Happy Hearth's Warming Eve

Happy Holidays everypony!

Fluttershy Ornament

My friend Hipster Derpy gave me this awesome Fluttershy ornament. She knows Fluttershy is best pony.

In other news I am home visiting relatives and making wedding preparations in Ohio.

ReMARKable

The Holiday Art Swap at the Arena this year took the form of bookmarks. I had an unfortunate computer crash right before I was going to ship mine, but one came in the mail for me!


fluttershy bookark by ~seethecee on deviantART


Fluttershy is truly best pony. I think I am just going to ask for Fluttershy all of the time.

Eyelet's bookmark of Powder got here just a few hours before I had to leave for the airport. I'm glad I got to see it in person, though it is hanging on my door with the holiday cards until after Christmas.

ATC Spolight: Eviecorn

Eviecorn is a new member at the arena and she ended up being my partner for the November 1:1 ATC swap. She actually ended up drawing me two ATCs so I'm very grateful to her! The first image is a classic winter scene with Pinkie trying to eat the falling snow.

The second has Fluttershy and a cardinal! I love ponies and winter and birds, so this really couldn't be more perfect!

Thank you again Eviecorn!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Toys R Us is having another BOGO sale so I picked up 2 sets of the blind bag ponies (now I can customize some!) I also actually remembered to pick up the pinkie pie ornament while I was there and you know... I'm thinking of going back for a second and customozing it as well. The pinkie ornament is actually VERY nice quality. It's easily my favorite pony ornament which says a bit considering pinkie is my least favorite pony of the mane six. I wish Twilight was the MLP brand mascot.

As you can see pinkie has a sculpted mane and tail, but the sculpt is actually very nice and very heavy, weighing more than a regular G4 pony.

This is a Pinkie ornament from G3 that came as part of a set. You can see that the quality is not as good and it has a very glossy finish.

Prior to G4 I was never a fan of sculpted manes/tails, but I think they are growing on me. One thing I have never liked has been the half sculpted half brushable thing. It drives me crazy!

And last but not least, here's a pic I grabbed of my minty ornament. I'll probably have fakies thrown at me or saying so, but I never really liked her sock obsession. I do like green ponies however and I'm interested to see if her G4 counterpart will ever ship to the US and what her personality will be.

4K Thank You

Well this weekend the blog hit over 4,000 views. I know this is nothing compared to what EQD does every hour of every day, but there is still something gratifying about seeing those numbers continually going up. When you consider the blog started as just a place for me to throw up some pictures of my ponies and talk about stuff.

Of course I wouldn't have much without a reader, somehow writing is much easier when you know that someone else out there will read it. So thank you to everyone who reads this! I'm sorry 4K snuck up on me a bit, but I'll try to do a giveaway or something fun for 5K :)

Ice Crystal ATC

I've mentioned ATC swaps on here before and this is something I drew for the November swap. My partner, Eviecorn said she liked G1 boys and scarves so I ended up drawing a G1 Ice Crystal. He's a mountain boy that was never available in the US and often goes for $100+ on ebay. I think the exclusiveness adds to his charm, but a lot of the appeal is also that he has very nice colors.

Honestly, I'm disappointed in his back and the bottom of the scarf, but man I love those blue eyes! I'm grateful for the ATC swaps, but I can't help feeling like I'm on the lower end of the art spectrum. I mean it's hard to be a hobby artist when you know some people got to go to art school and actually understand anatomy, color theory, and all that fun stuff. I feel like my biggest problem is my art isn't detailed enough. Maybe part of it is that I dislike doing backgrounds and I need to work on that but I need to to jut draw more to improve at all. I'm kind of considering trying to enter something for the traditional category for the contest on Equestria Daily, bu we shall see how things work. December is shaping up to be a pretty busy month for me.

Felt Fluttershy

Do you remember the felt Firefly I posted a while back? Well I finally finished Fluttershy!

Unfortunately, I feel like the yellow is too dark so the thread doesn't stand out as much. The felt only comes in so many colors though, so I don't really know what I can do. Also unlike Firefly she has a painted symbol. Hence the delay in finishing her as I had to find my brushes and paint.

