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Description
Well I was too lazy to close out of this at 4 AM so I decided to show you people how I made Imperial before all my layers are lost when I close out of SAI. Excuse the handwriting- I am terrible. Anyways I'll give a more in-depth description here unlike on the image itself

Step 1: The Initial Sketch
Oh dear lord. The first sketch. The eye sore of eye sores. Basically, that's my I-feel-like-drawing-so-lets-draw-something stage. I'm just scribbling out an idea. It doesn't have to be clean, it doesn't have to be detailed, it doesn't have to have good anatomy yet... that comes later. This is just an idea of the pose I want.

Step 2: Anatomy Is a Thing of Beauty
Now I'm going to make a new layer above my sketch and actually focus on anatomy. This is when references really come in handy, but I'm stupid at 4 AM and didn't use any. So this is just a more cleaner sketch, still doesn't have to be that detailed, to fix my crappy anatomy in the last step. Free deform is vital to me at this step, as well as horizontal flip. Always flip your sketches, never wait to do this until later and especially not in the lineart. You'll see a lot of flaws the flipped way you didn't see before. At this step I was just redrawing, free deforming, flipping, and repeating the first two steps over and over until I was satisfied with it.

Step 3: Lineart Is My Least Favorite
Linearting- it's probably one of the more boring and hated steps. At least to me. This is normally when I love my sketch, lineart it, and then hate all of it. This is the stage where a lot of my drawings start their downfall and end up never finished. But fear not, because linearting isn't always so painful. I used a pretty small brush with the lineart tool in SAI. I can't use a linework layer to save my life, and I even tried to use it with this one. That lineart was scrapped quickly and I just changed to the lineart brush/tool/whatever. Going slow isn't always the best idea- I find that faster makes smoother. That is, don't go super slow to try and get the right curve in a long line. You'll get little jittery bits and your hand will tire very fast. Well, that's how I am. You might have a super super steady hand and have no problem- me on the other hand, I am not so steady. And my tablet pen is also dying a slow and painful death, so it starts to mess up pretty bad after a while of use so I try to go fast to avoid hitting that point (spoiler: I didn't avoid it successfully)

Step 4: Now We're Getting Somewhere
I selected the entire area outside the lines with the magic wand tool, went back over with the select tool/brush/whatever and made sure it was nice and neat and didn't miss any spots, and then inverted my selection, made a new layer under my lines, filled it with some color (blue for me normally, gray this time) and wah-lah, you have your easy color layer. This only works with a lineart with no gaps. Once I had that, I made a new layer above it, put it in a clipping group with the color layer, and used three different shades of gray to start a grayscale shading layer. This was just with the color brush on SAI. I started with the midtone, then added the darker shading, then added the lighter shading above all that. This is all on one layer. You don't have to be super clean with this if you aren't going for cellshading or the like- it will all work out later.

Step 5: Smooth As Velvet
...or rather, horse hide. Though horses really aren't super smooth like the surface of a peach, they do have fur, and from a distance they are quite soft and pretty looking. Using mostly a water brush (Water 9) and a bit blur water (BlurW), I blended all the blocky shading together. Some places are smoother than others- keep that in mind. On the legs, there isn't any fat, so you can see the bones and tendons much easier than on the shoulder or stomach. Therefore, the legs look more hard and defined than the smooth roundness of the belly. Same with the head- not much fat there, so it's not as smooth. This is another place where refs are really useful- or at least knowledge of a horse's muscles and tendons. Again, it was like 3 AM at this point, and I didn't bother to go find some. But if you aren't that confident with the structure of your subject, refs. Refs refs refs. Use them.

Step 6: Shining Bright
Highlights are key. Shading may seem like enough but highlights really give your drawing a more realistic touch. I used to only shade, and drawings look pretty boring with just shading. Don't just highlight on the eyes, either- highlight everywhere. Horses should have nice, healthy-looking, glossy coats. My highlights were pretty below par here, considering with a horse you usually get crisp and bright highlights on their coats. I did the same thing with the shading as I did with the highlights- I only used one color, though. With a white brush I blocked in some highlights, then went over with water 9 and blurw again to smooth and blend. I did it a second time with another layer for some more defined highlights. Both layers are on Overlay.

