Greetings. This was the picture that most grabbed me from the Drawfriend on EquestriaDaily 08/25/2017, and I wanted to share some feedback.



Posing is a delicate art form. A pose with no character can be sold as an exceptional work of art, but a character with no pose is just a mass of uninteresting skin with freakishly large eyes and some dimples. Getting that pose right is so important to a striking character portrait, and this picture gets the pose right.



The first thing to note is the way that the photo is framed. What immediately draws the viewer's attention? And what should immediately draw the viewer's attention? To your average art viewer, character is centered around the face. That's where we read the most about a character's personality and make that personal connection. After all, humans have faces, and we are programmed to relate to things that look like us. If I look at the way this picture is framed, the face is presented in the middle center of the image. Since people tend to read pictures from the top down, the top is generally a better place to put important objects than the bottom, and the left is typically better than the right. At least, that's my understanding. The absolute middle works too, though I believe it has the down side of placing too much emphasis on the character, leaving the background in the lurch. If the picture were folded into thirds and Twilight's face were focused on one of the creases, it would create a focal point that leaves some breathing room for the environment. This is the general idea behind the infamous "rule of thirds" in photography. I think this still looks good since the picture is so character focused, but I'd suggest experimenting regardless.



More on the subject of the pose itself, I'd like to talk about your flow. You crafted a solid line of action that has two straight curves, flowing down from the head to the hip and through the legs. What's impressive is how consistent you are about this flow. The top of the mane moves with the head, the bottom of the mane flows with the hips, and the tail flows with the leg. Meanwhile, the front hooves occupy a neutral state while one wing flows with the bottom of the mane and hips and the other wing balances out the image as a whole. All of this comes together while at the same time being anatomically believable. Not to mention, the double-curved line of action makes for a sweet dynamic pose with such a perky bit of personality injected into it. I can just see Twilight shifting her weight to bring herself to a stop while in mid-air to take a moment to sky-gaze.



Twilight's expression, while a little generic, effectively complements her pose. She's got that wide-eyed, wide-mouthed look of bliss, staring off into the distance with joy. We can see the sun shining from the corner of the image. Hopefully she's not looking directly at it, but maybe she's looking at a rainbow or something. The proportions of the eyes and mouth clearly suggest something stylized as opposed to realistic, and the right eye may be set a touch higher than the left if I check my guidelines from that angle. Still, the face reads well and complements the pose. Generally that's good enough to get a pass.



The pose is already impressive enough on its own, but I don't want to understate what a good job you did on that background. While the blur keeps Twilight clearly in focus, that perspective is something else. The way the curvature of the planet beneath Twilight is visible really provides a sense of how high up she is, and the way the sky, clouds, islands, and mountains were rendered is fantastic. Though Twilight is frozen here, she better keep those wings flapping after this photo gets taken or she'll be in for quite the fall. I mean, there are clouds underneath her!



This is a really effective picture that clearly conveys Twilight's joy of flight. The line of action provides a dynamic pose that has a consistent flow to it, and each body part points back to the head, making it the center of the picture's focus. I will note that Twilight's horn looks like it's coming out of the purple and pink stripes on her hair instead of looking like it's actually coming through her hair, making both a little out of place. Even so, the shading is nice, the background is excellent, and the expression is perfectly passable. Make the most!