This is a marker drawing of Leafhelm (my OC from our pen and paper RPG) as a little foal. I did an original pencil drawing of this almost a year ago and only recently turned it into this marker drawing.
Drawing with the markers is an interesting challenge. On the plus side they allow for many really beautiful effects and it is quite pleasant to draw with something that feels like a brush with inbuild color. On the other hand they allow for pretty much no correction in case of mistakes (so it is very unlikely that I will ever produce anything flawless with them). Moreover even the very expensive marker paper especially made for these kind of markers is "bleeding" (this means it sucks up the color from the marker a bit like blotting paper), so it seems pretty much impossible to draw an apsolutely straight edge without any fringes) and there is also a risk of blotting or smearing some of the color (which would be impossible to correct).
This image of my OC as a foal was hanging in the house of his family in Cloudsdale which the other players of our group visited shortly after the presumed death of Leafhelm. Not that it would have been necessary to impose any further motivation on the other characters of the group to go on a rescue mission once it turned out that Leafhelm was not dead, but the image in the home of the family added a little to the drama of what I hoped to be a rather emotional part of the adventure.
Furthermore the image could give a basis to the origin of Leafhelm's name. There are some ponies in MLP whose names are so based on their cutie marks or later professions that one wonders if the parents could foresee the marks of their kids when they named characters like Lyra Heartstings, Sweetie Drops / Bon Bon, Nurse Redheart, Berry Punch, Lemon Hearts, Diamond Tiara, Silverspoon… you get the idea.
In case of Leafhelm, the name too is clearly a reference to his later Cutie Mark, but it may be that his name is actually a malapropism of a nickname he got as a young foal. Baby Leafhelm made a habbit of toying around with his father's helmet, to both his father's amusement and chagrin (about the helm never staying where it was supposed to stay). The admonition "Leave the helmet alone", had to be spoken so frequently that it was quickly shortened until it ended up becoming a nickname that seemed to fit perfectly well to the Cutie Mark Leafhelm got later after digging up an oversized helm (presumably not even made for a pony) under a tree:
"Leave the helmet alone" => "Leave the helmet" => "Leave the helm" => "Leave helm" => "Leafhelm"