It's always interesting to see a pony doing something that their species would never normally be capable of doing. And so, when one of these pictures shows up, the immediate impulse is to go in for a closer look in order to see how well conventional pony design has incorporated human tendencies. Sure, you might argue that a pony wielding a sword with two hooves and a lack of any real 'grip' is impossible, but for the sake of this picture it works. The only alternative would be to have had the sword in her mouth, which in this pose would not have really worked. What we get instead is a pony holding a blade coated in fire, abandoning realism for the sake of entertainment. The vision is therefore acceptable without being outstanding, as various cynics could argue that the choice to have a pony wielding a blade like a human is one step towards anthropomorphism too far.

The blade itself would be lacking if not for the fire. The flames do add enough to the weapon to make it interesting, as long as the sword itself doesn't undergo close analysis. Unfortunately, as the very nature of the image is characterised by the sword - the initial artistic vision and title of the submission suggests that the sword is integral to what we're viewing - then further focus should be put in future on making weapons more convincing. The cartoony style works reasonably with the My Little Pony style, but I can't help but wonder what the sword might have looked like had it been a bigger part of the image. It's not the most original of scenes given the enormous success of recent games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, but enough of your own style is incorporated to prevent the image from appearing stale.

The image itself is placed before the actual attack, and like many of your pictures seems to base its appeal on the suspense of what will happen rather than what is happening. Therefore, we don't see Dash striking with the sword, and instead just see her charging towards a foe that we cannot see. Whilst this works, you should challenge yourself more in future to have more interesting situations. This image falls somewhat flat because it's not reaching its full potential. The background, whilst helping to exaggerate the blade and Dash, doesn't add much to the image; if there was some sort of faded-out battle-scene waging in the background, it would perhaps make Dash's presence more believable. As things stand, she is just caught as a static image in time without any real sense of context. This damages the impact of the image, but it's not all doom and gloom - one can certainly identify your unique style from this picture, and those familiar with your work would feel right at home knowing who drew this, even if your name had not been jotted down at the bottom.

Technically, your confidence in drawing Dash is certainly increasing. You nail the facial expression, with the decision to make her eyebrow appear above the hair being the only potential negative. Her eyes are pretty much spot-on and her teeth are gritted together well to match the palpable tension of whatever she is racing towards. The wings have improved in proportion and quality, and the shading on the image works very well; illuminating the parts closer to the sword is a nice touch. Nevertheless, the front hoof closest to the audience is oddly smaller than the hoof further into the background of the image (even though it is coming into the foreground, the proportions from the base of each hoof to the tip are somewhat incorrect). Although she is flying, a lack of wind markings around her wings or any real sense of them flapping detracts from the speed that should really accompany this image. She looks from a distance to be falling through the sky rather than racing through it; somehow you need to work on capturing the speed of Dash. Whilst the positioning of her body suggests that she is moving quickly, the image itself seems floaty.