ATC Spotlight: Shaiyeh/Miss_tuneful

ATC: Fluttershys Pumpkin Patch by *Shaiyeh on deviantART

I'm a little late posting this one, but I wanted to get permission before doing so. This amazing Fluttershy came from Shaiyeh/Miss_tuneful in the October ATC sap on the Arena. Miss_tuneful is one of my favorite artists on the arena as not only is her art excellent, she is actually one of the people who organizes ATC swaps. If you haven't read the description already that is mostly pen and paint. (Apparently lots and lots of layer of paint!) Now, when I said last time that I wanted to do more detailed art, this is the stuff I am talking about.

Of course after seeing her Fluttershy I checked out her gallery and saw she does commissions as well. (Contact her at miss.tuneful @ gmail.com ) Now if only I would sit down and actually design my OC!

When Fandoms Collide

I know this has been on Equestria Daily already, but everyone saw CardCaptor Derpy right?

Seriously, go watch it now because WOW. The creator said it took 2 months and I believe it! Now if only there was a Sailor Moon one....

But this brings me to the subject of crossovers. In general I think they are kind of a big part of the fandom considering Fallout Equestria and a bunch of other fanfic. A lot of the PMVs are really crossovers with other things too. I kind of wonder how it all works though. I mean ure probably a lot of people in the pony fandom are also into similar things. I would have thought adding in another fandom would decrease your readership/viewing audience significantly? As with CardCaptor Derpy I'm not surprised it made it to EQD because it's very well done, but I wonder what the crossover of the pony fandom and mahou shoujo anime is?

I recently drew a pony/pokemon mashup for a DA friend for an ATC trade. She asked for a bulba pony so I drew this.






Meh, I dunno.

Rarity's Carousel

The other day Toys R Us had a BOGO sale on My Little Pony - Buy one get one free. I had been annoyed that a pink "walking pose" unicorn was available only in this $30 set, when all I wanted was the pony. Well if you remember from the blog a while back I bought a molded set but used them as a treat for my Halloween meetup. I kind of fell in love with the molded ponies but can't afford the European ones(importing a set from Europe would probably cost $125 + shipping and there are 4 sets confirmed already) so I used to BOGO deal to get a set of molded ponies all for myself and I got the carousel set for free. I've dubbed the unicorn "Sorbet" until she has an official name.

So I'm a fan of the ponies, not so much of playsets but I'm a huge sucker for carousels (Sandusky, OH has a nice carousel museum if you are ever around) so imagine my annoyance when I tried to put the ponies on the little pegs (all the ponies have a hole in one leg to attach to playsets and such) and the ponies are too big to use with the carousel! Well I figure the blind bag ponies would look adorable on the carousel and they do!

But even the blind bag ponies are too big. Random parts get stuck and prevent the toy from spinning, ugh. So then I figure that only the animal companions/pony friends will fit, but the toy didn't work with those either. It's a good thing I'm a collector and not a little girl, I think I would be heartbroken if I were a kid and it didn't work properly, but for me it is just a cute little display.

Felt Firefly

Last year my internet friend MollyBot made me a ridiculously cute felt pokemon ornament for my tree and I have been debating trying my hand at a pony ornament for the last few weeks. Well I ended up at Michael's the other day with a 30% off coupon so I bought a few sheets of felt and some embroidery floss. Then I traced various pony parts from the vector images in the coloring book onto a sheet of paper and cut out around my "pattern".

The result was this cute G1 Firefly that I made for HipsterDerpy's birthday.

I am planning on making some other G4 styled ponies this way as I think it came out awfully cute! Of course I made several mistakes and I know for next time that I should work on the details first. I'm also interested in doing some ponies with felt hair and others with floss. I think the floss works really well with Firefly but it might not work so much with other ponies.

Brony Thanksgiving

If you had told me a few months ago that I would be spending Thanksgiving hanging out with bronies and talking ponies I would have laughed. Especially considering last year some friends invited Ben and me to a thanks-vegan celebration that didn't go over very well. However, after the last pony meetup we found that quite a few of us had no real plans for thanksgiving. I offered my apartment, we divvied up the list of common thanksgiving foods and prepared for Brony Thanksgiving. I made the turkey, surprise birthday cake for HipsterDerpy, and fluttershy-themed pumpkin pie. TPGFluttershy made casserole, a feat in itself when it is almost impossible to find anything brand name in the Bay Area, others brought even more food and Apple Cider brought some amazingly good apple cider! After food we chatted, played various games on the wii, and drew fanart until leaving to hit the Michael's (pony crafting supplies) and the 9pm opening of Toys R Us (sadly no blind bags or pony deals).

