#faline-art

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Color your pastel horse.

I woke up two and a half hours before my alarm, so here’s a quick Glimmer before dawn (work).

Original sketch once again by the wonderful @faline-art! 

This one is a quickie. There’s more I could have done, but I think this works for now. Love the nervous micro expression that you gave Glimmy, Faline. She’s happy, but also just a teeny bitty little worried about something.

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When I saw that @faline-art was offering commissions I want to be one of the first to step up and receive one. I was waiting for an official announcement but just to be sure I did contact her with interest and she accepted right away. Above is what I asked for, and there was a little bit more color than what was originally requested. I just had to ask for a detailed sketch so that I could color it myself of course.

I've always had a soft spot for Roseluck. There is just something about her style and and simplistic colors that really draws my eye. As Faline said, Her colors are simple but are very complementary much like a real rose. What can I say? I really like her mane. Original sketch below;

I didn't really try any new techniques with this one. I was trying to color this in a hurry before I ended up leaving for about a week down to an old town I used to live in.  So I can say for certain that I really enjoyed coloring this. Putting colors on one of my favorites ponies on a sketch made by one of my favorite artists  was just fun to do despite how hurried I was. I wasn't too sure what to do with the basket of flowers so I just assumed there was some lavender thrown in with a couple of roses as well. I just simply  eyeballed the colors from there.

The rest of Roseluck  is just simply  show accurate colors along with the simple but quick shading that I learned from Dilarus  way back when.  Overall this is hands down my favorite of everything of colored from Faline. It was more than worth the money to grab the commission when I could.

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Right of the back of @faline-art‘s recent Tempest Shadow, we have an autumn Apple that they did a few weeks back! Things are getting a bit more chilly here in Utah, and I find myself wishing I had a few more layers of warm clothes between me and the winter air when during the rare times I’m outside. I have to admit, seeing a happy Apul like this one warms me up a bit inside. Has to be one of my favorites from their gallery. Again, give them a follow if you haven’t already!

This one was a bit spontaneous. I had it in my ‘to color’ folder for a little while now. It was only when Amarynceus invited me to a multi stream that I had to find something to color on the quick. I don’t like to miss any chance to stream with the greats, after all.

Original sketch and the coloring process below.

Most drastic thing I did differently was change the brightness values. I wanted to get some brighter colors going and it was worth a try to learn something new. Found out I could brighten up the entire layer without losing much if any lineart fidelity. The difference can be noticed by  comparing the background between the two. 

The rest was simply using a pen and flat colors. Painted the entire thing by hand without using too many shortcuts. Wanted to use more festive colors of red and green. So happy Faline put a scarf in there so I can fit some green in. Scarfs should match the eyes, after all. The deep red bordering on burgundy looks so very good on our favorite Apul horse. Even the brown looking boots are just a different shade of red. I believe it’s quickly surpassing blue as my favorite color. So many options.

Another thing I’ve done is switch stylus nibs here and there. I’ve been using felt tip nibs for a very long time now. Decided to swap out and found a difference in how I color. What used to be fare too sensitive of an input has now become very easy to manage after a year or so of coloring. Flex nibs have more traction and ‘bite’ than others do, which makes them great for lining, but the default plastic seems to make coloring a bit faster and easier since it responds to even the lightest of touch. 

That’s all I can say for now. I fear I might have less to talk about in the future, but I believe that can be solved by continuing to challenge myself. I hope you guys continue to be there with me on t his journey.

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I just cannot stay away from @faline-art‘s work. And I’ll be honest, I really don’t plan to. There’s plenty there to keep me busy.

This is actually from an older page of expressions Faline put together on this original post. Though all of them are fun, this one in particular stood out to me. Just seemed like a rather strong look for AJ. Silent tears like this one are far more interesting in the mystery when they are associated with an emotionally strong character like AJ.

You know the drill. I go deeper in coloring this thing down below. This time I tried inking the original...

Cropping out the character was the first step of course. Faline mentioned in the original post that this page was damaged before they could properly scan it. Though I do find the “imperfect” nature of traditional art so very appealing, I felt like I should attempt to bring out the lines a little bit more. It was @greyartpost who began to urge me to try inking/lining so I made this my initial practice. And well, It should be no surprise that I’m not all that great at it.

I’ll be honest. I actually think it looks better than when I finished the lines initially. I guess sleeping on it helped a bit. Below is how this looks with the colors without Faline’s original sketch underlayed without %50 opacity like the first image above.

Faline’s sketch gives it a world more of definition than my lines can at this point. It’s one reason I’ve avoided lining work and sought out easier pieces to color. It’s away from my comfort zone. And when one is trying something new, it can get messy and demoralizing. I’m going to try and get past that if you all will stick with a future of messy lines. I’m still going to do everything I can to show respect to the original work as I do.

Used a pencil brush. I downloaded some custom ones that you’ll see in the future. DAUB has a free set that I highly recommend. It feels better than the original that Clip Studio came with. Show accurate colors sans shading. I’m finding myself to be much quicker working on things, so I might not have as much to say in these posts going forward. I know a few people enjoy reading these longer posts about my coloring process, so I shall try not to disappoint. 

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I colored this before I colored @faline-art‘s Raripunk sketch, but Rarity turned out so nice that I had to post that one first. Besides, its quite a bit more visually interesting (color wise) then my silly little OC up here. Only thing in common is they both like wearing leather (jackets.), at least part of the time. 

