(I love shipping swap ponies within the EU, they arrive so quickly! ) I was Okami's partner for the Famous Painting swap. Her list of paintings featured a variety of different cultures from Asian to African but since I felt some of those styles are already seen in customs, I wanted to pick an European one. So, The Birth of Venus it was. ^^ Let's see some pics first~

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Click for collage pic (a very modest nudity warning? )

Okami requested a G3 pony and all I had was the diva pose and the donkey pose. I've done too many divas recently and it wouldn't have suited the innocent look of Venus anyway. However, the donkey was not perfect either so I decided to try some modifications. I remembered Pop-girl had glued a pony's mouth shut before and it had looked great, so that's what I did. I didn't close her mouth completely because her cheeks would've looked funny, but I think the small modification makes a huge difference on how the pose looks.

The next step was to turn her head. I tried to mimic the tilt of Venus' head in the original painting and sculpted hair to match as rerooting would've been impossible with the sculpted neck. The rest was done with acrylic paints. I had to go and buy smaller brushes since my old ones were not sufficient enough for that level of detail. Venus' head measures about 2mm, and only with the new brushes I actually managed to give the figures faces - nowhere near accurate but at least they have all the facial features instead of just two big blobs of paint for eyes and a third one for mouth. You should've seen some of my initial attempts, lol. The goddess of Spring (on the right) was the last one I painted and she turned out best IMO, she's sligthly bigger than the others so that might've helped. I'm really proud of the tiny, tiny little flowers on her dress. 

And of course I had to give her a seashell to stand on. The base was such a rushed job but it kind of gives the pony a finished look. The pony is not glued onto it so Okami may replace it with something better if she wishes or display her completely without one to save some space.

I hope you all like her!       

DonkeyGrl2002 commissioned me to make an oriental pony with a dragon friend like my previous pair Amaranthia & Caurus.

Child of the Sea, Umiko got a sea turtle symbol and a water dragon sculpted on her back with Apoxie. I painted the symbol on both sides minus the turtle on the DS - she used to be a Wondermint and had a hole on that side where the gem used to be - but most of the DS side symbol got covered in the sculpting process. The pony has subtle blush on her cheeks, nose and mouth. She was rehaired with Black Magick, Pacific Ocean and Mermaid nylon hair, her hair was twisted into a bun and adorned with a kanzashi made with wire, chain, beads and sequins.

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*Picture collage*

The four seasons set is finally complete!

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*Pic collage*
And here are all her sisters: Baby Harefoot, Baby Owl Feather, Baby Spring Adder.

I have worked on this project for two years now. Or four years if you start counting from 2008 when I first made Jäniksenkäpälä, Baby Harefoot. I repainted her when someone wanted to buy her two years later, and accepted to make her three more baby ponies to represent all four seasons. The designs are a result of collaboration between me and the commissioner. She picked the animals and asked that the summer pony would be the most rich in detail and have sculpted plants on her. I sculpted some of them, painted the rest, and added some painted insects, too. The small ladybird on her left front hoof is barely visible in the photos but you can see the butterflies and the dragonfly. The hedgehog is standing on a patch of grass and clovers. I also added some Glossy Accents medium to mimic dewdrops on the leaves and vines. Her hair is Poison Ivy and some other green nylons (Unlucky Clover and Key Lime, I think) with some yellow stripes (Lemondrop).

Thanks for looking. ^^

This pony has been in the making longer than should be allowed.  She's a private trade pony for Ambar_Jul, a trade we started last summer. ( I think?) Anyway, I'm so happy now that's she's finally completed, and since Jul has now seen and approved the pics I can show her off. A long but enjoyable project! ^^

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[img2]http://www.freewebs.com/haawan/Evenfall_kollaasi.jpg[/img2]

Evenfall is a pegasus who spreads her dark wings across the sky every night. Or at least that was the initial idea behind the design. She's pretty much a combination between my 2010 Celtic pony Blodeuwedd and my first Halloween custom October Nights.

Her dress was sculpted with Fimo (and patched with Apoxie later after my cats knocked her off the shelf :'D ) and her wings with Apoxie Sculpt. These were my second pair of wings and I must say they turned out a lot better than my first pair back in 2007 or something. Still some anatomical issues but I like how the feathers turned out. Painted in acrylics, sealed with polyurethane varnish. I had to add more paint on top of the sealer, the body paint looked fine until I took her under the window to compare hair colours... ugh. Luckily the dark blue paint was straight out of the tube and I could add more coats without having to do the dress or her eyes again. After another coat of sealant she was rehaired with DH nylon Hematite, Pacific Ocean and Marmalade. I styled the hair into a bun and added a removable black veil.

Thanks for looking, I hope you like her!
This lady will start her journey to the other side of the world as soon as I have the funds to ship something this heavy. (Note to self, experiment with lighter materials next time... she's literally 'heavily sculpted'!)

Now, I have never watched a single episode of Bleach, nor have I read the manga, but I was commissioned to make these two characters and since I thought it'd be fun to try out ponifying Renji, I accepted. While the project was fun, it was way more time-consuming than I had anticipated, and also frustrating as I have never tried to sew a single piece of clothing in my life, let alone something as complex as a hakama, and reduced to pony size... But here they are, and I must say I'm pretty pleased with the result. I hope all Bleach fans will be as well. (Still, I won't be making any more Bleach ponies, at least not with fabric clothes, lol.)

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Collage pic of Rukia
Collage pic of Renji

Both ponies wear handsewn shihakusho, an outfit consisting of a white undershirt, a black kosode and a black hakama. Naturally I couldn't make them perfectly accurate, and even though they are removable in theory, I'm afraid the clothes might tear if taken off -- it was difficult enough to get them on. This also means that only a minority of Renji's tattoos can be viewed... and those were actually my favourite part. Rukia was tough to photograph, her hair looks somewhat funny in every pic. I wanted to give her a full head of hair in order to make it look somewhat more accurate, but for some reason her paint started to crack so I didn't dare to add too many plug holes. Her forelock and Renji's spiky ponytail were styled with watered down glue.

I was also asked to make them some accessories. Rukia is fond of bunnies (or so I heard) and she got a plush toy. That turned out bigger than I wanted but otherwise I'm happy with my first sewn plushie, learned quite a few new tricks...

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Renji got his katana, made with Apoxie Sculpt (the sword) and Fimo Puppen (the scabbard). I made the katana first and wrapped it in plastic wrap, then moulded Fimo on top of it and baked the whole thing. The details on the katana are painted on, I tried to make the decorations look 3D. 
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Thanks for looking, hope you like them! ^^

Tiella has received her and asked me to post pics, so there you go! ^^

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*Click for more pics*

I must say I enjoyed very much working on this pony! I wanted to keep the colour scheme limited and basically go for a white on white look with some black for contrast, but I also wanted to incorporate some of Tiella's favourite colours so there's a little bit of soft pink and blue in her hair. The eyes were inspired by the eyes of white tigers; I thought they looked nice and natural without lashes so I left those out. The horn was sculpted with Apoxie and she was given a full body repaint and some subtle blush on her nose with acrylics. Her hair is a blend of Virgin Snow, Snowflake, Black Magick, Pussycat and Arctic Frost nylon from Dollyhair.

I hope you all like her!

Thought I'd share a few of my latest creations, I have been drawing something else than ponies for once. ^-^  These are all decos or deco entries (little booklets that are passed from one artist to another, each decorates one page of the booklet according to the theme if there is one).

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Fantasy deco entry, I couldn't decide what to draw until I suddenly remembered my old OC Akissa. She's a character from a short story that I never finished, though I never even had any decent plot to begin with so it's no wonder I scrapped the whole thing. This was a quick one so there are plenty of anatomy issues and such (the wings apparently aren't connected to her body, lol... and I can't draw lips :/ ) but it was fun to see what she'd look like compared to the old versions. Let's see if I can find some in Photobucket... 2005, 2003, 2001. 


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Another fantasy deco entry, again a relatively quick one. Watercolours and black ballpoint pen + scrapbooking supplies.

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Entry in a Lord of the Rings deco. Again some anatomy issues (Asfaloth's left ear, I can't believe I didn't notice that before inking, grrr...) and lack of contrast, that's one of my biggest problems with watercolours...

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Lemurrrr! Animal deco, front cover. Indian ink & Copic markers on Canson Recycled, lime green scrapbooking paper and orange/yellowish giftwrapping paper. I love how this one turned out. ^^


There's more info about decos at the Deco Swappers forum (link in my sig) if you're interested in these little booklets.

The third part of the Four Seasons set I was commissioned to do, the summer pony is still in the making. The first two, Baby Harefoot & Baby Owl Feather, can be viewed here.

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The commissioner asked for a snake themed pony for spring. The symbol wasn't perhaps the best choice as it may look as if the adder was going to eat the eggs, lol... but after trying on a few spring themed options we settled on the bird nest.

The bait was FT Tic-tac-toe with ugly brown discolouration all over her body and manky hair. I carved her tooth off, sculpted the adder with Apoxie Sculpt and painted her in acrylics, light spring-time green and white gradients to represent snow. She was rehaired in Dollyhair nylon, I don't remember all the colours but I think I used at least White Witch, Golden Sand, Mermaid and possibly Gingerbread or some other medium brown. The hair was braided and boiled for crimpled curls.

The pic says 2011 as she was actually completed last year, I finally got round to styling her hair and taking photos in February, lol. Must start working on the last pony and finally finish this project which has taken me a couple of years now, eh...