Greetings. This is the picture that most grabbed me from today's Drawfriend on EquestriaDaily. This is the kind of picture that performs the full service of grabbing the viewer's attention with its character appeal and proceeding to further impress once examined with more scrutiny. Pinkie's face is on full display in the center of the image, with wide and optimistic eyes, a joyful smile, and an upward gaze. Everything about the expression is well-proportioned and aesthetically pleasing, serving to tell us Pinkie's emotions while also simply making something that looks good.



One thing this picture does well is its connection of the character and the environment. Pinkie's exuberant expression is punctuated by those soulful eyes that look up toward something we cannot see, which brings our attention to the world she is inhabiting. Upon identifying that the world has this video game aesthetic, it immediately becomes clear what she is excited about. This is also a fine example of a single image that visually displays the passage of time. The back of Pinkie's mane and tail are purposely incomplete, with similarly colored rectangles creating a path into a glowing blue rectangle behind her. The context clues of this visual make it immediately apparent that Pinkie's body was just previously pixelated into this game world and that the process is almost complete. While it's unclear how long this pixelation process took or how long it will take to finish, it's heavily implied that the process was short since Pinkie's enthusiasm and fascination with the world persist. Of course, this being Pinkie, that may not be 100% confirmation.



The incredible readability and visual appeal of this picture are impressive, but they masks the less apparent display of skill here that lies in the perspective. The 3/4 view of Pinkie complete with foreshortening and shading is a fine display of digital art by itself, but the world she's in has such volume to it thanks to the effect you used with the perspective of the environment. The whole place looks progressively more slanted the further up you go, with a vanishing point that appears to be located in the bottom left of the screen. It creates a feeling more like she is standing on a globe with curvature rather than on a flat plane. It's a type of realism I have not seen before, and it adds so much.



With the emphasis of this picture so heavily invested in form, perspective, and readability, it's no surprise that there's not much in the way of detail. The picture provides the minimum amount of information to inform the reader that the world is like a video game: a chicken, coins, a floating platform, clouds to break up the monotony of the sky, and a path to show that Pinkie has a route forward. I can applaud using just enough details to portray this aspect without cluttering up the image with unnecessary information, but I can't help but feel it could have been conveyed in a better way than simply throwing a few game-like elements into the background. Perhaps it's because these few objects don't feel as though they are a part of the path that leads Pinkie forward and come across as if they are only there to provide context instead of naturally fitting into the scene. At the same time, I understand the draw of having Pinkie's eyes focus on something we cannot see to signify that she is excited specifically about the whole world and not just one thing. Putting things in her path, especially from this angle, would draw our attention to those things and draw Pinkie's attention to those things, making it less about Pinkie's excitement for the location and more about the task at hand (collecting coins, stomping bad guys, picking up power-ups, etc.). Fixing the issue I proposed would probably most easily be done by restructuring the background to look like part of her path that is not directly in front of her. Or by simply making it an alternate route for her to take.



But since this picture is mostly about form, perspective, and readability, those are the aspects it does well, and those are the factors I can praise heavily. Pinkie's pose is visually stimulating, implying that she's ready to get moving. Her silhouette looks pretty clear and readable, with only one real tangent line created by her tail and the back of her mane. You also easily pass the grayscale test, with Pinkie being the brightest and most colorful object in the picture aside from the glowing rectangle and clouds, and since she's the one with the face, the eye is drawn right to her. This picture is a fine addition to my collection of Drawfriend picks. Excellent work. Make the most!