.g.

The roleplay and hence the story is just hitting its stride, so I'm hopeful there will be a lot more art to come and maybe some new artists joining in the future. Thanks for looking :)

7335085
The art work is amazing as are the maps you created I’m not as talented in drawing maps the work you put into them gives it a real fantasy feel and I’m sure it’ll help to bring life to your story as for the commissions I think the third one down with the unicorn shooting the green slug creatures the best! The drool on the teeth is phenomenal!

hard world-building is awsome

7335085
Damn, this is a nice post. I like the art as well, especially the character atmospheric ones.

7335085
Hmm... The first ones remind mme of

TGreat Big Sky

• MLP: FiM
• Adventure
• Sad

A brisk wind blows Applejack's hat away. She goes chasing after it and finds herself in another world.

• Applejack
• Apple Bloom
• Granny Smith

shortskirtsandexplosions · 4.9k words  ·  340  7 · 3.6k views

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Ah, a somewhat more abstract interpretation. To be clear, this story is a relatively serious take on G4 ponies (and kirin, griffons, a hippogriff) exploring Skylands, an established setting with a lot of neat stuff in it.

It's a few centuries after the time of the games though and a lot of things are changed and unfamiliar: we haven't been to any canon Skylands locations yet but probably will eventually.

7335454
Oh. Cool.

As much as I hate the later seasons, I appreciate good art!!!

7336013
You don't like kirin and/or hippogriffs? I thought Mount Aris & Sequestria had great designs.

7336471
I felt it was a horrendous waste not to have the hippogriffs be griffin/pony hybrids as they are in the myths, and thus create some drama between the two (since griffins ATE equines in the myths, and thus the existence of a hybrid between them is even more dramatic). And reduces the seaponies to a 'two for one sale.'

And the Kirin felt well... excessive. All fantasy settings eventually get bloated with entire sapient species that speak the same language of the heroes, have money, trade, and yet have made no contact with anyone... Though that isn't particular to them. I was so looking forward to seeing some dragon/pony hybrids and thus giving hope to Spike and Rarity starting a family.

7336477
There is a credibility issue with that in that if it was possible for everycreature to interbreed, they would have done so long ago, and we wouldn't see distinct species at all. Everycreature would be chimeras with random blends of different anatomy. Which would be an interesting setting but very different from MLP, which focused on distinct species learning to overcome biological and cultural differences and get along. I like chimeric characters but as one-off creations of unusual magic, not as the norm.

7335085
Damn, you've got some great artists there, yourself included!

7338489

Eh, about the best I can do is

(concept sketch from an upcoming scene where Reef Skimmer the hippogriff manages to get a limited form of shapeshifting back, and wildly overcompensates trying to impress the captain with it. Unfortuantely he asked Bluebell for advice, and that mare is a hopeless fan of trashy romance novels, so...)

7335085

Good old Roger Dean--I wonder what happened to him?

A little more art; a nice clean illustration of Pony-Dragon diplomacy from KlaraPL:

An atmospheric exploration scene from Chibionpu:

Azure Feather attempting a unicorn -> alicorn ascension but ending up with unicorn -> pegasus instead:

Another map from me:

Some character references (including Reef Skimmer the hippogriff's forms after having a horrible magical accident and slowly learning how to shapeshift):

and some more concept sketches for upcoming work:

7335085
So how much did commissioning these artists for your story cost?

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These commissions were from 60 USD to 160 USD, depending on the artist and the scene.

A few more from this story:

Nutmeg Inferno the kirin and Gearshift the earth pony accept an offer from Spyro the dragon to visit the Skylander Academy. It's pretty much a ruin, but Flashwing is happy to see them:

The ponies journey to the Temple of the Four Winds, hoping to meet the native griffons. This is where Azure Feather will take the trials, hoping to ascend from unicorn to alicorn:

Dirt shark CEO Firesteel takes the ponies for a spin in his Executive Monster Truck, Megalodon! Just watch out for that death-ray spewing doom pyramid that the felitaurs inconveniently built over there.

Another awesome piece by ValyceNegative; the latest chapter is kind of a cross between the atmosphere processor scene from Aliens and Disney's Thunder Mountain Railroad ride :)

She also did this illustration: the start of Summer Scribe's journey towards being Goddess Queen of the Sphinxes (i.e. her getting trapped in a golden statue and making a ceramic golem of herself):

Alas, the last image from DomiDeLance (she's moving away from pony art), of Set Sail and Lakeshine:

That's it for now, but more are in the works;

A couple more illustrations, one for ponies caught in a levitation trap by MissMele Madness (except for the symbols on the map, which were me):

and one for the fight at the abandoned mine by Calena - great details on this one: