Paint Tool Sai tutorial, My little Pony edition.

 Like what the banner says. Plus it has something to do with MLP: Friendship is magic thing. A couple of friends have gotten me on the bandwagon a bit. The pony that is featured is named Strawberry Candy, created after my sorcerer from eRO. Nido ( asklantern.com ) was the first person to draw her as a pony so I give him credit for her over all look. :3 She's adorable isn't she? Anyways! First things first, prepare your sketch. Get it ready to be linearted.

Now, the way I do lineart is pretty simple and easy. I just rely heavily on pen pressure sensitivity on my Intuos 6x8 WACOM tablet when it comes to making the line strokes. The screenshots above shall show you how I have my PT Sai brush set up. In the second screenshot if it helps you, connecting tiny strokes to make up one line can help. You don't have to make it one big stroke if you feel that you can't, lineart takes practice so don't be discouraged if it doesn't come out the way you want it on the first few tries. Just keep doing it.

Now that your picture is linearted, It's time to color your picture.

First things first, lay down your flat colors. I normally put in the flat colors in as I color and don't normally color in all the flat colors at once. So lets start on the largest portion of the picture that needs to be colored. A.K.A. Strawberry Candy's pony coat.

I start shading by using the pen tool, same settings as when I linearted and everything (the settings never really change) Then I go to my blur tool.

 These are my blur settings. Pretty simple eh? Anyways. With the blur tool, blur out the harsh edges on the shading. Next pick a darker shade of the shade you just previously shaded.

Lay it down like so. Don't overlap the slightly lighter shade, it probably wouldn't look all that great. Once you finished laying down the darker shade, blend that in with the blur tool.

The shading should look something like this. Next is the reflective highlights. You can skip this step if you want to, but I like the effects of it.

Sorry somehow I skipped a picture, my mistake. Anyways. With a small sized pen brush and the flat color you used lightly add a touch of that color within the darker shading. Hopefully the picture above is a decent enough guide to show you what I am talking about. Once finished with the reflective light, blend that with the blur tool.
Next...

Adding highlights. Pick a lighter color and lay them down. Obviously it would be a good idea to avoid the shaded areas correct? After you are finished applying the color, blend that with the blur tool.

Yet again somehow my pictures have been skipping steps, oh wells it all will be explained in the later steps. For now once finished with blending out the highlights on the body/coat. Lets talk about the cutey mark. (method can apply for coloring in tattoos too.)

Flat color the mark.

On a separate layer, (above the lineart layer and the color layers like in the picture.) scribble a bit of the same highlight color that was used for the body/coat and scribble in a touch of white. The white will make the highlight stand out more. Next blend that.

Doesn't that look nice? :3
Next is the other features. The eyes, heart earrings, blush, and hair tie.
Lets start on the blush first.

I used an airbrush and I softly touched up her cheek there. Pretty simple eh?

Next I added some little white dots. For highlighting her blushing cheek. To me it adds more to the cuteness factor, but you can skip that if you want to. Next, the eyes.

First off I add in the grey for the eye shading and the I add in the white. Next I blur that.
Now, to color the rest of the eye.

Using those three colors, I decided to get pretty creative with her eyes. Like you can tell from the picture I color her eye blue, the add the purples. After that I blended it with the blur tool.

Next is the heart and the hair tie. I made them the same color as the strawberry on her cutie mark to that way it would tie in with each other a lot more. Like the picture I flat colored it that bright red and then shaded it with the darker red. Next those reds shall be blended together with the blur tool. Now since this is small detail work, be sure to remember to make the blur tool a smaller size. So it doesn't blur all out and look weird.

Once blended I added some shiny white dots for the highlights on the heart and the hair tie.

Next, Flat color the hair and then add the shaded streaks of a color that is slightly dark then of the flat color you used for the hair. I would say to blend this but when I did, it looked blotchy and bad. so the hair shall remain unblended for now.

Next add in the highlights to the hair, and voila! You are finished.
Such a cute picture. Leave a comment to this blog post if you have a question!