G3 Prototypes?

[Ragamuffin]

I was browsing for web graphics just for fun from the official MLP sites and was looking through the French one.

Is there any information about these early versions of Cotton Candy Cafe and Celebration Salon, or better pictures? They're completely different from the final product and I really love them. Google didn't come up with any results. I really like the Sweetberry in the Rainbow Dash pose too.

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Less interesting finds were these outfits for the Evening Wear (I think?) versions of Sparkleworks and Sunny Daze, and yellow Dance Slippers and Dance Around (Dance Slippers is in a different pose as well).

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[Einhornbaby]

I love the alternate poses, thanks for sharing! Ive not seen these pics yet, so sorry, no more info here :/

[Mlp Sunsparkle]

Wow! I’ve never seen these before - they are fab! Thanks for sharing, sadly I’ve no info on them though
Sunsparkle xx

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Mochanut looks metallic, weird! I think the proto playsets look more...elegant? Than the finished product.

[Strawberry Swirl]

How fascinating! I really am curious about that walking pose Sweetberry. Good on you for digging these up.

[Mermaid]

I loooove the shiny g3 prototypes! I wonder if anyone has found one?

[lovesbabysquirmy]

those are cool!  I like the shiny metallic effect

[Taffeta]

I have been taking a look at the pictures I have of argos and index catalogue pages from 2003 to see if the early ones posted above appear in them. They don't, but there's something weird I can't identify in one of them...

Spoiler

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I think it's meant to be Amberlocks' salon, unless I really know nothing about early G3 playsets, because it's that shape and the accessories look similar, but that's not the right colour, the pony is not the right pony, and...yeah. Confused..

Please excuse the beautiful notes written by my mother when she saved the pages as to what it came from...

If the other pages show prototypes they're too subtle for me to notice. Amberlocks' one looks more normal to me though in the Argos one.

Spoiler

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[Ragamuffin]

I have been taking a look at the pictures I have of argos and index catalogue pages from 2003 to see if the early ones posted above appear in them. They don't, but there's something weird I can't identify in one of them...

Spoiler

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I think it's meant to be Amberlocks' salon, unless I really know nothing about early G3 playsets, because it's that shape and the accessories look similar, but that's not

Oh that Celebration Castle! The French site had what looks like the same thing in a stock photo! This is a much better picture of it, this one is so tiny.
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With your picture, I can actually tell that there's only one set of steps up to the drawbridge instead of two! The windows and the trellises are different on the final product too.

Post Merge: February 20, 2019, 09:21:32 PM

those are cool!  I like the shiny metallic effect

I loooove the shiny g3 prototypes! I wonder if anyone has found one?

How do you feel about this dark purple metallic Lily Lightly?

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[BlushingBlue]

I love the Celebration Castle with those extra yellow bits! It's a pity they went with more boring pink in production. I prefer Mochanut's yellow skirt over her pink skirt as well. And I don't even like yellow, generally speaking, but it really helps break up G3's pink-purple-pink-purple-pinkness.

I think what's funniest about some of these playset photos is that, if you look closely, you can tell that a lot of the furniture accessories are still just paperboard/foamcore mock-ups. Like the pictures were taken so early in the prototyping process that they didn't even have many of the larger pieces (cash registers, etc) worked out in plastic yet. In a way, it's kind of a let-down to look at what we actually got; the designers' paper prototypes have a lot of lovely color and detail work that didn't get translated into the production version.

Rainbow Bubbles is another pony that looks super shiny in her prototype form.
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I was a little disappointed that she didn't really look like that, since having a set of pearlised, extra long haired, European exclusives would have been a fun call back to the Hair-Do ponies.

[freezestime]

Has anybody tried the WayBack machine? It may have saved some pictures. https://web.archive.org/

[Ragamuffin]

Has anybody tried the WayBack machine? It may have saved some pictures. https://web.archive.org/

That's what I used to find these. I originally was looking up G2 material, and the French Hasbro site (hasbro.fr) was the only one with anything on them. Then I looked into G3, because why not. And I found all of these! There were a lot more, and I saved all of them, but I shared what was really different and interesting.

I tried other sites, like hasbro.de, hasbro.dk, hasbro.it, whatever, but the most of the sites are broken (not properly archived). I don't know if there are any "mylittlepony dot coms" in other languages, I wasn't able to find any, just Hasbro. I don't know if there were UK sites either...

[Taffeta]

Has anybody tried the WayBack machine? It may have saved some pictures. https://web.archive.org/

That's what I used to find these. I originally was looking up G2 material, and the French Hasbro site (hasbro.fr) was the only one with anything on them. Then I looked into G3, because why not. And I found all of these! There were a lot more, and I saved all of them, but I shared what was really different and interesting.

I tried other sites, like hasbro.de, hasbro.dk, hasbro.it, whatever, but the most of the sites are broken (not properly archived). I don't know if there are any "mylittlepony dot coms" in other languages, I wasn't able to find any, just Hasbro. I don't know if there were UK sites either...

I actually can't remember what hasbro UK did during G3. I wrote to them and they did give me some information about what ponies they expected to come out here somewhere near the start of the line, so they were still in actual communication mode back then (not copy paste answer that doesn't answer the question). I don't remember their website though specifically. I am certain there was no UK based G3 information site back then to go hunting for.

Maybe going hunting for catalogue collections shared online from the years surrounding G3 would pull up some images. The ones I posted were 2003, but I imagine there were more in Argos in other years, and maybe even in Woolworths, TRU, even Index before it folded - and that's just for the UK. Who knows what was in other places?