Yesterday's episode made me really happy, and I kinda flipped when I saw that Spike had a Rarity plush. So, here's my addition to the fandom so far. You can see almost every part of my process in the image, considering I bounce around and paint whatever I feel like painting whenever I want. Anyways, process:

1) Dark/pencil-looking lines are my refined sketches. They come after really messy gesture sketches that basically allow me to put down what I want to see in the drawing.

2) some kind of complimentary background, so I don't fry my eyes. Oftentimes I'll remove the background at the end, depending on how I feel.

3) Base colors! Generally using a reference I color pick and block in the base tones using a whole fuck ton of clipping layers.

4) Fun part: painting. For pieces where I want the lines to show, I'll paint under the sketch layer, but for more painterly style pieces I'll merge all the color layers and the sketch layer and paint overtop. On the left side you can see a couple of my shading colors for parts I've worked on so far. And a word of advice -- don't be afraid to use the luminosity and multiply layers to your advantage! Painting something out to show shadow without messing too much with your underpainting is a really good way to make shading and highlighting on things like eyes look professional and intentional. Just my thoughts!