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Let Me Show You Home — Description
It's well known that Pinkie's not afraid of the dark. AJ knows that, and she sure as sugar ain't worried about bogey-ponies either, but that doesn't mean she can't show her friend proper hospitality and light her way home.

Things got a little sillier when Pinkie Pie then insisted on following Applejack back home again by virtue of the notion that one good turn leads to another. Rather than quarrel with her logic or start a very silly contest, Applejack suggested a sleepover at her place.

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Done back in the start of July, this is my first attempt at utilising lighting in any form whatsoever. As per usual, I was super ambitious when I decided on the subject, thinking I could eat two marshmallows in one chew. Moonlight and lanternlight. Altered ambient lighting and a clear light source. No problem, right? Yeah.

I can't remember the last time I've spent this much time editing and reworking a picture. The first pass on the light "effects" were a combination of my clumsy efforts/misunderstandings and a very clever bit of advice from Still Waters. After this, Snowtrail pointed out some egregious errors I'd made in anatomy and detail, and she also made some suggestions on further improvements to light, shadows and highlights.

The end result? Quite honestly, I'm well pleased with it. I drew ponies walking (not as easy as I thought), and the manes/tails are pretty okay. I also learned a tiny bit about light, though I decided to move away from this particular way of doing things. The most important lesson learned here was that the process of learning how to shade - something that'd intimidated me for the longest time - suddenly didn't seem as daunting.