ooooh... burn?

Thank you for making me all feel worse.

Let's be nice.

I guess Groups can choose their standards. i dunno. I never tried to submit work to one before.

Rhyme, I'm not an artist and I don't feel comfortable giving you a critique, but you should focus on straighter, cleaner lines and be more careful with proportional consistency. That's really all I can say.

The thing is that every time I try to fix the latter I mess up the former.

Dang, now I'm remembering why I never finished beowulf when I tried to read it in high school. This thing's kind of hard.

Hard as in hard to read, or hard as in boring?

^If you have a good translation, it's really a lot of fun to read - and Old English-style poetry is just a lark to write! No rhymes, a rather loose meter...

Prancing the ponies, - - -Triumphant the raiders
The Daneponies ride to Celestia's castle
Bearing their trophy, - - -the statue of Discord
The bane of the countryside, harmony's foe.

edited 24th Oct '11 12:50:23 PM by RedSavant

@Rhyme Beat:

Hum... I may be able to help a bit, but it requires me to both don my critical pants and my nasty cap. So I apologize for that, a bit.

So the inital issue is the anatomy. I've seen some of your previous stuff and you've certainly improved, but it's still very much off. I can just from looking that you draw free, without any sort of guides. Now while I myself am hesitant to use guides all the time, since they can really clutter an image up, in your case I'd say you could really use them. They are good for practice, until you can really get the feel of your subject down pat and can afford to start working without them.

Note that when I say guides I don't mean one of the 'how to draw book' guides, where it gives you step by step tips. I mean to start by drawing the skeleton and basic shapes first. here's◊ a good example, the one that I first used when I started drawing ponies.

Essentially just remember that your subject, like all things, is comprised of shapes. big circular heads, chests and rumps, little square noses, that sort of thing. Starting with the shapes gives you the basic idea, and then all that's left to do is stretch the skin over top of it, smoothing out the transitions and filling in the missing bits. This will also help you with the second issue: your drawing has no real feeling of depth. You've made it feel like the legs are behind one another, sure, but it feels like construction paper layered on top of itself. they feel flat.

Now, another part of this is the poses: They're boring and lifeless. They're all just... standing there, in side view. They aren't doing anything. It's like they're posing for mugshots. Nobody ever just stands around. They're always doing something, even if it's just leaning, or posing because they think it makes them look cool. Give them all something to do - tie it into their personalities, too. These ponies are alive, so make it come through! Give them dynamic poses, personalities reflected in how they carry themselves. A shy pony might be hunkered down, wheras an awesome pony might be puffing out their chest.

And now for the nasty part. For where you are right now... I wouldn't trust you to be composing the poses to much. I'm not sure how well you would be able to get the feeling of real depth across as they come at us from different angles. So: practice, practice practice practice! Take a look at those guides, start using them and doodle! Draw ponies flying, draw ponies running, draw ponies playing hopscotch while balancing an egg on a spoon in their mouth! Draw ponies just doing stuff, whenever you get the opportunity. Try for really strange and interesting poses. Eventually, it'll start coming out looking better. You're lines will smooth out, they'll start looking more deep and real, and you'll start to learn how to get those personalities across through body language.

In the end, the best piece of advice I can give you is this: Push yourself. You'll never improve if you just try to stay around your level, so really push hard, and do stuff you know you'll screw up at. And don't get discouraged; drawing is a really tricky skill to acquire. I've been doing it almost nonstop for 8 years, and I'm not even that good yet. So don't give up, and push yourself to the limit! You can do this! I believe in you!

EDIT: this◊ may be a better guide for a beginner - it shows the real basic shapes more clearly, as opposed to the bean body.

DOUBLE EDIT: One final point, but this is largely a personal preference as the ponies are highly stylized, but STUDY YOUR SUBJECT. Study it thoroughly. Look at actual pictures of actual horses, or at the very least watch the episodes very carefully. That way you'll be able to tell when the anatomy looks 'right' or not.

edited 24th Oct '11 1:01:44 PM by kegisak

Hard to read.

I decided to go with two translations, one is the more formal, old sounding kind, and the other is more modern with more effort put into making it understandable and poetic feeling than straight translation.

Edit, maybe you should write this. You'll certainly do a much better job than me.

edited 24th Oct '11 12:51:25 PM by CDRW

I certainly don't have time to do it. It sounds like fun, but I have two essays due on Friday that I haven't started yet (much).

@Rhyme Beat, To be fair, if I were to have standards, they wouldn't fit mine either, sorry. Just... Well It looks like Kegisak has said plenty, I'll provide my own input when I'm done reading his.

EDIT: And turns out I don't have to, thank you Kegisak, couldn't have said it better meself.

edited 24th Oct '11 12:58:02 PM by MousaThe14

Maybe Rime Of The Ancient Mariner. I'm more familiar with that, and if I could get someone to do art in the style of the engravings it went with....

But there's no pony pun that comes to mind with that title.

edited 24th Oct '11 1:00:27 PM by CDRW

Much better. My problem was "reject it without giving real criticism" not "they rejected it".

What's worse is that when I asked for critique, even though I used the proper method for asking the mad stated. "I'm just a mod, I can't be expected to grant criticism" and the "listen to the comment someone else made(Kuroi)" which is pretty close to what I actually did (he helped mainly on proportions and didn't get to the depth or posing issues).

In truth part of the reason I even bother with DA is that I want to improve but if flat "not good enough" is all they wish to say then I'm really irritated.

You're expecting critique from devianart? I'm happy if I get a feeble comment or a smiley face. I suggest not getting your hopes up. Putting stuff in a group will not increase your odds for critique. Seen, maybe Favorited, but not critiqued.

Still it really hurts when a group that HAS quality standards won't give them when asked.

Maybe I should try an art site that actually cares but DA's the only big one I really know.

Well if you find such a site, be sure to tell me.

I'm really hankering for some new songs. Y'think there's gonna be a duet between Rarity and Sweetie Belle next episode?

edited 24th Oct '11 1:18:03 PM by gingerninja666

Rarity singing... yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees please.

Art of the Dress is one of my favorite songs.

Meh. The songs are overrated.

Yeah, but I still enjoy hearing one every now and then

BURN THE HERETICSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the longest number of episodes we've gone without a song (not counting songs from commercials), isn't it?

First season at this poit (ep 4) had 3 songs.