Gentian's Photographic Misadventures

[Gentian]

I've been wanting to do an updated image of my ponysona, and decided throw in my human self-insert, too, since that's really all the pony is; a way for me to send my mind beyond the sundry horrors of this awful world. I do however, fully intend to remain human in Equestria, but sometimes a pony point of view, as it were, can be fun.

In the center you see a scale. Its height is 15cm on the paper, and matching it to my human's height of 160cm yields a ratio of 10.7 "scale" centimeters per "page" centimeter, and Cirrus was drawn according to that. The 3 marks are, from top to bottom: 160.7 cm, the height of my human; 97.4 cm, the height of Cirrus at the crown of her head; and 57.2 cm, the height of Cirrus at her withers. Beneath this is a clearer image of Cirrus' cutie mark, explained in more detail below.

On the right, you see my human self-insert. This is pretty much how I like to imagine myself whenever I read a story, and put myself within it, wander my memory palace, or wonderland, fantasize, etc. I usually don't wear the schoolgirl outfit, as I don't consume much school-set media, anymore, but it has been a while since I drew one, and I needed to wear something. The uniform is from the school in my little series of comics and short stories called Sussex Academy. Since my ponysona was originally merely a mare-ified version of her, I decided to give her the same hair stripes as Cirrus for this pic, and I put a silver pin of Cirrus' cutie mark on the left side of her sailor-collar, to keep with the EQG standard.

I made a pony-style uniform of the same design for Twilight's plush, once, but it's nice to see a decent (for my skill level) human version, too, imho, even if it is only 2D.

On the left is Cirrus Dawn, my ponysona. She wears her hair in a loose bun most of the time, like me, but lets her tail blow free. It's a blonde gradient, with a prominent stripe of pink and purple. Her coat is gray, or white depending on my mood, and her cutie mark is a blue rose, to represent the unique, interesting, and some would say, downright impossible nature of what I hope for. I went with white in this pic to keep with the EQG standard of pony/human having the same coloration.

Her favorite thing to do is go for flights in the very highest clouds, and she frequently does so in the early morning so she can be the first thing the sun touches. Her most common occupation is as part of the local weather team, but it's important to remember ponies don't have to work in the same manner humans currently do, because Equestria is a post-scarcity world, and she spends even more of her time with Twilight in the Golden Oak snuggling and reading. Her scent is of fresh, high-altitude winds, and approaching rain, but her long and frequent cuddle-sessions with Twi mean it is often mixed with Twilight's own bouquet of lavender, fruit, and old books.

All in all, I like the way my human came out, but Cirrus leaves something to be desired in the way I drew her, in particular her muzzle shape, and eyes. I've also been unable to find a technique of shading with colored pencils which yields satisfactory results, but I prefer flat color, to crosshatched monochrome, so until I can learn or develop something better, this is it.

Comments and criticism are always welcome on my art, as long as the criticism is constructive, but I'm going to deliberately ask for it this time, in the hopes of gaining advice on drawing in general, and shading/coloring in particular. This request in the blurb is the most I can do, so please, if you have something to say, do so.

Thank you for dropping by, have a great day.