Commish - Literate: The Can-Can Superstar!

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Commission for Literate of his OC pony, Can-Can.

Literate ordered this about a year ago but a series of events hindered my progress on this piece far more than the necessary. While it should have been finished within just a few months top, it took me about a year. A suspended commission order had to be resumed and in the hope I'd make progress on all orders simultaneously I ended up making it take longer on them all thanks to that one order, the end of 2016 was crazy busy with work for me, I had issues with one of my hard drives last year and a few other things. 2016 is definitely a year to forget! -_- 

But anyway! Here it FINALLY is! Speaking about the art alone, this one offered me some challenge. In theory it should be very simple to make but for some reason I had a really big difficulty to get that stage done. Perspective, design, etc. Several issues kept me from getting that stage done sooner. In the end it was Minecraft who saved me. I literaly built that stage in the game, chose a good angle that would match the sketch I had drawn of Can-Can, took a screenshot of it and then drew the sketch for the stage over the screenshot to not mess up the angles. It worked far better than I expected! Don't believe me? Here's the screenshot I used as base: i.imgur.com/fEj1sTg.png I'm a bloody genius. -3- Or not... I guess that's arguable in this case. lol Point is: I got the job done in the end.

Another thing that presented me some challenge was the shading. I DON'T WANT TO SHADE CURTAINS EVEN AGAIN, NOT ANYTIME SOON!!! Jesus, what a nightmare that was! XD


A nightmare, yes. But good practice, nonetheless!

Thankfully I managed it, though. Another piece of challenge I had with shading was the light sources. So far I've only worked with one light source but in this pic I had to work with FIVE light sources. Now, I'm just not too sure if I am happy with how those shadows on the floor turned out. I don't know... somehow they don't feel quite natural to me. But maybe I am just being paranoid. It is the first time I work with five light sources, after all. I am not used to making shadows for that.

This is the first time I use that sort of light effect, by the way. You know, the kind that looks like the light is actually being cast from a source and "cut"  by an obstacle. It was neat to make that. Initially I was going to have a large light beam being cast on her from above at an angle but I scratched that idea because it was actually simply blocking her and didn't seem natural at all. And speaking of natural, can I just talk about the background for a moment?

I could not, for the life of me, figure out how to make that a indoors stage. I could not add an audience back there because of the angle (it would make zero sense to have audience on that's essentially the back of the stage) and I did not want to simply put a wall there. It would be too bland. So I went for an external stage, something set outdoors, like at a park of the town or something. It had to be at night because of the lights and to achieve the best mood so I figured that have some houses and trees in the background would be perfect with a night sky. I was almost starting to draw that when I remembered that not too long ago I've drawn something that had a background just like what I needed for this pic so to save time, I decided to "recycle" that background. And as it turns out it worked wonders! The background in question is what I made for Too Spooky For You. This isn't the first time I recycle background or other elements from past works of mine, by the way. When done right one can barely notice! Unless they have been paying attention. And I mean, come on... it does look good there, doesn't it?

Literate have asked for his character to be on stage with a hoof raised, a smile and seeming as if she's ready to begin a presentation. In my conception, confetti and roses being tossed at the performer is usually something done only after the show but I thought that have those elements in there anyway would give the picture some extra "life", so I took the liberty to add them last-minute anyway. Let's just say that Can-Can's a loved performer that's adored so much by her fans that they'll cheer and praise her up even before the show.

This piece has been in the works for so long that I dare say it actually benefited from the wait. Along the way I had new and better ideas of how to make it and with newly acquired knowledge and skills, I could make it even better than what I had originally envisioned when the order was placed. Similarly to what happened to Commish - Clazzeh [2]: Pocket Pricks. That one also took about a year to be completed but when it did, it turned out far better than it would have if I had finished it around the time the order was placed. So at least there's that! Either way I tried to make this one look as good as I could.

I hope you enjoy it, Literate! ^^ And once more I apologize for the awfully long wait.




Rose texture (Google): gallery.yopriceville.com/Free-…
Wooden floor texture (Google): www.sketchuptexture.com/p/wood…
Crystal Pony Texture by : Crystal Pony Texture
Confetti and streamers brushes by : Confetti and Streamer Brushes




Can-Can is copyright to Literate.
Art is copyright to myself Steal and I'll bite your face off, you filthy scrub.