FiMFic Cover - How to Train Your Pegasus

Story Link: www.fimfiction.net/story/18461…

Originally design from a photo of a sketch provided by the story's author, L3gion.

Well, this is officially the most complex and difficult cover I've ever worked on and the first time I think what I've done could be considered art. I ended up having to adjust her mane a little bit from the original and found what I hope is an acceptable shorter tail style. The biggest issue was getting all the extra stuff off of the original sketch. The lighting and the color of the pencil (red pencil on orange paper) made things quite a challenge. I probably drew her through an eraser ten times over, which is the main reason why the line thickness isn't as consistent as I would like.

For coloring, I went with Applejack's blond mane and a pale sapphire blue pair of eyes. Since all MLP ponies have an outline that's a variant of their color (for example, Celestia, while white, actually has a pink outline), I used the same color of her eyes as her outline and then added a 1-pixel-thin black outline to that to give it a bit more visual pop.

Snow Bolt isn't exactly show-quality (at all), but since most people will see this as a thumbnail rather than a full sized picture, I think it'll pass muster. I had even more problems with the title. For the life of me, I couldn't come up with anything that looked right...until I finally just decided to do what the author did: steal the title outright from Dreamworks.  The difference of course is that I used the MLP font instead of the "Dragon" font used in the film. I'm fairly satisfied with the final look.

The background is a combination of several "MLP stock" mountains and an overlay from one of the blizzard pictures in "The Crystalling, Part II." I added a bit of texturing to the snow as well. At least I'm happy with that one. 

I live by the rule "Do it right and do it with style." While not perfect, I hope the overall effect is satisfactory. Usually I have an inner Twilight being picky, but now I realize it's RARITY in my damn head demanding perfection. She's demanding.

Seriously though, most covers take me 20 minutes if that. The longer ones might end up clocking in at 45 minutes. This one was three days of on and off again work. 

Glad it's done though.