I'm thankful. Of course I miss my family in Ohio, especially around the holidays! But there is something really special about a group of people that came together because of mutual interest in something as unique as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and can not only pull off something as organized as Thanksgiving dinner, but that we can spend hours hanging out and feeling completely comfortable. Through the brony community I have found a few really good friends and that is something to be thankful for.

G4 Seaflower

Custom ponies are a big part of the My Little Pony community. I'm sure some people were customizing G1 ponies but I feel like the art really exploded with the release of G3 ponies. Of course really baity (bait or poor condition) G1 ponies are still customized, but I feel as though more people are looking at restoring G1 ponies (with the exception of extremely common ponies). I only really attempted two G3 customs and I don't think either of them came out particularly well.

When I got back into the community with G4 I wanted to be more active in the customization world, so I bought a random assortment of hair off of a collector that was selling it for cheap and experimented with my first custom pony. Later I was chatting with a friend from Ohio that also collects My Little Pony and was interested in customizing so we decided to do a swap. I picked one of her favorite ponies and she picked one of mine, we bought g4 ponies and then painted and rehaired them to look like some of our favorite old G1 ponies. We'll exchange them sometime next month when I'm home for christmas.



The pony I made for her is called Seaflower and her G1 counterpart actually has uv activated hair that changes in the sun. I couldn't get UV hair, so this pony just has normal hair. Honestly, I'm torn about Seaflower. She was my first FBR (full body repaint) and I made a lot of mistakes, but I think the end result is terribly cute! Anyway I hope my ohio friend enjoys her and I'll be sad to see her go. But I am working on another custom pony for a holiday swap.

Now to add a few layers of paint before bed and early morning ponies. I need to see if I can get the car to get to Toys R Us (TRU) where they are having a BOGO sale. (I won't buy the playsets at full price but I'll consider it at a discounted rate).

Brony Art Day

Oh geeze, I thought I would get to update more but I've been crazy busy this weekend! I have so many things to blog about, but I guess I should try and space it out a little. At least I got around to winterizing my blog!

Friday my brony friend Eliza (of Pumpkin Pinkie & NyanDash fame) came over so we could have a pony art day. The art I worked on was for a swap at the arena, so I can't share it yet, but we decided to do a personal swap and she already finished some of the art! So here are some amazing ATC cards she made while we ate pizza in my living room. My prompts were autumn and bluebirds with some specific ponies.

Lyra/Heartstrings

G4 Medley (wingless to match Noteworthy!)

Eliza has more awesome stuff at her Deviant Art account. And a little birdie (get it?) told me she may be taking commissions soon!

Dewdrop Dazzle

This pony is the reason I got back into collecting MLP. I'm such a sucker for blue & pink together. And it's hard to tell here, but I trimmed her mane a few inches and gave her a cute blue bow. Also, she comes with a little duck friend that I forgot to photograph.

Unfortunately this Dewdrop speaks a little of the quality control, as she has brown marks in her plastic that won't come out. I mean I guess when it costs less than a dime to make the pony paying someone to sit and pull of the defective ones becomes more trouble than it's worth. I ordered this one from the hasbro website (as she wasn't in my stores yet) but I was able to get a second one later.

Hasbro is having a 25% off and free shipping sale, but I could only get some wave 4, as most of them were sold out :(

ATC Art & 3,000 Hits!

My half of the ATC swap for Miss_Tuneful finally arrived so now I can share the autumn/halloween card I made starring her OC (Original Character) Neko. I also sent her some of my vintage blue ribbon I got from the lace museum, as it matched the blue of her character's bow nicely.

In other news, I'm thrilled that my blog has gotten just a tad over 3,000 pageviews. I know that is not all that much space on the web, but I honestly appreciate each and every one, so thank you for stopping by and looking.

I'm a little nervous about starting my new job today, but I think it will be a little better for me working on my blog and art so I am hoping to be updating more often now. <3

I'm on the Front Page of the Wall Street Journal!

