LunaTia process (Patreon)

Concept: A cool mousepad for the sister princesses with a mosaic-like background representing the sun and moon. Something that people can flip either direction depending on their favorite horse. Something pretty and very, very colorful.

Let's start with the sketch.

I doodled both fillies without really meaning one to be Luna or Celestia specifically, and let people in a livestream decide who should be who. I want them to come across very similarly, not as opponents but sisters, wholly similar but completely opposite. Before coloring these two however, I wanted to first work on the background.

I researched different Mayan patterns as well as works by Alphonse Mucha (gorgeous simple designs) and Saul Bass (abstract designs, inspired that Monsters Inc. opening credit scene!). The problem: s-so many colors! This likely wouldn't be the final product...

Whoops anyways

Sisters are done. I enjoy toebeans too much to draw their princess shoes. I'm positive someone is going to ask if there's a deeper meaning to that but nope, toebeans.

Now an even harder task...balancing everything out. Luna always gets drowned out in any background, and Celestia's colors clash with half the color wheel. This was a painful idea.

asdlfk;js nope

here we go

Skies are always fun. I'm aiming for the same idea, sunrise/sunset almost, but in an enormously simpler design. With Luna's and Tia's complex colors, a mosaic wouldn't flow cohesively unless I limited it to just a few colors...Unless I made a different design where the /princesses/ were all white and provided a simple contrast to the more complex background...!

(And thus continues the creator's struggle)