Step 7: I Can See Clearly Now
Eye details. This is just with a brush tool on another layer, using different shades of brown and lighter pink for the eyewhites. Then a nice white dot for shine. Nothing really major here, but eyes are something people tend to focus on in any piece, so it's good to pay some attention to them.

Step 8: The World is Not Black And White
wow so pretty so vivid look at all the colors
So basically I made a new layer (all the aforementioned layers are still on clipping mask to the color layer) above everything except the eye details and started to lay in colors. I messed around with horse colors for a while- first I made the bay color, then I made a chestnut version, then I even tried a dapple gray, but the bay worked out best so that's what I went with. I put that layer on Lumi & Shade, which worked well with the bay colors but not-so-well with other colors, so you'd have to mess around with that. It might look a little better if your color layer isn't very flat- without the shading there is still some definition in lights and darks. If you only use two colors (brown and black) for a bay, it'll look pretty... boring. Shades of colors, like I have three or so shades of brown, a dark gray, a lighter gray, and a dark brown for the legs and muzzle, then three or so shades of pink for the muzzle where the blaze is, then different shades for the hooves (remember that socks/stockings normally make a hoof lighter than a leg without, and that horse hooves are not black, even on black horses). There's also some gray around the eye, and the ears are a bit darker and bays normally have black-tipped ears. This is probably one of my favorite stages. Messing around with color is very fun. I also, at this point, colored the lineart so it wasn't black. I just locked the lineart layer and used the color brush to make the lines a little darker than the darkest shade of color of whatever they were surrounding. So the muzzle lines are dark pink, and the main body lines are dark brown, etc. This just makes it look a little more natural.

Step 9: The Mane and Tail
Now I sketched in the mane and tail. I didn't want to do a mane out of laziness, so we'll just pretend it's on the other side. This is above all other layers, just the sketch tool. Pretty simple.

Step 10: It's All Coming Together
Using just the brush tool, I drew in the forelock and tail with different shades of black, gray, and light gray for the highlights. Didn't put that much effort into them, but at this point it was nearly 4 AM and I was tired. At this point I might adjust certain layer opacity, change some stuff around, and tweak it until I like it. And there you go. That's how I made Imperial.

That was really long and rambly and I'm sorry it was but oh well ouo b
art is mine c:

Description
Well I was too lazy to close out of this at 4 AM so I decided to show you people how I made Imperial before all my layers are lost when I close out of SAI. Excuse the handwriting- I am terrible. Anyways I'll give a more in-depth description here unlike on the image itself

Step 1: The Initial Sketch
Oh dear lord. The first sketch. The eye sore of eye sores. Basically, that's my I-feel-like-drawing-so-lets-draw-something stage. I'm just scribbling out an idea. It doesn't have to be clean, it doesn't have to be detailed, it doesn't have to have good anatomy yet... that comes later. This is just an idea of the pose I want.

Step 2: Anatomy Is a Thing of Beauty
Now I'm going to make a new layer above my sketch and actually focus on anatomy. This is when references really come in handy, but I'm stupid at 4 AM and didn't use any. So this is just a more cleaner sketch, still doesn't have to be that detailed, to fix my crappy anatomy in the last step. Free deform is vital to me at this step, as well as horizontal flip. Always flip your sketches, never wait to do this until later and especially not in the lineart. You'll see a lot of flaws the flipped way you didn't see before. At this step I was just redrawing, free deforming, flipping, and repeating the first two steps over and over until I was satisfied with it.

Step 3: Lineart Is My Least Favorite
Linearting- it's probably one of the more boring and hated steps. At least to me. This is normally when I love my sketch, lineart it, and then hate all of it. This is the stage where a lot of my drawings start their downfall and end up never finished. But fear not, because linearting isn't always so painful. I used a pretty small brush with the lineart tool in SAI. I can't use a linework layer to save my life, and I even tried to use it with this one. That lineart was scrapped quickly and I just changed to the lineart brush/tool/whatever. Going slow isn't always the best idea- I find that faster makes smoother. That is, don't go super slow to try and get the right curve in a long line. You'll get little jittery bits and your hand will tire very fast. Well, that's how I am. You might have a super super steady hand and have no problem- me on the other hand, I am not so steady. And my tablet pen is also dying a slow and painful death, so it starts to mess up pretty bad after a while of use so I try to go fast to avoid hitting that point (spoiler: I didn't avoid it successfully)

