My Magic's Gotten Better, Too!

So I originally started this back when we only had the preview clips for Magic Duel, which ended right when Trixie smuggly taunted Twilight: "Heh, Twilight Sparkle, my magic's gotten better." After Trixie turns her house upside down and dumps Twilight's precious books on the ground and leaving her defenseless pets to fend for themselves, I imagined Twilight getting really angry and responding with "well Trixie, my magic's gotten better too." followed by her breaking out the dark magic - y'know, an ep about controlling your temper. But alas, no return of dark magic in season 3.

Music is generally a source of inspiration and drive for me, and I drew a lot from these two songs: Trixie Returns: I Will Rise! by psychgoth: [link] and Pony Concerto no. 2 (Magic Duel) by YourEnigma: [link]

Goodness, this took me so much longer than it should have! I managed to collect about 16 different WIP screenshots I sent to friends along the way, so I put them in a gif to see all at once, because some of them are really subtle - like adjusting leg lines, or the angle of one line as it meets another. [link] I used a lot of the tools from this brush set in the sketching and overall creation of this pic: [link]

So glad to be finished with this! It's a culmination of a lot of techniques and styles I've been working on and wanting to try. As always, feedback of all sorts is appreciated.