Overall

Vision Vision

Originality Originality

Technique Technique

Impact Impact

Hi, buddy! And a very happy birthday to you! This isn't probably the first thing that would come to mind as a birthday gift, but I know you've been looking for fair and in-depth critique from knowledgeable artists on ways to improve. While I would not call myself an expert, I have spent awhile combing this piece over to give you as best of a critique as I can in hopes that my feedback will help you on your quest for artistic perfection. So without further ado, here were some things I noticed about this piece.First off, this is a very nice recreation of a scene from a recent MLP:FiM episode, Amending Fences. I like this piece and the scene itself, because it does an excellent job capturing the disconnection between Twilight and her friends during her time in Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns. Twilight was so focused on her studies that she let her friendships slip away and was completely out-of-touch with how much Moon Dancer looked up to her. Although this piece captures but a moment, when combined with the knowledge of how Twilight would go on to become one of the iconic figures of her time, it becomes quite apparent why Moon Dancer would later come to find friendship a waste of her time and energy. "Twilight succeeded by obsessing over her studies at the expense of her friends. She didn't care enough to make time for us or remember our names. So why should I care either?"This is, as I mentioned, a recreation of an existing scene from the actual cartoon, so I can't really say this is the first time I've seen this particular scene. What does strike me, though, is how much effort you put into recreating as many of the details from the original as possible--right down to Minuette's right foreleg being off the ground as though she were mid-step, backing away from the table.Poses look great for the most part. A solid recreation of the original scene, though I do notice some potential areas for improvement going forward. First off, Lyra seems to be affected by a second light source behind and to the right of the viewer, whereas the rest of the ponies seem by and large only affected by the light coming through the windows from the sun in the top right behind the group. Not to say two light sources are impossible, it's just the rest of the room does not seem to match it in the same way as we see it on Lyra's body... especially not with the intensity of the wash out effect we see from the windows. Lyra's right foreleg also seems to be turned too far to the "open" position so that we see too much of the underside of her hoof relative to her body position because her "knee" is actually to the right (outside) of her shoulder. My mind's eye tells me her hoof should almost appear to be in its side profile perspective to us, as opposed to us seeing the entire underside of it.For Minuette, her rear left leg appears to be a tad short, I think, as with the background included, it almost appears like she is bearing no weight on that leg with it barely touching the floor. Given that it appears that she is only standing on her two left legs, as her right foreleg is notably off the ground, and the rear leg appears lifted off the ground in mid-step near the base of her tail, we should probably see more evidence of the weight being beared by her two planted legs by their positioning relative to her body. This leads me to believe that the light blue by Minuette's left rear leg was in fact supposed to be her tail in the original sketch and inking, but was mistakenly colored in subsequent steps, and that her real right leg was supposed to be (mostly, we would likely see the tip of the hoof in that case or a portion of the leg) obstructed by Lyra, but we lack the shadow evidence to confirm such a position.One final area you may wish to review for future pieces would be the position of Twilight's rear hooves, which seem somewhat unnaturally close to each other given their position relative to the "camera." It appears almost as though she were standing at attention with her hooves locked together instead of moderately relaxed (well, as relaxed as a high strung mare like her can be) like the rest of her body seems to indicate. In the future, you may wish to add a bit of space between her rear hooves so we can see a bit more of the one furthest from us, to give us a better impression that her barrel is actually a 3D object captured in a 2D image.Despite these very specific points for review, however, I honestly found this piece quite pleasing to review, and it was only after picking over it at full resolution for literally a couple hours did some of these points become apparent to me. This is an excellent piece that I will be proud to add to my Favorites collection, and my technique score for the piece reflects that. Great work, Myke! You worked hard on this piece, and it really does show in the finished product. I, for one, was glad I had the opportunity to see this piece as it was being created. Well done, buddy!