Step 4: Now We're Getting Somewhere
I selected the entire area outside the lines with the magic wand tool, went back over with the select tool/brush/whatever and made sure it was nice and neat and didn't miss any spots, and then inverted my selection, made a new layer under my lines, filled it with some color (blue for me normally, gray this time) and wah-lah, you have your easy color layer. This only works with a lineart with no gaps. Once I had that, I made a new layer above it, put it in a clipping group with the color layer, and used three different shades of gray to start a grayscale shading layer. This was just with the color brush on SAI. I started with the midtone, then added the darker shading, then added the lighter shading above all that. This is all on one layer. You don't have to be super clean with this if you aren't going for cellshading or the like- it will all work out later.

Step 5: Smooth As Velvet
...or rather, horse hide. Though horses really aren't super smooth like the surface of a peach, they do have fur, and from a distance they are quite soft and pretty looking. Using mostly a water brush (Water 9) and a bit blur water (BlurW), I blended all the blocky shading together. Some places are smoother than others- keep that in mind. On the legs, there isn't any fat, so you can see the bones and tendons much easier than on the shoulder or stomach. Therefore, the legs look more hard and defined than the smooth roundness of the belly. Same with the head- not much fat there, so it's not as smooth. This is another place where refs are really useful- or at least knowledge of a horse's muscles and tendons. Again, it was like 3 AM at this point, and I didn't bother to go find some. But if you aren't that confident with the structure of your subject, refs. Refs refs refs. Use them.

Step 6: Shining Bright
Highlights are key. Shading may seem like enough but highlights really give your drawing a more realistic touch. I used to only shade, and drawings look pretty boring with just shading. Don't just highlight on the eyes, either- highlight everywhere. Horses should have nice, healthy-looking, glossy coats. My highlights were pretty below par here, considering with a horse you usually get crisp and bright highlights on their coats. I did the same thing with the shading as I did with the highlights- I only used one color, though. With a white brush I blocked in some highlights, then went over with water 9 and blurw again to smooth and blend. I did it a second time with another layer for some more defined highlights. Both layers are on Overlay.

Step 7: I Can See Clearly Now
Eye details. This is just with a brush tool on another layer, using different shades of brown and lighter pink for the eyewhites. Then a nice white dot for shine. Nothing really major here, but eyes are something people tend to focus on in any piece, so it's good to pay some attention to them.

Step 8: The World is Not Black And White
wow so pretty so vivid look at all the colors
So basically I made a new layer (all the aforementioned layers are still on clipping mask to the color layer) above everything except the eye details and started to lay in colors. I messed around with horse colors for a while- first I made the bay color, then I made a chestnut version, then I even tried a dapple gray, but the bay worked out best so that's what I went with. I put that layer on Lumi & Shade, which worked well with the bay colors but not-so-well with other colors, so you'd have to mess around with that. It might look a little better if your color layer isn't very flat- without the shading there is still some definition in lights and darks. If you only use two colors (brown and black) for a bay, it'll look pretty... boring. Shades of colors, like I have three or so shades of brown, a dark gray, a lighter gray, and a dark brown for the legs and muzzle, then three or so shades of pink for the muzzle where the blaze is, then different shades for the hooves (remember that socks/stockings normally make a hoof lighter than a leg without, and that horse hooves are not black, even on black horses). There's also some gray around the eye, and the ears are a bit darker and bays normally have black-tipped ears. This is probably one of my favorite stages. Messing around with color is very fun. I also, at this point, colored the lineart so it wasn't black. I just locked the lineart layer and used the color brush to make the lines a little darker than the darkest shade of color of whatever they were surrounding. So the muzzle lines are dark pink, and the main body lines are dark brown, etc. This just makes it look a little more natural.

Step 9: The Mane and Tail
Now I sketched in the mane and tail. I didn't want to do a mane out of laziness, so we'll just pretend it's on the other side. This is above all other layers, just the sketch tool. Pretty simple.

Step 10: It's All Coming Together
Using just the brush tool, I drew in the forelock and tail with different shades of black, gray, and light gray for the highlights. Didn't put that much effort into them, but at this point it was nearly 4 AM and I was tired. At this point I might adjust certain layer opacity, change some stuff around, and tweak it until I like it. And there you go. That's how I made Imperial.

That was really long and rambly and I'm sorry it was but oh well ouo b
art is mine c: