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I felt like drawing some G1 ponies.  I picked these because I liked the colours and wanted a pegasus, a unicorn and an earth pony because I'm completest like that.

This is a composite of three separate images, so if anyone feels like just one of 'em, that's an option too.

I'll probably make some prints of these at some point if anyone's interested.

As some of you probably know, I have a little g4 blindbag obsession collection.  I'm not looking to collect every pony, but I do like to add to my nerd herd and customize them when I get time.

I was hoping the movie would bring a new rush of blindbags to my area, but sadly this isn't the case.  I think our local Walmart got one box in.  I snagged a couple and so far, no new ponies.  We also don't have any of the movie tie-in mini sets (yes, I'm trying to convince myself that a grown woman NEEDS a Canterlot Castle playset, because I have a mighty need would like to add that Celestia figure to the gang, but the eBay costs plus shipping is insane and I just can't justify it to myself, yet).

I've also noticed that even the factory seconds I sometimes buy from chinese resellers are getting harder to find too.  Plus the prices have gone way up.

Anybody else here in tiny horse drought conditions, or is it just me?

p.s. Months of thrift store shopping has yielded ONE tiny horse - a rainbow dash.  She will be loved but it takes a lot of digging through mountains of mcdonalds toys and bags of contorted barbies to find them.  But the hunt there continues.

This'll be my masterpost for all the tiny things I make for my blindbag ponies: props, food, and whatever else.  Any pics I take in the future will be added to this to keep me from clogging the forums 


Let's start with some apples. And applecrates.

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Here's the Apple Family playing with their new baskets.  Poor Granny Smith got cut off on the right side there.  This is why I'm never asked to take photos at family events.
I haven't found anything I wanted to make the handles out of.  Staples are too thin and too large.  I'm working on that part.  For now the Apples will just have to deal with handle-less baskets.


The baskets

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The apples are not glued into the baskets.  I just put them in there to make it look nicer.  The baskets are made from cardboard strips.  I figured the Apples use old barrels that are way past their prime to gather fruit in, so I didn't try to make them look pristine or even.


The apples (the fruit, not the ponies  )

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Good ol' fimo to the rescue.  The stems are made separately from a thin roll of brown fimo that I cut and glue into place once the apples are baked.  It's hard to tell from the show just what size the apples are, as they resize the objects in the animation to fit the situation.  I guessed and sort of went for a largish size.


(I just noticed that it says "I LIVE IN FEAR" on the dvd spine right behind Apple Bloom.    You can rest assured she's with her family and totally safe.)

(This is a repost from the Customs section.  It was suggested I put this here instead, so sorry for the double posting)

I was given my first standard size pony the other day - this one: http://www.strawberryreef.com/Index/Name/merriweatherII.html
I know she's not very valuable or a collectors item, but I have to admit I'm kinda taken with her.

My friend got two of them in a bag from a thrift store.  The pony is in excellent condition.  I checked down inside her neck (I didn't take her head off though) and all over for signs of mold/pony cancer/etc and found none.  One of her eyes is a little scratched, her mane was a mess, and she needed a bath, but otherwise she looked fine.

I washed her under the tap and used actual shampoo on her.  She came up nice and clean.  I then dried her off and combed out her hair and have let her sit out in the open for over 24 hours.

The trouble is that when you hold her close to your face she... smells.  It's almost like gasoline.  I expected her to have a plasticy smell but this is pretty ripe. 

Is this normal?  Will just airing her out help it go away?  What can be done for a pongy pony?

I'm looking to buy g4 blindbag ponies.  It doesn't matter to me if they're missing cards or are marked up, or if you have duplicates of the same one (for example: you have two identical Rarities you don't want).  In a perfect world, I'm looking for folks in Canada who have some they want to sell, but overseas/out-of-country offers are okay if the price is right (shipping can be a pain in the tail).


Specifically I'm looking for Main Six ponies, or recolours of them.  Stallions of any kind are always welcome (including the "shining armor" body type and the pegasus ones)!!  I'm not really looking for princess ponies but I'll take them if they're part of a lot.  I'm willing to pay up to 2 dollars Canadian each for mares, 3 dollars Canadian each for stallions.  The only exception to this is for flim, flam or Mr. Cake.  I've got a bumper crop of those and I can only pay 2 dollars for them.  And I'll pay postage of course unless it's an arm and a leg


If you have some that need to go, please send me a note.  I can't promise I can take every offer, but I'll certainly consider any offers made.

Thanks for reading through this!


EDIT:  my website is www.xenotropos.com    I'm also willing to trade artwork for ponies if you'd rather.  Please see my site for sample work.  I do make a living from my artwork so I can't trade art for just one or two ponies, so if you'd like artwork I'd want to trade for a lot of 'em.  I'm open to a bit of dealing here    Again, postage would be paid by me in any case. 

I'm gonna put a hold on purchasing more ponies for a short while - thank you to everyone who offered!  I should be open again to purchase more in a few months when the ol' VISA recovers

On my travels through some pony modding sites I came across a couple suggestions on retouching/modding ponies that I found concerning.  I thought I'd post my rant about what I found here.

Why Dyes Will Fade
Some pony preservation/restoration sites suggested using dye (such as RIT) or "artists markers" (such as Prismacolor or Copic) to colour or touch up ponies.  They all mentioned that some have noticed issues with the dyes fading.  I hate to be "that guy", but having worked in the illustration field I can tell you from experience that all dyes and inks WILL fade over time.  Also, don't use markers on ponies unless you want the colour to fade and eventually bleed.  And here's why:

It's SCIENCE! if Science was an 80's cartoon...
Ever noticed how dyes and marker ink looks so brilliant?  The colour just bounces off the page, and your ponies.  The thing that makes dyes so attractive, effective, and bright is the same thing that will eventually make them fade.

If you remember your high school physics, you'll know that regular white light (sunlight) is made up of a spectrum of coloured rays.  An object appears blue because it reflects those parts of white light that appear blue to us.  Light, as weird as this sounds, is a physical thing.  Without getting too much into waves and particles, just think of light as being made of photons - small packets of light, like little glowing glass beads.

Hold that thought.

All paint or ink can be more or less sorted into two categories: dye based or pigment based.

Dyes are by their nature a liquid.  Inside that liquid is a suspension of extremely tiny particles that give it it's colour.  These tiny particles make dyes so vibrant.  It's the same reason a gem cut with many sides sparkles more than a gem with fewer sides.  More particles, more points of light bounced back. Dyes also soak into a lot of surfaces well because their coloured bits are so fine.  Dyes are found in, well, dyes, markers, inks and most alcohol based colours. 

Pigment based paint is made from ground substances suspended in something to make them spreadable.  Many of them come from minerals or earth (Burnt Sienna is - okay, in most cases - actually made from baked earth found near Sienna, Italy).  The bits are microscopic but much larger than those found in dyes.  Pigment based paint can be pretty brilliant, but less so than their dye cousins.  They also don't sink into materials as readily.  Pigment based colours will always stay to some extent on the surface of an object or cloth.  Most acrylic paint, oil paint and some "acrylic inks" (which are just really fine pigment that mimics ink) are pigment based.

Remember how I said to think of light as a stream of tiny glass beads?  Imagine billions of tiny glass beads bombarding an object at the speed of light.  Colour particles in paint and dyes eventually flake away under this pounding.  All paints of any sort fade over time, but the smaller particles flake off first.  This is why markers and dyes fade so easily.  This is also why pigments tend to be far more durable.

Artists markers are designed for use on materials that will go straight to print.  They're ideal for any work where the original isn't as important as their copies are.  Yellow markers in particular are made from a dye so fine that they are known to leach into surrounding surfaces.  I would never use markers of any sort on a pony for that reason.  They fade at a terrific rate. They're meant to live fast, die young, and make great looking temporary art.


DON'T PANIC (written in large, friendly letters)[/b]

I don't mean to say that any pony you have dyed is doomed.

No custom should ever be kept in direct sunlight, obviously.  Dyed ponies will keep their best in an unlit cabinet, or stored in boxes and displayed only on special occasions (or rotated with the seasons so they take the least amount of light damage but still can be enjoyed.  Pigment painted horses can take light, but even the best can't handle direct sunlight. 

One thing that may keep your dyed ponies better longer is to coat them with a few layers of thinned clear acrylic medium.  I did a test with marker ink, and paper that was treated after colouring with a few coats of this stayed nicer longer when hung in direct sun.  This probably works by holding down those delicate coloured particles longer.  You can get this at most art supply stores.

Another option might be to try a water-clean up polyurethane as a top coat.  They use this to protect vinyl decals on wood and it should help.  It's available at most hardware stores and comes in a matt or gloss format.  Polyurethane also has some limited UV protective properties too.

I've never found any way to prevent marker bleed.  The best advice I can give is NOT to use markers for any reason on a pony.


Lastly, The Ink That Isn't Ink
The one exception to all this is genuine India ink, or ink that states it's made with "carbon black" or "lamp black".  Carbon is a highly durable pigment, and can be ground finely enough to work like an ink.  You may want to mix it with a little acrylic medium to get it to stick to a pony though.  NOTE: Coloured India inks are NOT made with pigments and are all dyes.

The Obligatory But My Dyed Pony Hasn't Faded Answer
Hold on there, partner!  A dyed pony won't suddenly poof into an off white pony.  The difference we're talking about is years of looking perfect vs potential centuries of looking perfect.  Plastic will likely outlive western civilization.  A pony coloured with pigment paints, sealed and kept in a dry location out of direct sunlight could stay pristine long after I'm dust.  I want your mods to be handed down to collectors for decades and for your hard work to appreciated for as long as possible.  If you want to dye your ponies, go ahead.  I'm sure it'll look great.  AND you could always re-mod it later should the worst happen.  I'm just here to mention the risks.


Lastly Lastly: if this is true, where's my pile of coloured dust around my faded ponies??!!
These particles are small, I mean microscopic and then some small.  Some break into even smaller particles. Most of the dislodged particles float off in the air.  Some become part of the dust in your home.  Some get carried off when you touch a figure.  Some decay after dislodging and become base chemicals and loose atoms.  These are so small that you can't see the amount of coloured light they still reflect. So no, you can't put up a net and catch your loose colours 


In conclusion: TL;DR don't dye your ponies or use markers on them. They will  fade.  Fading bad.

Hello everyone!

First off, a big thank you to everyone who's helped me with your replies to my previous posts!!! 


Here's my current question: I've recently started converting mlp g4 blindbag ponies for fun. 
As I've mentioned before, I managed to scrounge up several of the Sweetie Babs/Babs Seed and Applebloom sets at local dollar stores.  So far that gives me:

Babs Seed
Applebloom - both of  these as-is from the sets

Scootaloo
Sweetie Belle - modded from set ponies

Button Mash - a mod in progress

I'm hoping to purchase a Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara in the future as there's no point in reinventing the wheel, and they're readily available on ebay.


This leaves me with three little foals to mod.  I want to mod them into school ponies from the show, but I've no idea who to pick.

Most of the school ponies are odd body shapes that I don't feel ready to tackle, like Snips and Snails, Featherweight or Pip.  This also leaves out Little Red types.

I'm hoping to do at least one or two more male ponies for this group too.  Gotta have a few foals in with all those fillies

So if you had three foals, which background school ponies would you choose to mod them into?  Any suggestions are welcome!