Greetings. This was the picture that most grabbed me from today's Drawfriend on EquestriaDaily.



A light source is mandatory when it comes to creating a drawing, as without it nothing could be seen. It is the artist's job to determine where the light source is and what kind of effect it has on the environment. Not only must it provide a believable range of light and dark values, but the actual colors utilized have to match the tone of the image. This picture uses a simplistic black background with white light, creating a workspace ideal for drawing out that range of hues. One aspect that you handle quite well is your use of the full range of colors available to you. You run the full gamut of colors from black to white, with all the different ranges in between. The hair at the top, directly underneath the light, shines brilliantly and immediately draws the eye. Meanwhile, the legs, hidden underneath Fluttershy's hair and torso, are left almost completely in the dark. It follows such a simple path that makes it incredibly readable, and the eyes bring it all home.



Fluttershy's eyes provide an additional illumination effect that doesn't quite reach the highs of the hair since it's not directly in the light. Still, the light provided by the eyes is still attention-grabbing, and as a main facial feature in the center of the picture, they give the hair a run for its money as the most eye-catching part of the image. You also worked in a great bit of shading with the nose, revealing quite clearly to the audience that the nose sticks out beyond the hair so we can see the extent of depth in the face.



The three components that form Fluttershy's hair have interesting and similar shapes to one another, with large fluffy rivers of protein that taper off into thin streams. These three shapes give Fluttershy an ethereal feel to her, which complements the partially illuminated eyes. It also helps that the context of the picture is her partially shrouded in darkness, providing another mental link to the meaning of the image.



The natural test of good shading practices is that the viewer can tell what colors a character would have if they were fully in the light. From what I see, it looks fully obvious that this is a blue-eyed yellow pony with pink hair. The values are soft and dim, and the painting style gives the whole picture a softness to reflect it. And the expression is appropriately soft as well. Everything just seems to come together to work on top of itself.



If there's one thing I could recommend for designing poses in the future, it would be to watch the overlap. Fluttershy's tail here in particular doubles back down between her legs and muddles up the silhouette by overlapping with the back legs. It's a pity because the head by itself bears a fantastic silhouette, but then the lower body comes and twists it up a little. On the plus side, it all has a consistent shading pattern to make up for it.



Beautiful image this one. It's a clean simple image that immediately brings you eye-to-eye with the subject matter and then leaves you appreciation the rest. The style and form are excellent, and I can see a lot of built-up effort behind it. I hope you continue to find new ways to improve. Make the most!