Faline drew this out of nowhere. An honestly its something that brings me no shortage of joy when someone draws something on my behalf unsolicited (with the possible exception of any NSFW content, but I’ve yet to run into that). It shows good intentions and is proof of caring. I’m honestly having a hard time putting it into words. I just know it is something I’m not likely to forget, and of course I’m going to share it around and let people know who did such a thoughtful and generous thing.

The colors were taken from stuff that @atowncalledbedlam has drawn for me int he past, and it was a simple matter of putting them on the sketch. It’s where I found the technique to color the background easier that ended up coming in useful with the Raripunk color. I usually try to make the background match the eyes of some characters in some way, so it doesn’t clash with any other colors around the body. Decided to go with this light blue that turned out well.

As for this character… Well it’s hard to say. I’ve had OC’s that more represent me than actually are any sort of self insert. Trev horse here has this backstory in my head where he, by circumstance, ended up having to leave his home and his city and decides to kind of travel Equestria. Meets new friends, helps out where he can. 

I promise I thought of this before I ended up having to move due to circumstance as well.

A talent in music, he can sing well and carry a tune. Might improvise an instrument rather well. Is simply content to be on his travels and to meet what he hopes to be many friends.

Apologies for the unsolicited backstory there. Thought this was a good a time as ever to post it on here. Anyway, thank you for reading. I’ll leave you all to your wonderful evenings!

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Another color from an image by the amazing Faline-art.

There is no doubt that show-accurate colors look good with the work Faline does. This is no exception. These colors that my mind thinks should clash comes together to really highlight the striking personality beneath the surface. I still have yet to see the episode where Rarity showcases this look, but it’s an understatement to say it’s popular. I don’t know exactly where it fits in with my own tastes when it comes to style, but I found it absolutely striking so no complaints in seeing all the art created over the past few weeks.

It’s one reason I promised myself to color this one when Faline posted it and, as I suspected, it was fun. A little tedious coloring the different colors for the mane, but I think anybody who’s had to color Dash’s hair on a regular basis are used to it. Totally worth it though. I love the way this turned out. The subtle eye shadow and the eye color. Hard to put it into words at 6 A.M.

I should probably stop writing out these posts when so little sleep is involved.

I feel a bit lazy on this one. I honestly didn’t touch the body aside from the shading. I did add an initial color but it came out more grey and just didn’t contrast well enough with the other colors to keep it. Just boiled down to being perfect just the way it was. 

I wanted the background to reflect the colors as well. I’ve had little luck using multiple tones but I think I nailed it this time. I also tried a selection technique to make the background a little bit easier to save time. This left some white space around the edges (which I believe I can fix in the future with fine tuning.). I took advantage of the colored halo I added to kind of hide those white spots. I swear I had the halo before I noticed the touchups. The entire background was with a rough textured pencil that just helped give Rarity a sort of ‘glow’.

Thanks again for giving me permission to color you art, @faline-art It’s always a pleasure!

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Here’s another colored sketch from @faline-art! I saw this happy looking Sunset and wanted to see her in vivid color. I was thinking about doing their Pinkie next but everything changed when I saw this hit my dash.

Now I’ve always the same opinion as Dilarus in regards to sketches. That a piece of art doesn’t need color in order to consider it ‘finished’ or ‘done’. I believe there is plenty of personality that the artist expresses and leaves behind with ink and graphite. 

Yet I cannot deny that there’s something about coloring a piece like this that brings more of that personality out. I don’t really believe I’m adding too much to the artwork. The process used is one I learned to quickly push out comics. It’s very simple and I’m sure I can teach someone to do it in an afternoon or two. And knowing the strength in @atowncalledbedlam‘s lines, I did what I could to always leave those lines intact. So I do believe I’m highlighting what’s already there when adding a splash or two of color to the mix. More to appreciate from the original artist.

Guess that’s the point of the jerks like me who work in the background half the time :P More about the process below the break.

I found a bit of a happy accident. Because I use the origin layer as a ‘multiply’ layer, much of the original shading remains intact. I may try to use a show accurate color at the start, but it will be altered from the artist’s original shading. I actually tried to change this at first (a little to late, and I didn’t want to start all over again) to try and make the color lighter. All attempts looked worse, so I kept with what you see above to the body while trying to do that color compensation for the mane and tail. 

And man, was I happy about that. I fell in love with the deep velvet shade that came from applying a very light maroon to the hair. Enough to use a variant of it for the background.

For the previous Applejack coloring I did here , I used a darker layer of the same color to do the shading. This wasn’t working out with the Sunset picture (I’m not master of Clip Studio) for whatever reason, so I went with the method Dilarus suggested and that I used for many of his comics. Going by the theory that shadows are a shade of blue instead of pure blackness, I chose a dark blue and adjusted the opacity to make it seem more natural.

The muzzle was too dark for a blanket method, so I made a second shading layer to make it seem like she didn’t stick her face in the mud. The rest was patience and a bit of experimentation. I forgot to add a background to the Applejack picture before, so I made sure to add a simple color backdrop to this one. Helps brings things out a bit.

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Here’s something I colored that belongs to @faline-art! You can find the original here. 

I’m a huge sucker for traditional styles like these, and their art caught my eye a few weeks ago. Finally decided to pull the trigger and give them a follow and ended up having a nice conversation where they mentioned I was free to color anything they have on their blog. So of course I chose Applejack :P.

Only took me around an hour. Was getting a bit too sick of video games and, going off of @atowncalledbedlam‘s post about doing something that makes us feel better, I decided to color. I may not be the best at it, but it does have a bit of a calming effect on me, and I thought that Faline would enjoy it (ends up they do). 

Might be more active in here in the future. For now, head over to Faline’s blog! There’s plenty more of quality sketchage to be found!