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Topics - retrogradenova
1
« on: April 06, 2017, 03:39:29 AM »
So I'm doing a few ponies with sculpted wings for the first time. I'm using this tutorial: http://eiriel.deviantart.com/art/Wing-Sculpting-Tutorial-59733330But I'm finding that the cured apoxie sculpt keeps dislodging from the pony's body, so that the wire is the only thing holding the wings on to the ponies. I tried putting apoxie sculpt on the inside on one to try to prevent it, but it only seemed to help for a little while. Does anyone have a good solution to prevent this or fix it after it's happened? visitors can't see pics , please register or loginvisitors can't see pics , please register or login Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I was really hoping to get to airbrushing these this weekend, but it's starting to look like I'm going to have to start over.
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« on: February 14, 2017, 07:48:02 AM »
This is a long over due post thanks to technical difficulties. But now I finally got it all together. Yay! (please excuse the graininess, I don't know what is up with my stupid camera phone)
I'd like to introduce you all to my first year of custom making! Dun dun dun!!!!!!!!!!
visitors can't see pics , please register or loginLeft to right: Wintergreen Frost, Silver Bells, Sunsoaked, Raspberry Cyclone, Harvest Moon, Finishing Touch, Lil' Nova, Lil' Treestar, and Lil' (my husband really needs to name him already)! Wintergreen Frost: visitors can't see pics , please register or login visitors can't see pics , please register or loginFrost was a Christmas trade with the amazing Aintnobuffalo! He has Dolly Hair: Snowflake, Poison Ivy And Doll Planet: Oz, Jaded, Aquarius, and Red Wedding. His forelock was giving me a bit of trouble during the styling process so the wire there is just to hold it down for the picture (still didn't work very well  ) Silver Bells: visitors can't see pics , please register or login visitors can't see pics , please register or loginSilver was a Christmas swap with someone on Facebook, I don't remember their Arena name He has Dolly Hair: Moonlight, Snowflake, Arctic Frost, and Lapis Sapphire and Doll Planet: Sonic, Silver Lining For some reason his display side photo is more color accurate than the ND I'll add some more picture of the others once I figure what's up with my camera, but if anyone has any styling tips in the meantime, I could use all the help I can get with that.
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« on: November 08, 2016, 01:00:53 PM »
This was my entry for the custom contest in the Wishes Do Come True Genie Project group on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/1591812564457570/Harvest Moon was a labor of love, I kept running into little difficulties with him, but I was able to get him done in time for the contest. Though I still haven't received the hair I originally planned to use. FedEx claims it must have been stolen from my front porch. I wonder when FedEx started using invisible drivers and silent running, invisible trucks? He is dyed, with sculpted feathers, airbrushed with pearl paint, and haired with three different yarns, visitors can't see pics , please register or login visitors can't see pics , please register or loginvisitors can't see pics , please register or login
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« on: October 25, 2016, 02:10:47 PM »
Last year when I was first exploring the idea of trying to make a custom, I saw many beautiful reindeer customs. I was floored by them and they were probably the reason I decided I wanted to make customs.
I've been wanting to make one ever since. Lately, I have been pondering designs for one. There are so many beautiful ones out there if you try googling the subject, each with their own style. The thing I can't figure out with my design, rooted hair or not? Does it take away from the design to root in hair? Does it make it look too much like a pony still? Generally speaking I prefer rooted hair over sculpted any day of the week on a regular pony. It's just my preference, but on reindeer I've seen some that just work beautifully. So I'd love to hear everyone's opinions on the subject and maybe start a discussion. But what do you think, when it comes to customizing a pony into another animal (reindeer or other) that generally doesn't have a mane, what do you think, do you root a mane anyways or not? And you're welcome to share your reindeer pictures if you got them.
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« on: September 14, 2016, 05:31:41 PM »
So over the weekend my husband went to Walmart in SC. Whenever he is at Walmart he always checks the mlp toy section to see if there's anything new that I'd want. He's so sweet. Well when he was there he noticed the entire Mlp toy section was on 20-50% clearance. He checked a Walmart the next town over in GA the next day and he said the Mlp section was missing completely. No sign of it what so ever.
Has anyone else notice a decrease in stock/ massive clearance at their local Walmarts? I'm curious if this is just some weird thing going on here or if Walmart is dropping Mlp merch.
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« on: September 14, 2016, 05:16:44 PM »
visitors can't see pics , please register or loginSo I got these plushies a while ago with a lot of baits. They're are a bit dirty, and I'm not entirely sure what's the best way to clean them. The tags say they are surface washable. Anyone have any tips? Pre-owned plushies always make me kinda nervous, I wanna make sure these guys are cleaned up well. Also I can't seem to get Firefly to stand up, any suggestions?
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« on: September 06, 2016, 01:30:47 PM »
That is the question! I had originally intended of doing a perfume puff with this lady. But now I'm not so sure. Either way I end up styling her, I felt the need to show off her beautiful olive flowing tresses. visitors can't see pics , please register or loginThe afternoon sun isn't doing the color justice, so here's a pic from before I decided to go longer with the tail  visitors can't see pics , please register or loginEDIT: I still had the old shorter tail laying around, so I puffed it just so we could compare it. I was doing a bit of experimentaion with how I fluffed it, so It may have lost a bit more of the fiber than i would have liked. I've also been debating on blue or white ribbon, so that's why the bow is there. Spoiler visitors can't see pics , please register or loginOn a side note my cat, he isn't happy with me right now.
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« on: August 27, 2016, 07:37:31 AM »
So I have completed a g3 custom, painted and rerooted. But i can't seem to get the head back on. Getting the head off without damaging was pretty easy, but it just wont go back on. Anyone have any tips for putting them back together?
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« on: July 29, 2016, 11:36:09 PM »
I've been going by retrogradenova since 2004. I've used it for almost everything. When i started going to conventions in 2009 occassionally someone would come up to me and say "you know your name means black hole". It was frustrating as that had not been my intent, but rather a simple mistake on my part.
Explaining that mistake became obnoxious. It seemed to come up more and more as i tried to sell my art. I'm not a blackhole. In 2012 i decided to change this identiy that i use for everything from online video games to my art. I wanted something personal, something that said something about myself. But now in 2016 i still go by retrogradenova since i have never found the right name. I've never really been good at finding ways to represent myself, so it's not really suprising to me.
Has anyone else gone through a drastic change to their online identity? Or even a simple one?
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« on: July 25, 2016, 11:20:52 AM »
I don't usually do brags, but after my husband put up my new shelf last night, I can't help myself. My husband has also been spoiling me the last couple weekends, so I thought I'd share those as well. A while back I posted a wip pic on this shelf, after airing it out on my sun porch for a few months we figured it was ready to go up. I need to get something to protect my other gens of ponies from the sealant, so until then I decided to show off my collection of boxed g4 stuff. My husband made the shelf, based off a design of mine. I love it so much. He's planning on making me a few more for the rest of my ponies. visitors can't see pics , please register or loginvisitors can't see pics , please register or loginThis is actually my husband's Rainbow Dash army. It has been growing slowly. He only really likes FiM and Rainbow Dash. I find he's more willing to buy me pony stuff if he can get a Rainbow Dash in the deal, hehe. I've been trying to get him to watch Tales with me, I think he'd like Patch. visitors can't see pics , please register or loginWe've had to go into the city the last couple weekends and we did a little shopping while we were there. Last we picked up the metal lunch boxes from this great little candy store. Zecora and DJ Pon 3 I found at Build-a-Bear, they were doing a 2 for $35 thing. They had Celestia too, but I had to make sure we didn't completely stomp all over the budget. Not shown is an adorable key chain we found in Barnes & Noble. I couldn't figure out where my husband put it, so it didn't get in the picture. visitors can't see pics , please register or loginThis weekend we picked up a few more things. I found the Crusaders and Mrs. Cake at TRU. I was pretty sure they were from an older line you couldn't get in stores anymore. But I'm just grateful for my luck in finding them. I'm addicted to puzzles, so pony puzzles always get scooped up when I see them. The other Rainbow Dash lunch box I picked up from the candy store again. I'm taking it with me to the Southeast Pony Meet as part of my donation to raffle prizes.
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« on: July 20, 2016, 11:14:11 AM »
Has anyone had any recent luck customizing one of the playtime baby brothers with the peek-a-boo heads? I got this little guy in a lot of baits off Ebay. He was painted up to look like Tex, but he felt like he was drowning in paint so I removed it in hopes of letting him breath again. Turns out beneath all that paint were little rodent bite marks, I think. I'm planning on trying to fill those in and re-customizing him. He even has yellow paint still stuck in his hair. I'm just a little worried about his head/neck mechanism and getting him back together after I've painted and rehaired him. I'd appreciate any experienced tips or advice on it. visitors can't see pics , please register or login
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« on: July 06, 2016, 04:49:38 PM »
I have my super tiny paint brushes, and my retarder to slow the paint drying time. Normally when I'm doing actual paintings I'd sketch everything out in pencil first. I imagine an accidental stray pencil line on a FBR could be very troublesome.
So I'm curious how does everyone go about painting the cutie marks or other intricate details on their customs? What do you do to get cutie marks even when painting them on both sides? Do you just eyeball it and wing it? I'd love to hear about everyone's tips and techniques.
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« on: May 21, 2016, 01:29:57 PM »
For the last 7 months my husband and I have come up empty whenever we go thrifting for ponies. I got to the point where I was starting to thinking that people just weren't donating their ponies down here. This week my husband heard of a good lead on ponies, but when he got to the thrift store he found they were sold. To be sweet he hit up a few more thrift stores on his way home for me. No ponies anywhere to be had, but he did get the same story from multiple thrift stores. The Story: A woman and her mechanic husband make often trips down from upstate to buy up ponies. The Question: What's the etiquette when pony hunting outside your home area? What do you do when you find a specific person is picking your local hunting ground clean on a regular basis? It seems odd for someone to travel all the way to the nearly southern part of South Carolina for ponies. If I wanted to I suppose I could spend the 3-4 hours a day going to all the thrift store in my area, but I really don't have the time or gas money to do that. Honestly, I prefer not to go thrifting more than every other week if I can help it, since I usually go with my husband, and he's got other stuff he has to do on weekends. Its really disheartening trip after trip, month after month to not find anything at all.  If I could figure out who this person is than I'd ask about maybe becoming pony hunting buddies. I'm sure my husband is tired of looking for ponies with me anyways. Anyone have any thoughts on it?
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« on: May 18, 2016, 01:12:46 PM »
My husband is building me some wooden shelves to display my ponies. While I originally insisted they be natural wood to limit the risk of any hoof staining, he insisted on a dark stain to match the rest of my furniture (and cause it looks nice). He insists that sealing them with polyurethane will protect my ponies from the wood stain. Does anyone know if he is right? Will my ponies be safe or is there something else I should be having him use on it instead?
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« on: March 22, 2016, 09:48:03 PM »
Hey y'all!
So I've been meaning to post this for a while (but I get sidetracked easily). But now that I've started customizing I'm finding I have no place to put my customizing supplies. So I'm thinking it's been a long time coming, but it's time for a redesign of my studio, to be exact my art supplies storage. My hair, my paint, and my bait ponies are all over the place.
I'm in need of inspiration. Right now my closet is full of art supplies from school and not stored very well. If anyone has a really functional studio/art supply storage set up I'd love to see it.
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