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Messages - Snapdragon
16
« on: January 25, 2024, 01:24:56 AM »
THIS THIS THIS THIS THIS!!!!!
All that potential for extra brushable figures & we got, next to NONE!!! Where's our Babs Seed, for one glaring example???
Unfortunately, I think when we look at Babs we can see some pretty glaring issues, toy-wise: 1. Her hair is short, thus making her difficult/expensive to trim/style for a brushable, and if you give her long hair you risk collectors complaining about accuracy, 2. She's brown. I mean, we're talking about Hasbroken here; the people who took the canonically white Princess Celestia and turned her first toy pink, because 'little girls like pink ponies.' If we can't even get the main figurehead of the series the right color, in a traditionally-unicorn-coded color no less, how are they going to get Babs to pass corporate focus groups?* I agree with you here, for the record! I'm sad we only got a little Ponyville sized figure, and I'm not even sure I ever found that one! But I'm sure Hasbro was better able to justify a tiny figure that would cost pennies to manufacture, over the potential 'failure' of a brushable brown pony toy. I'm figuring that's similar to what happened to the other background characters. A lot of them are really nice colors, but there's also a lot of bold colors, bright colors, colors that might not have "enough pink" to pass Hasbro muster. Easier to make a bunch of pink-purple adjacent original designs, and not bother, I guess? I wish we had gotten more backgrounders! It was cool that we eventually got Lyra, and even Bon Bon, but there were so many I would have loved to see! I mean, can you imagine an Apple Family Multipack with like, ten apple family ponies?! *(I do know that we eventually got several releases of Celestia in white, but AFAIK there was a looooot of backlash from collectors before they changed it!)
17
« on: January 23, 2024, 04:28:10 AM »
I was always fond of the “design your own” aspect of the coloring contests too - like the ones where we had to design our own pony! Those were some really creative and fun results! But I voted for coloring contest because that’s where my gut took me! 🤣 I enjoy both!
18
« on: January 18, 2024, 10:59:11 PM »
"I should definitely buy more baits... I need more project bases! Surely, this one will be 'the one' that I need for a project!"  I recently saw a friend selling off some of her baits, because she realized she just would never have the time to utilize all of the custom bases she had sitting in bins ... and I realized I'd have to make like, a custom a day, and I still wouldn't finish for years!  And yet I just bought some new ones last week... SURELY this will be the last one I ever need!
19
« on: January 18, 2024, 10:23:11 PM »
Wow... I'd heard some rumblings about MTG, but I never knew just how bad it was, Goddessofpeep. Thank you for the info! But also: very yikes, to all of that.
I knew (from The Toys That Made Us special) that Hasbro was/is almost exclusively a 'boys toy' company, and TBH I feel like MLP in the 80s succeeded somehow despite that delusional mindset. I know we got MLP:FiM getting as popular as it did because it tried to appeal to 'everyone' (and I won't address the debacle that the fandom descended into LOL), but I can see how easily Hasbro has dropped any significant effort from the G5 line. They're finally doing something for the G1 anniversary stuff, but it feels more like it's because nostalgia is such a big craze right now, and not out of any internal interest to do more for MLP, LOL. I do worry that MLP will be one of their first lines to sacrifice when it comes to trying to save the sinking ship, but we'll have to wait and see, I guess.
Still, like someone else mentioned, it's so sad to see the downright meteoric rise of Mattel right now, and look at MLP and wonder what a Mattel MLP line would be like, LOL. Although Barbie quality has been on a downward trend for years (overpriced collector dolls, falsely inflated market price, etc. etc.) there's no denying that they have a massive line of playline toys available at any given time, in almost any store you go to.
20
« on: January 13, 2024, 12:10:06 AM »
I used to be able to find more variety of MLP at Walmart, for whatever reason; the last time I went hunting before Christmas, it looked like they'd gotten rid of it entirely. Target has only had a mini 20-pack and the extra-long hair set for six months, it feels like, occasionally interspersed with the RV set, which is another mini set. My next closest Target got rid of the pony section entirely. It really sucks! I know I can't expect an 'everything store' like Walmart or Target to have a massive toy selection, but this feels significantly worse than G4 distribution by miles. Is Hasbro falling down, are the retailers drawing back? I don't want to get all my ponies from Amazon! 
21
« on: December 31, 2023, 08:09:25 PM »
She's beautiful!! She looks factory! BBE are not my ... favorite kind of ponies, as a rule, but this one is very sweet, and she's photographed beautifully too! You did a great job! 