The Berkeley Meetup was hosted by me, so I'm one of the four "pegasisters" mentioned in the article :)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203707504577012141105109140.html?mod=WSJ_article_comments#articleTabs%3Darticle

Blinded by the Light

When the blind bag figures were first released I thought they were cute but just too expensive. I figured there was no way I could get brushable sized ponies AND blind bags, especially since I would have to import them. I thought I learned something from pokemon and magic the gathering and forbid myself to have any. Several months later a set of 12 figures, the "mane" six and some other random ponies, came out as a toys r us exclusive. I decided to buy a set and distribute one figure to every brony that came to my meetup, and I kept a fluttershy for myself. I also kept the leftovers from the meeting, though I had them all wrapped so I didn't know what I would end up with. Now we have seen the leaked photos of blind bag boy ponies and I'm kicking myself for not getting into these to begin with. I mean they are just so small and I want to have them all!

I think I like the pegasus mold best. They just look so cute! Anyway I hope they show up in the US in full force soon (not just in a JC Penney's outlet)

It's the Great Pumpkin Fluttershy!

ATC: Fluttershys Pumpkin Patch by *Shaiyeh on deviantART

I love doing ATC swaps on the arena. Look at this amazing art I got from Miss_tuneful! And it's hard to know if you aren't holding the paper but that is pen and paint! I couldn't do something so complicated and tiny if I spent years at it!

Community Creativity

The pony community makes some amazing things! These amazing sculpts were at a brony party I attended last night.

I guess Pinkie is the pumpkin king

And Nyan Dash!

Both made by Eliza

Brony Meetup Video

One of the bronies at the meetup had a video camera and put together some footage of the meetup. You can see me (dark hair, ponytail) at the front table. I'm not in the end picture because I was holding the camera.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdKGixKO4L0&feature=colike

Brony Meetup News

Oh my gosh! I'm home from my brony meetup and I'm proud to say it seems to have been quite a success. We had just shy of 20 members show up and I didn't hear an complaints at all. Look at my amazing treat bags! Each one was full of pony stuff and I spent hours putting them together but it was totally worth it to see the bronies get excited about them. People seemed to really like the random molded pony figures and the glue sticks. Due to a person or two dropping out I even have a treat bag or two left for myself :) And I said I wasn't going to get into the molded ponies.... help!

Oh, and did I mention that I got an email from a local reporter for the Wall Street Journal and that she wanted to come talk to the bronies at my meetup? Well that's what happened! So I sat next to a for-real reporter today while we ate Indian food and watched My Little Pony on the TV at the restaurant.

Now it's time to make dinner because I am exhausted!

Krastos the Gluemaker

It's less than 48 hours before my brony meetup and I've just finished my "krastos the glue maker" labels. Yes, I bought cheap glue sticks for my "nightmare night" treat bags. I'm not sure if I like Spike as Krastos or if I should change it to another character.

Getting Art

One of the things I like about the pony community is they do a lot of swaps, trading hasbro ponies, custom ponies, and even ATC cards. I wonder if you go to a pony convention if there are a lot of these around. Remember the scans of the artwork I did from the last post? Well I got my pony art in the mail and scanned it.

Dovetail at the arena drew me a High Flyer in autumn, and even made a cute little "back card" story for it.

Halloween ATC Stuff

Hello all,

I'm home with strep throat today, but I figure being wrapped up like a cocoon on the couch is as good of a time as any to update the pony blog.

Ben found a few Wave 3 G4s at target, the exact same day I got frustrated with not being able to find dewdrop dazzle and ordered the set online. They were on backorder for a while but they've finally shipped now.

I've been working kind of crazy hours, but I did squeak into the Halloween/Autumn ATC swap which produced these lovely pieces.

"Goddess Medley"

"Tricky Sweetie Belle"

Collection Update

Ben found Cheerilee and Lily Blossom at a Target the other day, whereas I nabbed the last G4 calendar from my local Dollar Tree.

I also got some old ponies from my co-worker. Her family is moving to the UK and her daughter didn't wish to keep her G3 ponies. I got a handful of G3's but none are too terribly interesting. (I'm grateful for free ponies though, now I can do a G3 custom swap if I want!)

What was surprising though are the G4 McDonald toys! I didn't really pursue them and then regretted it a bit, considering a set on ebay is more than I would like to pay. Imagine my surprise to get these unicorns. Twilight has her base but Rarity does not.

