Description
Before I begin talking about this picture to everyone, I just want to say that I hope that this picture was truly worth the wait to everyone who has patiently waited for nearly a year now... I deeply appreciate everyone's patience so that I could finally work on this picture after so long because I knew that this would be something that lots and lots of people have been wanting to see for so long...
Now, with that out of the way, let's finally talk about what I have to share with all of ya today!
Hello there everyone! Thunder Artist here again who has been away for such a long time now, and why is that you're wondering? Well, you're about to find out in just a bit down below. As for how I've been the past few weeks, well... not much really... actually, there is something that I did indeed do while I was away. It's something that I'll give a slight mention down below because I'm really excited for what's to come in the future. Anyways, hope everyone's doing well today as much as I am today because today I have a little something special for everyone. In fact, it's something that I've held onto for quite a while now, since September 2022 of which I'll explain why that is but first, we must first talk about some certain previous pictures before I get to talking about the one up above. Let's begin!
As most of you who have been following me for a while now, you will already know about the G5 pictures I've made in the past. I made three with Pipp Petals, another with Sunny Starscout and Izzy Moonbow together, another with Zipp Storm, and finally one huge picture will all 5 of the characters with Hitch Trailblazer being made for that picture.
Those pictures of course have been loved by all of you of which I am very happy because of the love and support they've gotten. To anyone who doesn't know about this already, when the G5 movie first came out on Netflix, I didn't do any pictures immediately after its release. This was because at the time, the movie was presented entirely in 3D instead of the 2D animation of Friendship is Magic. I wanted to stick to the G4 style for a while because that was what I could only work on at the time so as to not get too ahead of myself with what was new at the time due to complications of the looks that Sunny Starscout, Izzy Moonbow, Hitch Trailblazer, Pipp Petals, and Zipp Storm had within the movie. It's for that reason I had been silent about any G5 pictures that would come in the future of which it was until when I got my hands on a G5 coloring book of which all of the characters from the movie still had the G5 appearance but had a 2D appearance within the coloring book. It was not the designs from Tell Your Tell but instead the actual movie of which I decided to use this as reference for the G5 pictures I would work on soon afterwards.
One day when I was working, I had issues with Photoshop not allowing me to save pictures with certain effects. Because of it, I had to quickly make a picture as to let everyone know of the situation I had with the program. What I made was a picture of Starlight Glimmer and within the description, I mentioned that as an apology for the major issues I was having with Photoshop at the time, I would promise everyone that there would be a picture of Pipp Petals to come soon afterwards once the issues were resolved. The picture of Pipp was actually going to be kept a secret as to surprise everyone with what I was planning but issues with what I was facing with Photoshop at the time led me to fully confirm the existence of a Pipp Petals picture that I was going to work on.
And of course the rest is history with my G5 pictures getting lots of love and attention by lots of people online... however, one G5 picture that we have to focus heavily on as it ties into the making of the picture above. That picture being the one made with Zipp Storm.
When Chapter 2 of Make Your Mark had released I believe around September 26th if I remember correctly, I of course wanted to do a picture to celebrate its release. What was the picture I wanted to do? Well, it's simple! I wanted to do a picture that has Opaline and Misty who would become more important to the story of Make Your Mark. At the time, I thought that this would've actually been a really fun picture to do, however, around that same time was when I had been working on making my pictures appear more as vectors which would be kept secret until my birthday later that year.
This would lead me to put the picture of Opaline and Misty on hold for the time being due to the pictures I had been testing at the time as to make them appear as vectors and prepare them for the future. In its place, I decided to make a picture of Zipp Storm which of course was loved so much though I knew that eventually I would have to work on the Opaline and Misty picture sometime in the future after the picture with Zipp Storm. It would be pushed back again because I wanted to work on a picture featuring Hitch Trailblazer before I could touch any of the other characters from G5. So, I would make the picture featuring all 5 as to celebrate my 10 years as a huge fan of My Little Pony.
Now that I made pictures featuring the 5 characters, I could finally work on other characters from the series at long last though I didn't want to begin working on the picture immediately because I wanted to rest from the lack of sleep I was facing for nearly an entire month when working on the picture featuring Sunny and her friends. Thankfully, I've since been able to control my sleeping issues in recent times to work more easily with my more recent pictures.
And then one day, I just wanted to watch Netflix and such and saw Misty on the icon for Make Your Mark of which I thought that I should do a picture of her and Opaline at long last because I felt that now was the perfect time to finally do it and give everyone what they wanted for so long. As to get prepared to make the picture, I let everyone know that I was going to do it and that it would be a while because I wanted this one to be very detailed with lots of love from the bottom of my heart so that it can be loved by so many people online. Throughout the entire time I was working on this picture, I actually had a really fun time and I am very happy with how both Opaline and Misty turned out in the end. The shading and lighting this time around is much different compared to previous pictures because this was made specifically for this picture of which will be something that I will most likely use again for a future picture because I really love the amount of detail that I was able to include.
