After seeing slifertheskydragon's portrait, Nightmare Night, I was inspired by the piece to do up a full Nightmare Moon version.
Using Slifer's original portrait as reference, the sketch took a couple retries before I got the right look. I swear the first sketch I did looked like a Great Dane or an Anubis, and I didn't notice until I started coloring it. Once I did, I scraped it and redid it from scratch. Once I had the final sketch, it was just a matter of giving it the right color style, which I decided was to be my old soft-shade style, using the dodge and burn tools. If you notice, the shading for the ears, eyes, and sides of the armor was done by just doing one side and mirroring a copy to the other side.
I made this piece to go in the background of a "Creature (1985)"-inspired poster for my own MLP fan fiction, which is a "monster in the dark sci-fi story based on b-rated sci-fi monster films of the 70's, 80's, and 90's, including ALIEN, Inseminoid, The Keep, and others, starring NNM as the monster" - http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v449/CaptRicoSakara/alienNightmareMoonPoster2copy.jpg
This is also my piece for Halloween, so hope this gives you a scare. >=3
Also, want to give credit to Slifer since this piece is based on her original portrait, which you can view here: http://fav.me/d4ym39i Also, big thank to Slifer for permission.
MUSIC FOR INSPIRATION: "Dream Warriors" by Dokken
Enjoy, and hope you guys have a good Halloween and Nightmare Night next week.
