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Description
I´m combining the knowledge I received in college.

First of all , what is "isometric"?

As a major in Industrial Design making technical drawings with isometry was my bread and butter making views of boring pieces and parts of mechanisms we don´t see everyday but essentially it´s what makes machines do what they do.

In this series of tips provided by Rockuestria I´ll show why is not always a good idea to draw exactly from what you see because it leaves little room for improvement. So let´s take a look.

The sketch in the right was done without tracing using a generic pose which we see in "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" of a pony standing.

I quickly drew three axes: X, Y and Z. Probably you might remember these elements from high school from Geometry.

X is longitude, Y is height and Z which I find most important is depth. This is what gives the actual drawing the sense of dimension.

I understand that the producers of MLP have no intention of encouraging bad drawing. Their techniques are based on building a huge library of Flash based vectors in order to reduce time and effort and deliver the product according to the companies requirements.

However if you are intending in becoming a better illustrator I´d like to point out a few details which could be improved.

1. The position of the ear. Her expression suggests that she´s upset. While cartoons are not meant to be 100 percent accurate this could have been improved. In the sketch on the right Marelyn lowers his ears which is a common way horses communicate. It´s not a mistake. I´ve seen them do it before in other episodes (lack of time, maybe?)

Horses are creatures that have amazing body language so let´s not forget that.

2. If you look closely at Pinkie Pie´s tail it always has the same angle regardless of how the figure is rotating. This is probably because the tail is already part of an image library and hasn´t been modified unless the scene requires it to make a gag or a particular circumstance such as getting wet or make it straight.

In the example I drew for Marelyn the tail has been overlapped in the right hind leg so you can appreciate what it looks like and because it can twist in different ways. It´s not affecting the isometry and has volume.

3. This might one of the most important observations. We´re looking at the drawing on the left and tips of the hooves are straight lines which feel flat and have no sense of volume. In the sketch Marelyn´s hooves are softer and rounder because that´s what legs look like. Think of it as a stylized cilinder.

I hope this helps you to draw horses better if you really love them.

Description
I´m combining the knowledge I received in college.

First of all , what is "isometric"?

As a major in Industrial Design making technical drawings with isometry was my bread and butter making views of boring pieces and parts of mechanisms we don´t see everyday but essentially it´s what makes machines do what they do.

In this series of tips provided by Rockuestria I´ll show why is not always a good idea to draw exactly from what you see because it leaves little room for improvement. So let´s take a look.

The sketch in the right was done without tracing using a generic pose which we see in "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" of a pony standing.

I quickly drew three axes: X, Y and Z. Probably you might remember these elements from high school from Geometry.

X is longitude, Y is height and Z which I find most important is depth. This is what gives the actual drawing the sense of dimension.

I understand that the producers of MLP have no intention of encouraging bad drawing. Their techniques are based on building a huge library of Flash based vectors in order to reduce time and effort and deliver the product according to the companies requirements.

However if you are intending in becoming a better illustrator I´d like to point out a few details which could be improved.

1. The position of the ear. Her expression suggests that she´s upset. While cartoons are not meant to be 100 percent accurate this could have been improved. In the sketch on the right Marelyn lowers his ears which is a common way horses communicate. It´s not a mistake. I´ve seen them do it before in other episodes (lack of time, maybe?)

Horses are creatures that have amazing body language so let´s not forget that.

2. If you look closely at Pinkie Pie´s tail it always has the same angle regardless of how the figure is rotating. This is probably because the tail is already part of an image library and hasn´t been modified unless the scene requires it to make a gag or a particular circumstance such as getting wet or make it straight.

In the example I drew for Marelyn the tail has been overlapped in the right hind leg so you can appreciate what it looks like and because it can twist in different ways. It´s not affecting the isometry and has volume.

3. This might one of the most important observations. We´re looking at the drawing on the left and tips of the hooves are straight lines which feel flat and have no sense of volume. In the sketch Marelyn´s hooves are softer and rounder because that´s what legs look like. Think of it as a stylized cilinder.

I hope this helps you to draw horses better if you really love them.