22
« on: December 11, 2023, 11:49:19 PM »
Incredible!!! What a beautiful and special piece!
Do you have it up for display during the holidays?
Thank you all so much, you are all so sweet!!  You know, it would be a great idea to get it out for the holidays! Right now it's tucked in with the other train cars in a box in my room, only because I'm so afraid of one of the gazillion little bits falling off and being lost in the ornament boxes, LOL!
23
« on: December 07, 2023, 12:15:04 PM »
24
« on: December 06, 2023, 08:22:50 PM »
I totally forgot to post this last year, when I actually finally completed it, and told myself around January that I would definitely post it this December! So, without further ado - the G4 Custom Christmas Train! visitors can't see pics , please register or login And here's more closeups of the individual cars with what their "before" would have looked like, AKA the stock, unpainted trains: visitors can't see pics , please register or login visitors can't see pics , please register or login visitors can't see pics , please register or login visitors can't see pics , please register or login And I'll put some WIP pics behind a cut, in case you're curious to see some of the painting detail shots! Spoiler Here's how I rediscovered the train in 2022, with a base coat and not much else! Oh, I did stick on the peppermint wheel for the locomotive, LOL! (It's the same photo mirrored twice, only because the photo wasn't cropping properly.) visitors can't see pics , please register or loginHere was my attempt to make a blue and silver train... which just looked dirty! So then I tried to put down an orange base to make it gold instead, and it looked like a mac n cheese train!  But the mac n cheese prevailed, and it came out much nicer! visitors can't see pics , please register or loginMac n cheese vindicated! visitors can't see pics , please register or loginHere's the ice cream train, getting all those little lattice lines straight was tough for sure! visitors can't see pics , please register or login visitors can't see pics , please register or loginAnd I guess I didn't get any WIP shots of the locomotive or caboose, because they weren't as paint-heavy! Oops!) I originally bought this train on clearance at Toys R Us, which should tell you how long ago I originally planned to customize this! In 2016, I referenced on my blog that I had been trying to work on this train every December 'for three years', which would make my start date around 2013, which makes this train a decade old! But while the train got shelved and put aside for many (many... many...) years, I continued tracking down various little Christmas decor bits, and I even took a photo of the MASSIVE amount of Christmas doodads and gee-gaws I had been collecting for it in the decade intervening! visitors can't see pics , please register or login The train, like many toys, has a lot of sculpted details in the plastic that don't really show up because they're not painted! So I tried to highlight as many of the fun little sculpt details as I could (and hide the screw holes), while still changing it enough to feel Christmas-y. For example, I changed the ice cream cone train car into a car with wooden lattice and a snowy mountaintop, complete with glitter and snowmen! I had originally planned to use faux-frosting, but I feared it might just look too chunky and thick, and even more like ice cream. Using glitter made it look more gritty, like ice! I didn't want to do a full repaint with a full white basecoat, since I worried it might turn out chunky, and also because I also wanted to highlight the original sculpting and color scheme. So that meant I had to get a bit creative with how I would turn each train car into more 'festive' colors! It's still very bright and colorful, but I figure that's more like how MLP would do the holidays anyway! I love to see how much the sculpting work of the original pops with just a little bit of paint to highlight it! Phew! That's a lot of typing, but it was a lot of work!! I originally got the drive to finish it in time for a 'custom winter collab' last year, and I can proudly say that mine was the only train included, LOL! Thanks for reading!
25
« on: December 06, 2023, 11:53:15 AM »
I'm hearing elsewhere online that Books A Million has the blind box sets, so if you have one near you go check it out! I'm also hoping that we may see these pop up in the "weird shops" like TJ Maxx or Ross, since that's where I found a couple of the Basic Fun TE ponies! (Only Sweet Stuff, but hey! A win is a win!)
I've also seen the Celestials on the Walmart app, so it's worth a look if Amazon if sold out!
26
« on: December 06, 2023, 11:49:11 AM »
I know this has turned into a discussion about social media, but it still seemed like an appropriate place to pop my head up after years of absence. Sorry if I’m intruding, I’m not sure anyone would remember me…
I’ve definitely noticed forums in general fading as people shift more focus to instant gratification social media. It’s just so hard to have any kind of cohesion there. I miss having drawn out and more insightful conversations about ponies!
