PVCF Announcement Art - Process (Patreon)

Hey all! I had the opportunity to draw the official Ponyville Ciderfest announcement for Shannon Chan-Kent (voice actress of Pinkie's singing voice, Smolder, Silver Spoon, and Wallflower Blush from EqG!). Here is my process behind the piece!

Since the theme for Ciderfest this year is all things music, I decided to base the art off of some good ol' 90's hip hop, similar to Pinkie's little rap scene in Season 4, Ep21 (which was itself seemingly based off of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air). This particular style is very bold and colorful, with bright pinks and blues.

As I was double-teaming with some artists who were taking on another announcement, I included the Ciderfest mascot Barley (green stallion) while they used the mare Caramel in theirs.

Sketching this out, I wanted Pinkie to be in the very foreground with a cute and sporty look, ready to drop some beats as Barley in the background is ready to cheer and/or beatbox and/or just look snazzy in his lil pants.

The linework was very quick to match the quirky theme, with minimal and stylistic shading and plain white highlights.

(Also I forgot that Barley has wings whoops)

 I was aiming for a little VHS tape feel, with the "Play" button on the top corner and a little static rimming the edges. And of course, some cool graffiti in the background! This stuff doesn't always make the final cuts, simply because there is so much to fit in, but it's always fun to play with!

Added Smolder to the front because she is a very iconic character. (In a little Aggretsuko pose, and holding one of those toy "echo-y" microphones too, because why not! ;) ) And some shading to the graffiti to give it more dimension and interest.

Charlie (con head for PVCF) fitted in the official announcement text, and there you have it! I'm looking forward to the convention!