MLP - A Changeling in the Wonderbolts

"You don't have to be a pegasus to fly."

- Wonderbolts Cultural Exchange Training Program

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Explanation for non-bronies:

Changeling (species);
Insectoid equine with the ability to take the appearance of any other pony. Literally requires "love" as a source of nutrition. "Bit" of a political clash between changeling- and pony-kind due to a recent (failed) invasion attempt on the pony-nation's capitol.



Wonderbolts (team, group, organisation);
The Wonderbolts are a highly respected team of professional stunt-flyers.
However, while there are several sentient species capable of flight in Equestria (e.g. griffins), it would appear that the team consists entirely of pegasus-ponies.

... so here's a Changeling who made it into the Wonderbolts.


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"How I made this drawing:"
Going for a totally new drawing / shading technique here ... basically, how all the other people do it.

drew the character using pen & paper
^{(...yeah, I never do that. Usually I straight out start drawing stuff in Flash with my tablet using the line-tool and fumble around till it looks good. Never been much of a fan of drawing stuff with pen & paper. Got started as an artist drawing comics and stuff for flash movies with a mouse, drawing with a pencil kinda seemed like a backwards step at the time. Guess taking that art course at university just made me frustrated that basic options like "CTRL-Z", "drag'n'drop", "rotate/resize" didn't exist on paper.
But if the lineart on paper is just supposed to be the "beta version" of the finished lineart... well, turns out it goes a ton faster than how I usually do it, is a lot less frustrating than I remember it too be, and the above result speaks for itself.)}
scanned the pencil-drawing
traced my own drawing in Flash using the "ink"-tool
added basic colors in flash
split the result into "color only" and lineart
used GIMP for shading / lighting
^{("lock transparency" comes quite in handy here, allows you to shade one part of the drawing without the colors bleeding out over everything else)}
totally overdo it with the shading / lighting on several layers.

And BAM, had the finished digital lineart after just about 5 hours, and the entire picture done in less than a week. Usually, I'd expect the lineart alone to take this amount of time. Could probably have done it even faster if I had figured out the whole "alpha channel lock" trick a little earlier. Oh, and the "smudge"-tool is pretty neat for shading purposes too.

Wow.

So, basically, I've probably been doing it wrong all my life, yay!

Totally gonna have to do more stuff with this approach.



Other changeling pictures: