Day 5 Challenge: Custom MLP

I made one of these a few years ago, back when I was going through a My Little Pony phase.  Unfortunately, I did not do my research and didn't know nail polish was not the best thing to use on MLPs.  Long story short, RIP Spike, you will live forever in my memories--and my deviantart page.  Anyway, while I was going through this phase I collected quite a few ponies--some with the sole purpose of using as bait. 

When it came to this project I decided to do a little research before I started.  I got a little nervous because apparently MLPs from the 80's are sought after, so I didn't want to use some of my baits annnd I don't want to use any other ponies that might be valuable. 

I did have some generic ponies, though.  So I decided to use one of the generic pony babies I had for this project. :) Especially since I still didn't have proper materials and I wasn't entirely sure what I wanted the design to be.  Thanks to my friend, Jaime Lynn, for giving me these ponies!  She probably didn't expect them to be used this way but I'm sure she'll be happy anyway :P





Taking the pony apart was way easy.  The tough part was thinking what to do to customize it.  In retrospect, I probably should have planned this out BEFORE I took the pony apart--but I just didn't have that foresight haha...

I decided to do a Stray mascot with the Stray logo as the symbol, but stiiill what to do? 

Acrylic paints and dye are the best way to simply customize these things, but I don't have any of that (or I should say, no dye and all I have is expired acrylic paints in weak colours lol).  Sharpie markers, I read, aren't necessarily the best way to customize them--but aren't as bad as nail polish, so I decided to take a chance.

I was happy with my results as I was colouring the pony in.  The only thing I'm a little disappointed with is the eyes.  When I get some fresh acrylics I'll probably go back and touch those parts up properly.  For now though, the crappiness of the eyes isn't SO noticeable. 

Next to do was the hair.  I was still making stuff up as I went along so I wasn't sure what I wanted to do.  I knew I wanted very bright colourful hair to balance the all black body (and the emoness of the Stray logo haha). 

I went through my art materials and realized that embroidery yarn would be perfect for the hair because I could easily root the pony with it whole and then unravel it so the thin threads of the yarn could look more like hair.  Plus, I could get a really nice mixed rainbow effect by mixing the threads.

 I started with the tail and then rerooted the head.  Braided the tail and added some beads.

Overall, I'm content with it.  I didn't really find this project as fun as I thought it would be.  I guess I'm really over the whole MLP thing, haha.  I have a few more I could use.  Maybe if I have clearer ideas in the future I will try again and enjoy it more.