And finally, last but certainly not least; the first place prize for :iconstevonnieishere:, who wanted me to draw their character Upper Crust, fighting, using a punching bag or something similar. I decided to draw her “punching” (or as close as a pony can get to that) only to realise that the references I could find of someone punching a punching bag, would be, y’know, of humans. Who have a distinct lack of pony-front-legs or hooves. So this is mostly improvised, feel free to tell me how her form is garbage.
 
Since the first place was of a shaded character with a background, I wanted to do something that actually used the fact that the character was in a setting and not just floating in a void. Yet, a gym or similar isn’t the most… visually interesting location. So I decided to really double down on the lighting and setting a mood using light and shadows. I wanted to get across the feeling that the sun is just about to set (or has just risen? It’s hard to draw the difference), as Upper Crust is the last (or first?) to train, alone in the gym, bathed in sunlight.
 
I don’t usually do dramatic shadows like this, because they take so long for me to be satisfied with. I know what look I want to achieve, and I can usually tell that that something is throwing it off, but I can’t tell what… it leads to a lot of trail and error. I mean, I only have myself to blame for choosing to draw it =P But when I actually buckle down and do it, I find that I’m quite pleased with the result :) And I really do need the practise, only way I’ll get better at it ^^
 
Upper Crust themselves was also really fun to draw; for one, you all know how much I love my freckles ;P And they’re yet another character playing into my love of having dark colors with light accents.
 
All in all, another really fun drawing which gave me an excuse to practise lighting; one which I think turned out pretty close to the feeling I was going for ^^ Thank you again so much for entring my contest