Question on prototype G1 seen at MLP Fair (and also TE question)

[Galactica]

Thanks for the additional info!   I'll update the Wiki to say something more generic like "early prototype" when I get a chance and, yeah, move early Collector Minty into her own section.

Re the twinkle eyes-

They probably decided that the plastic twinkle eyes did not reflect well enough for marketing photos so they used something different.

I have a few dolls that were used for marketing photos during the same era- (Rainbow Brite dolls) they are stuffed extra thick, are ever so slightly larger, and have thick hand-rooted hair, and any paint on their face was drawn slightly more clearly/exaggerated.

So I'm sure with ponies they did a lot of the same things- used extra hair/extra-reflective crystals for the eyes-  anything that would make the pony look better in photos.  Remember photos back in the 1980s were pretty bad...

Ohhhh, wow that makes so much sense!  Yeah, photo editing was not really a thing in the 80s (at least without a lot of extra expense.)

Hmm . . . if they were changed for marketing, are they still prototypes?  I was going to add them to the section, but the TE line was probably already out in America at the time.  But they are a unique piece of Hasbro history and it would be good for them to be on the Wiki somewhere in case someone finds one at a carboot sale someday. 

I guess we also don't know for sure that they aren't 'proper' prototypes either, but I think the brighter eyes being put in for their shine does seem like the most likely reason for the crystal eyes.

I guess it depends on your definition of "prototypes" - technically they fall into the "samples" category but I think most collectors consider all kinds of things to be "prototypes" that the toy industry would not define as such- first shots, marketing samples, color samples, the list goes on and on.  The process is much shorter now that toy designs and sculpts and colors can be shared via zip drive - but there are still samples made for testing colors/features/looks/packaging... 

[LadyMoondancer]

Maybe the simplest fix would be to change the name of the category to "Prototypes and Production Samples".

Yeah, the Wiki is not 100% perfect but honesty it's pretty good compared to the resources for most toylines.  I was trying to look up the names of some Sylvanian Families / Calico Critters toys the other day, and there isn't a wiki or a centralized ID site for them or anything!  I ended up looking through a page of someone's personal collection, circa 2007, which didn't have a search function and which put every family on its own page, so I had to click through a bunch of pages.

[Taffeta]

Maybe the simplest fix would be to change the name of the category to "Prototypes and Production Samples".

Yeah, the Wiki is not 100% perfect but honesty it's pretty good compared to the resources for most toylines. 

Perhaps, but when you have spent near enough 2 decades repeating the same information and the main ID site for the collecting community can't be bothered to include it, it gets a bit frustrating. I think the Wiki is a great resource, but I think that there's more attention given to the US line and the Nirvana variations than the stuff in the middle which gets neglected everywhere. And that's the stuff I work on, so I notice it, and it's annoying.

Usually when I raise this someone comes back at me and tells me to edit the Wiki myself if I don't like it, but having spent those 2 decades creating and running a whole website that contains that info and predates the Wiki, I shouldn't also have to clean up someone else's mess just to ensure people have the correct info. I'm not a one person UK information bot. I have a life too xD.

 It would be really nice if people who do edit the Wiki spent some time finishing what Absol began in 2015 in putting this stuff right so I can shut up and go awayxD.

Because let's face it, the Wiki is miles and miles better than any of its global mainstream competitors, and it is still being edited, so I keep hoping that if I keep prodding, maybe some of the errors will one day vanish...

[glitterball]

Imagine bumping into this in the middle of the night... It's some kind of four-eyed sparkly lizard demon!

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I really like Twinkle Eyes, but this is not Fizzy's most flattering picture.

 

I have yet to find a "blind" TE pony, as I would SO put a pair of large, vintage Swarovski chatons in their eyes! I can't bring myself to tamper with already-intact eyes, though... 

[Carrehz]

Yeah, the Wiki is not 100% perfect but honesty it's pretty good compared to the resources for most toylines.  I was trying to look up the names of some Sylvanian Families / Calico Critters toys the other day, and there isn't a wiki or a centralized ID site for them or anything!  I ended up looking through a page of someone's personal collection, circa 2007, which didn't have a search function and which put every family on its own page, so I had to click through a bunch of pages.

Oh god, don't even get me started on Sylvanians. I've been collecting them long before MLP and as much as I love them, we really are lacking in an ID site for 'em, you really do just have to rely on collector sites... some folks were working on an ID site a while back but it seems to have vanished? x_x;

[starbritesprinkles]

Hey guys, I was browsing the prototypes page on My Little Wiki and saw this early prototype:

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She's listed as being a Bubbles prototype, but to me she looks more like she's based on Minty (since originally Minty and the  rest of the Collector ponies were all going to have Cotton Candy's symbol . . . Her symbol looks more like Cotton Candy's than like Bubbles' to me.)

My question is, did the Hasbro employee who brought her actually say she was Bubbles?   If not, then I'm going to edit the Wiki to say something noncommital like "early G1 prototype", but I don't want to do that if someone from Hasbro definitively said "Yes, this is Bubbles."

This photo is from the 2008 Fair, where this clay model was first displayed. Kirk Hindman brought her. I have a photo of her too, but it isn't titled. I don't recall him or anyone else from Hasbro specifying that it was meant to be Bubbles, but that information could have been revealed at a later event where she was displayed.