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Cover art for my oneshot fanfic “+Daring Do and the Grimoire of Gamaltijan+”:https://www.fimfiction.net/story/594974/daring-do-and-the-grimoire-of-gamaltijan. I started writing the fic from nowhere a week and a half ago and it rapidly came together, leaving me the dilemma of the cover art. The mental image I had was the filly “antagonist” of the story, Jus de Raisin, peering down in delight at Daring’s liquified body in a bucket she was holding. I immediately dismissed the idea as too ambitious but I couldn’t think of anything else that would work, save something lame like the titular grimoire, so I set to work.
As it turns out, this was one of the easiest things I’ve drawn yet. Primarily because Jus’s face is just a self-plagiarism. I just took the headshot I made for Cotton Swab, recolored it, changed the mane a bit, and boom, cute filly fangirl. Maybe I should have drawn Jus from scratch for the practice, but I’m lazy and wanted this to get done, so opted for the easy approach instead. Glad I made that reference art, now. Paid off pretty good.
The reflection was virtually painless. Something else I was surprised by. Inkscape’s filters finally worked. So many of them fail with the show’s art style and give a much too “realistic” texture on things but this time it worked perfectly. Even Daring’s blobby eyes were really easy to do. Something else I thought would be a nightmare given how important the wave effect was to illustrate Daring had melted down.
Originally, the camera was going to be further back and sort of over Jus’s shoulder, but then I thought “why not do a POV thing?” and went with it since it would be easier to draw a blurry muzzle and some bangs that the back of a head and shoulders. Again, laziness prevailed. Can’t say I’m particularly mad with the results, either.
The hardest part ended up being the cobblestone road background. I thought it would be easy, but it turned into a two-hour fight, trying to make things work before scraping the first attempt and starting over. I had tried to again be lazy and use only one stone shape, but it just did not work well at all. Sometimes, laziness isn’t the answer.
Same technical stuff as always. Inkscape, mouse and keyboard, and it took about five to six hours.
Same technical stuff as always. Inkscape, mouse and keyboard, and it took about five to six hours.
imported from https://derpibooru.org/images/3901268
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