Creativity > Customs

Feelings about your first custom attempt & encouragement for new starters :)

(1/3) > >>

glitterball:
I thought this might be a nice topic to discuss the excitement / frustrations / joy / learning curve when you attempted you first ever pony custom!

I am sure that those new to customising would appreciate reading about your experiences and give them encouragement to go for it  ;)

For me - it was a restoration of a Gusty G1 - the hair had been cut etc so she needed a re-root. As I already had a little army of Gustys I felt that it would be OK to choose a slight variation to her usual colouring - I chose a shade of green that matched the eye iris colour and added a stripe of pinky red (instead of orange red) to give more of a watermelon effect - this became my "Watermelon Gusty"  :lol:

I had done re-hairs before on Pippa (Dawn) and Sindy/Barbie Dolls, but I went through similar emotions!

Emotions I went through:

1) deciding Gusty looked bad needed some love! Agonising over the right colours to choose...
2) being brave enough to take the plunge - CUTTING AWAY THE HAIR - yikes!  :shocked:
3) thinking OMG what have I done I have killed my pony!!!!
4) spending a LOOONG time slowly attempting to remove the head & then using a craft knife to cut the stuck bits
5) looking at the decapitated head & thinking again: OMG I have really killed my pony!!!!
6) boiling the pony body parts on the stove in Oxi solution like some kind of Grimms Fairytale witch
7) thinking how odd this all looks!!
8) The joy felt at observing a much cleaner-looking pony
9) rolling my eyes at the amount of hair plugs I needed to prepare... I do find this bit tedious
10) rooting my first 5 plugs, feeling pleased with the progress
11) looking at the millions of empty plug holes still waiting to be filled and nearly losing hope
12) finding my mojo & completing the rooting
13) excitement at finally getting a chance to style the hair
14) eagerness to share photos to the pony community
15) thinking - yes, that was fun but hard work, I won't be doing this again in a hurry...
16) five minutes later finding another bait pony & wanting to do it again  :P

How did you feel the first time you restored or customised a pony?

BlackCurtains:
Honestly, I was just really excited. I came to the Arena because of customs, so I felt like I was finally in the right place. It felt good being able to share.

My first custom was a baby fakie that I sculpted dragon wings for, painted and rehaired with embroidery floss. I still have him :) I was used to sculpting already and his wings turned out great. I wasn't confident enough to attempt a proper symbol for him though, it's just a kind of wavy flames design. I don't think I repainted his eyes either? Can't remember.

He was well received on the forum :)

tailrustedtealeaf:
My first custom...never got finished. When I was 10 I found Aikarin's customizing site, took out a childhood Sweet Breeze, and absolutely mangled her. I cut her neck with a butter knife, found some (normal) Rit dye in the stairwell, was able to convince my mom to get me cheap green hair extensions from the dollar store, and then never finished her. I still have her body somewhere, I'll have to make her up properly, probably with a FBR.

lovelauraland:
My first custom was a punk style hello Kitty pony and I loved her, sold her on eBay then made a Cadbury’s pony, painted a G1 with purple acrylic and used white for the C but it bled through, terrible mistake! I also remember my hubby finding a long stand of nylon hair on his head when taking a shower… he had no hair so it definitely wasn’t his 🤣
Now we find multi coloured hair everywhere in our house 😂

SunPony:
My first one, I did a full body repaint but NOT a rehair.  She turned out okay, although I was never really happy with her eyes and I tried repainting them over and over so they ended up a bit...thick.  My main purpose with her was to try learning to do a full body repaint. I felt good about how that turned out but the eyes were disappointing, and I felt that her symbols were uninspired.  Definitely made me want to try again and be more careful on the details and planning.  And I started practicing painting eyes on paper before tackling pony eyes again.

I feel a little bad about her because she ended up being a somewhat rare G4 (Feathermay), but I had no way of knowing that at the time when I bought her at the store specifically to customize back in 2011 or 2012.  :huh:  So I encourage those starting out to pick a pony that is already established as being bait-able, when possible, to avoid later feelings of guilt!

Sadly my overall feelings about her are now negative, but I do really love my second ever custom who I felt had a much better design.  So if you are starting out and your first custom is unsatisfactory, don't worry, you will improve if you work at it!

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page