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Description
Alternatively titled "Why Princess Luna Did Jack-Squat in the Season Finale".

For Day 7 of EqD's NATG, Phoe wanted something with conflict, and I wanted something surreal and vaguely psychological. Since darkness is the go-to means of establishing fear, I chose Princess Luna as the subject and developed the idea that as guardian of the Moon, she has to deal with the horrors that manifest in the shadows and dreams of the night. Such a scenario presents a plausible excuse for her absence during the Changeling invasion, and it's pretty darn cool to boot; instead of dealing with weddings and friendship reports, she's teaming up with Bruce Campbell to beat up Randall Flagg and Keter-class SCPs. According to headcanon, anyway.

Process-wise, development was pretty straightforward. In hopes of saving time and energy, I resolved to work on in black-and-white, eliminating any need to worry about anti-aliasing, and Paint Tool Sai's Binary tool and layering capabilities assisted in that regard. I also took cues from ~3-Angled-Blue and ~SulphurSpoon regarding more dynamic and organic pixel usage; extremely thin hatching created pseudo-grays and simulated motion blur, while the Polygonal Lasso and Fill Bucket tools carved imprecise shapes out of otherwise boring blocks of black. There were originally more shadow entities in the background (pointed, cancerous, and vaguely human...fun times all around!), but it added too much noise to an already loud scene, so I scrapped it in favor of hatching and eye imagery.

"My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" © Lauren Faust and Hasbro
All rights to their respective owners, too.

Description
Alternatively titled "Why Princess Luna Did Jack-Squat in the Season Finale".

For Day 7 of EqD's NATG, Phoe wanted something with conflict, and I wanted something surreal and vaguely psychological. Since darkness is the go-to means of establishing fear, I chose Princess Luna as the subject and developed the idea that as guardian of the Moon, she has to deal with the horrors that manifest in the shadows and dreams of the night. Such a scenario presents a plausible excuse for her absence during the Changeling invasion, and it's pretty darn cool to boot; instead of dealing with weddings and friendship reports, she's teaming up with Bruce Campbell to beat up Randall Flagg and Keter-class SCPs. According to headcanon, anyway.

Process-wise, development was pretty straightforward. In hopes of saving time and energy, I resolved to work on in black-and-white, eliminating any need to worry about anti-aliasing, and Paint Tool Sai's Binary tool and layering capabilities assisted in that regard. I also took cues from ~3-Angled-Blue and ~SulphurSpoon regarding more dynamic and organic pixel usage; extremely thin hatching created pseudo-grays and simulated motion blur, while the Polygonal Lasso and Fill Bucket tools carved imprecise shapes out of otherwise boring blocks of black. There were originally more shadow entities in the background (pointed, cancerous, and vaguely human...fun times all around!), but it added too much noise to an already loud scene, so I scrapped it in favor of hatching and eye imagery.

"My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" © Lauren Faust and Hasbro
All rights to their respective owners, too.