Welcome back!  lovesbabysquirmy, that sounds totally miserable, and I don't blame you for being frustrated. Bouncing off of what Beth3346 said too, I feel like it's fighting a losing battle to try and keep scammers out of the Facebook groups. I mean, the obvious ones tend to get caught, but I know of at least one "popular" name who's a mod for multiple groups, allegedly holding people accountable for not scamming, who was very nearly kicked out of the pony community for scamming years ago. At that point it feels like ... there must be so many more who skate by because they're only scamming amounts less than $50, or they're just too "popular" to be held accountable until they hit grand larceny levels. It's reminding me of the Unicornucopia fiasco (super-popular so she was able to rip off more people without backlash because people were afraid to go against the 'big name member'), but it's even worse because it's easy to change names or just make a new account on Facebook and rejoin the pony groups. And if the pony groups are modded by scammers anyway, we've got the foxes watching the henhouse! It makes me glad that Paypal has such a long claim window now, because man, it feels so dangerous to be buying and selling ponies on Facebook!
27
« on: December 01, 2023, 07:27:55 PM »
I miss the days of LiveJournal and deviantART. I guess they're sort of "social media" sites? But they didn't seem to really have the same problems that modern sites like Tumblr/Twitter/etc have - I mean, they felt like communities.
Me tooooo ;_; they were really dying when I started being more active on the internet but I still remember them fondly. Was anyone else on the babydeeeer community on livejournal? It was just for cute and pastel stuff, and I think that's where I got the idea that my put away toys could come back out and be an aesthetic ~collection~. Though I also miss the days of tumblr being super active, with tons of funny gif replies.
OMG, I had a computer that crashed and died years ago, and I remember being SO SAD because I had saved a billion gifs for all of my ~hilarious and witty~ reblogs, and I was so sad I'd have to track them down again! And I never did! But man, that takes me back! I miss all of the goofy gif shenanigans on there!
28
« on: December 01, 2023, 02:14:14 AM »
You could try non acetone nail polish remover. I would test it in a small spot first to make sure it won't melt the hair.
I mean ... I'd also try just the 100% acetone myself, but then I can be a bit of a daredevil with my ponies to my own detriment! I think some kind of nail polish remover, along with maybe a fine flea comb, might be your rescue here! I'm sure you could scrape some of it out with your fingers alone, but the fine-toothed comb may help get the last little bits out. Best of luck!
29
« on: December 01, 2023, 02:02:11 AM »
Oh boy, a post about guilt among collectors?! Let me get my anxious self in here! I'm joking, mostly! I'm sure at some level you know these comments are bunk, but it's hard to hear all the same! So I don't blame you for wanting to hear less-depressing replies to the same argument! In terms of morality, let's be real... being alive as a human in 2023 is incredibly wasteful in general. If you live in the global West, if you own a cellphone, if you eat prepackaged foods, if you drink coffee, eat meat, you are surviving off of the backs of human suffering. If you are too focused on 'waste as sin', then your only option is to move to a commune and spend your days weaving baskets to atone for the sin of being alive. It's easier to point the finger and say 'oh, THOSE are the sinful wastrels!' and point at someone else, than to consider the ethics of child labor in producing most of the world's chocolate, just for one example. The people on Reddit posting about how evil it is to find pleasure in collecting 'the wrong thing' are likely posting from a computer or cell phone - do I have big news for them about the labor that is involved in those industries! /sarcasm I saw a really good quote that stuck with me, I think from Tumblr - I actually googled it, and it's from a poem, "Wild Geese" by Mary Oliver. Here are the first lines: You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves. It's a beautiful sentiment, and one that I'm drawn to, especially as an anxious person myself. There's a lot about my life that I'm sure someone could point to and say, that's so wasteful! And so what? Every life produces waste. Waste is not evil. Being human and fallible is not evil. Nobody's perfect, and if you take pleasure in little bits of plastic that remind you of kinder times, gosh! In times like these, I hope we can forgive each other for the little quirks and foibles that keep us going every day. I don't think it's wrong to want to do better, and in fact, I think we should do our best to lessen human suffering, especially on a global scale. But the answer is changing the industries that do these things and the capitalist society we live in that permits and rewards it, not tracking down Bluey collectors on Reddit to harass and make ourselves feel better. The world needs more kindness, and less of whatever that group of Redditors is doing right now, LOL. (I also think it's very "interesting" that it's popular to dump on collectors for being weird, but not on the people who make NFL a lifestyle... and I think it's interesting to consider the gender disparity between the groups of collectors being targeted and the NFL megafans... hmmm I wonder what the difference is!  )
30
« on: November 29, 2023, 05:19:00 AM »
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