Luna

The Canterlot exclusives at target include three different versions of Luna. (A styling form, posable form, and brushable form) I don't really have room for the styling ponies and I dislike the posable ponies so I have been searching for brushable Luna since the canterlot promotion began. Finally, last weekend I found her!

I hadn't paid much attention to the releases of Luna as I was just glad there was one, so I was a little surprised by the inaccuracies, though given the state of Celestia, I don't know why I should be. I've just put in my first order to dollyhair, so maybe if I have the correct colors and I'm feeling brave enough to tackle clay I'll try to do a more show accurate version of Luna.

Those eyes....

G4 Powder for Tiella

G4 Powder was made for Tiella in the G1>G4 Swap at the MLP Arena

Remember the line in Winter Wrap Up when Spike asks why they don't use magic to change the seasons like they do in Canterlot? As soon as I saw Tiella's list I knew Powder must be the pony that welcomes winter.



Here's Powder in her packaging. And I think this is the closest pic I have of the cutie mark/symbol of doom.

And Here she is out of the package.

Powder comes with a necklace, that I thought looked a little like a crystal of snow but also like a flower. And to bring her closer to her G1 counterpart I found some antique ribbon at a lace museum near my house. Oh, and you can see her little animal friend, my first FBR.

Unfortunately, when I was creating Powder I accidentally snapped her neck plug, so her head is glued on in a permanent position. Also the glitter I got was the "super fine" kind from the craft store but it still seemed too big! Also, I think I need some higher quality acrylics. I'll hit up the Pat Catans when I go home for Christmas. My favorite thing is the little bit of blush I got on her cheeks :)

Moar ATC art

Here's another pony AC I drew for a trade. I still have a few more to go, but I haven't been feeling very artsy lately. The person it is for likes carousel ponies so I tried to give it a little carousel feel without doing any kind of pole or trappings.

Art for me!

I got two ATCs from my trading partner in Finland yesterday. Isn't the art gorgeous?!


ATC Wind Whistler by ~Haawan on deviantART


ATC Fluttershy by ~Haawan on deviantART

How not to make a custom pony

 Hooray! It's my very first custom pony. Can we say can we say "learning experience". So originally I said I would never get into custom ponies. I know the hobby would be expensive, time consuming, etc. That and honestly I don't LIKE a majority of the customs I see. I can tell that a lot are artful, but I just personally don't like non-pony colors on ponies, or non-removable clothing, or makeup on baby ponies. Okay, I don't like makeup on any ponies honestly. Except the blush, which I don't think of as makeup.

So I saw some custom stuff cheap and got it for fun and Ben called saying he was at Target and I said bring me home a Rarity or a Fluttershy I want to try customizing. I knew from the very beginning Starflower was what I wanted to do. There are some bushes I walk by on my way to work and I loved the colors and the teeny tiny flowers. Fluttershy had a bit of a gash in her body on her nds so I figured this really was the best thing to play with first.

Here is the mane I've started rehairing. Ooops, you can see where the hair plugs are a bit crooked.  I think the rehairing took about an hour and a half. Not bad considering I had no clue what I was doing. I did however learn that if you can't find glue you go to the store and get some. I put diamond glaze in the head and apparently too much because it seeped through the holes and about a quarter of an inch into the hair! I soaked it in some peroxide and ran it under hot water to get most of it out.

Next is the tail and the symbol/cutie mark.  I wanted that nice flat painting other customizers get and did not achieve it at all. Also realized I had no sealant and diamond glaze could be cool. I think this might have worked if I applied wish a brush, but I didn't and it kind of got all over. Then I accidentally stuck my thumb on it and messed it up even more.

Finally I tried several different things with the hair. I was trying for a wave, but I kept getting a crazy pink pie poofy mess. Then I stopped with this because I really liked it. It may not be "traditional" and no where near what I've seen other people do with hair, but I still like it a lot. 

So no, I would not consider my first custom a success by a long shot (I also messed up the neck and the head is glued on) but it was fun and I think I've learned a lot for next time.

ATC Swap Again

ATC Trade

I was asked by an artist on Deviant Art to do an ATC swap with her and I'm 99.9% sure she doesn't read this blog so I feel comfortable posting the pictures here. They are my first My Little Pony ATC cards, so I learned quite a bit.