And now, it's time that I finally talk about Opaline and Misty at long last of which I want to begin with Opaline because that's who I started to work on first for the picture...
Can I just say something real quick about Opaline before I get into the details that everyone wants to read? I just want to say out loud that Opaline is literally Tempest Shadow with a new look because that's immediately what I first thought of when I first saw Opaline on the screen.
Alright, that's enough. It's time to really talk about Opaline within the picture above because that's what everyone wants to really hear.
Anyways, when I first wanted to make Opaline, I had trouble thinking of how I wanted her mane to look, especially with the curls that she had within her ear which I myself had no idea exactly how I was going to make and I was afraid that if I were to do it wrong, Opaline might've looked terrible because of it. For that reason, I actually had to look up 2D reference pictures of Opaline online to see exactly how the curls would look like in 2D and to get a good idea of how I wanted to apply that to the render of Opaline I was working on. After enough time, I decided to do the curls and I legit loved how they turned out. In fact, I loved them far more than what I originally thought of at first because this was something I've never done before in previous pictures.
It's not only the curls that I loved but also the mane and tail I had given to Opaline which was something I made that was specifically for her. The appearance of both her mane and tail are based on how they appear within both Make Your Mark and the Netflix icon that's used for Tell Your Tale which shows Opaline and Misty at times.
I'd say the most difficult part of working with Opaline was the bracelet that she was wearing. I at one point had thought of not including it within the picture but then thought that the picture wouldn't be complete without it, so I included it. As Opaline is using her left hoof within the picture, the plate on her bracelet is facing the other side which is why it's not shown fully in the picture due to the difficulty I had in creating it.
And I of course had Opaline hold the Dragon Stone which is something that she is trying to get in the episode Sunny Side Up of which she grounds Misty and leaves her stuck in place. She would acquire it later on of which Misty gets too excited and Opaline tells her to calm down. The glowing effects that were applied to Opaline were from various episodes that has her using her magic from her horn specifically. Some episodes show her wings glow but I had trouble including this within the picture. I am still happy with how they turned out. ^u^
And now it's time to finally talk about Misty who thinks Opaline is so powerful and magic and has no match for her hooves. And speaking of magic, let's see what kind of magic I applied to Misty within the picture, shall we?
The first thing I want to talk about is Misty's horn and while you might think it's just a simple horn with shading and lighting applied to it, there's actually a bit more to it than that. To those of you who have been following me for a long while now, some of you might be familiar with how I handle gradient colors within my pictures. Gradient colors is something that I have a very difficult time working with, especially with shading. The reason being that there are times when the shading has an odd look when shading is added to them. I've had many issues with gradient colors in the past that I've actually refused to even do pictures that involved it. For Misty here, I knew that this was something that was going to be included within the picture and that I had to find a way on how exactly I was going to do it. Well, I found a way around and now I can finally put my issues with gradient colors to rest at long last because now I can work on this for future pictures. As for Misty's horn, I really love how it turned out with the pink and blue color it has.
And now, this is where it gets real. We finally have Misty's full appearance with her mane and tail. This literally took a really long time to think of because of the large amount of curls that Misty's mane and tail had and how exactly I was going to do it. Well, that wasn't an issue because I took what I learned from making Izzy Moonbow and decided to do the same to Misty and I have to say that Misty turned out so lovely! Far more than what I originally thought of. However, there was one huge issue I did have when doing it and that was including the second color. I actually had to watch a couple of episodes of Make Your Mark to see exactly how the second color of Misty's mane and tail were on certain sections. For me, I was like, let's just make something original that would solve the issue and I am glad I did because this really gives off a lot of detail into Misty's mane and tail.
And then we finally have the background which is something original I came up with. Although it's just basic colors with lighting included, the setting of the picture takes place within the castle that Opaline and Misty are in for a majority of Make Your Mark
And that's going to cover this long-awaited picture that everyone has been waiting far too long for. I really hope everyone loves this picture just as much as I had a lot of fun making it because I had a great time doing it and would love to do something similar to this again in the future...
...now, if all of you will please excuse me, I have to prepare myself to meet some people by the names of Jenna Warren, Ana Sani, Amanda Martinez, Bill Newton, Joshua Graham, Athena Karkanis, Bahia Watson, Gillian Berrow, and a mysterious someone somewhere in Bellevue, Washington...
Athena Karkanis... Bahia Watson... why do those names sound so... familiar...
Opaline and Misty belong to Hasbro