This is the promo poster for UK PonyCon 2016, starring Nessie, Angus, Brit, and a bunch of owls flying all around them.

This poster was a total challenge to work on, but it was also a good learning experience. I had a week to work on it, and managed to complete it in three days (working on it around three to four hours every day). It might seem like a lot of time for a seemingly simple picture, but considering how slow an artist I can be sometimes I’d say that speed was an improvement.

The reason for this improvement is that I skipped the inking stage. I went from sketch to color and then shading without bothering with the inks. Also the background was done entirely with normal layers (no multiply, no sub-exposure, no nothing) for the sake of saving memory and keeping the program from crashing. This turned out to be quite liberating, so I’m going to try this more often since it was so satisfying to work on.

Doing this poster was a bit of a nightmare (I had a couple of sleepless nights thinking I wasn’t going to get this one completed in time) but I think the results are well worth the struggle.

I hope you guys enjoy the picture!