Custom Proto Pony thread (pic heavy)

[Eluluu]

hey everyone, ive recently acquired my third My Pretty Pony yesterday, and this one is in such sad shape that ive decided ima crack her open and give a customizing her a whirl, so this will be my work in progress thread. =P
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her hair is beyond frizzy, its giant clumps of dreadlock-like mats.
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her one side has raised bumpy patches that i believe is damage to the plastic itself, looks like shes been rubbed on the sidewalk or something. im hoping it might be glue tho, ill prolly try a few different grades of sandpaper on her to smooth it out.
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paint on her face is pretty rubbed, and her eyes are a little dirty but im sure theyll clean up. eyelashes are in good shape at least (and her trigger still works, if sluggishly) when i take the custom hammer to her im hoping shell still work, but im not betting on it. =P
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curse everyone who takes a marker to toys!!! sigh the people wrote the price ON her... no sticker or tag... not even under her foot which is the only semi-forgiveable place to tag a pony... then they lowered her price... a good thing and a bad thing. good cause she was a dollar cheaper for me, bad cause... CMON!
 
im not sure when im gonna actually start work on her, im still sorting out who shes gonna be. so far the candidates are:
 
Truly- pretty but a little plain, part of me wants to do multicolored hair so prolly not her
Gingerbread- always liked her, but i worry about doin an eye swap and worst case scenarios if i try dremeling a recess to drop gems into... tho maybe eyepatches will be 'in' again =P
SweetStuff- same as above
Sundance- i was never a huge SD fan, but it kinda makes sense that she should be my first proto custom (if it goes well i may have to keep an eye out for more of them to make more, i seem to have an odd string of luck finding these things that people say theyve never even seen in the flesh =P) sure shes the same colors as truly, and not multitoned like what i kind of want to do, but something about its shape says Sundance...
Raincurl- i seem to have a thing for white earth ponies... i was originally leaning toward her as an option but now im kinda eyeing Sundance... figure start simpler and work my way up from there.
Stripes
 
hmm, now having said all that i think i answered my own question. i think ima make her Sundance... (tho knowing me ill change my mind a million times til i finally commit and buy the hair etc =P)
 
ill post updates when i start taking her apart and cleaning her up... youll be the first to know if she shatters when i try to open her up. =P and any tips or ideas on how to go about this custom are welcome as it will be my first serious custom (lol leave it to me to choose an oddball to start with)
 
now to go poke her with a screwdriver...

[PandaBerryInSpace]

Good luck!

[DevlishSmooch]

Oooh, can't wait to see!  If you find another one with a good body, I'm looking for them (both versions, and the pink one, too). 

[Eluluu]

ill keep an eye out for them, i seem to have a horseshoe in me somewhere for them. =P

[Darkhorse]

Oh Cool, I'm customizing one also.  I haven't even begun working on her yet but when I'm finished she will hopefully look like Glory.  I think I'm going to start by applying heat to her seams and see if I can pry her apart carefully, if not I will most likely have to pull out the dremel. 

[Taxel]

Oh man, you should do Sundance! I wanted to commission a custom Sundance one but I've got no money. I'd love to see how she'd look. /not biased at all

Good luck! Part of the reason I didn't bother trying to save up for it was the fear of how much work it would be making one cost a fortune, lol. Hopefully its not as difficult as I fear!

[Eluluu]

lol well ive already put a day into trying to crack her open... with NO success. hasbro wasnt foolin around when they made these things. im dreading having to take the dremel to it, but thats gonna be a LAST resort.

[hyenacub]

oOOO Sundance!  Also, is that marker, or is it grease pencil?  The thrift shops here use grease pencil.

[Eluluu]

finally got her open. ran along the seams with an exacto, tried the boiling water trick to no avail, tried acetone on the seams, then finally just settled in for a long fight with the exacto and a teeny screwdriver, and my friend BRUTE FORCE. the bf gave it a whirl too, and he finally got one seam open then i took over cause im paranoid and every time it made a loud cracking sound hed freeze with an 'uhoh am i in trouble' face on HAHA thats when i confirmed my suspicion, it has an overlapping seam, so if you just cut it it wont have that ledge to rest on and make glueing firmer, so im glad i did it the hard way cause at least this way the glue has something more to hold on to than the thin edge of the plastic. on the downside, it seemed like said 'lip/ledge/whatever' was more prone to just snapping off before the glue gave away haha. so anyways, if you decide to save yourself the time and stress and want to just cut it open you might want to putty another lip or something for the halves to fit together with, just an idea.
 
now on to the pics, ill try to explain as i go.
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started mostly on her backside cause part of the seam was weakening there, the bf accidently broke off a few small chips on her left cheek where the lesser leg seams connect to the main seam. (it looks like you can leave those seams intact, as you can get at the mechanism by just splitting her down the middle.) i pushed the nub of her tail inside so i could see what i was doing.
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continued working at her with the Xacto and screwdriver til i got the rest of her stomach opened up, luckily most of this seam popped open when the bf got it started so i didnt have to really get my hand in there. took a while to get her chin seperated, but i wanted to make sure that was mostly good to go for when i started working at her spine for fear of the plastic breaking thru her neck and cheek when i started tugging.
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ran into a bit of an issue with her spine, when the bf got the main seperation going it stayed with the seams up until this point, then it decided to break a good quarter inch away from the seam on her back, so i took an exacto and carved a path from the existing break back on track to the base of her mane. took a lot of digging and patience to make sure it broke along the line i wanted it to.
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got it up to the mane finally
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face seperated fairly cleanly except for a little chunk on her nose that made a little bit of a zigzag but itll be an easy fix on reassembly. this is what the inside looks like at first glance with a limp mechanism. CREEPY EYES from the inside lol
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closeup of the eye mechanism.
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closeup of ears.
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now for how it all fits together. took some fiddling to figure it out so well see if i can explain it. the two smaller prongs go around the ear paddle, and the peg on the mechanism plugs into the lower cylinder. this will make more sense in a bit.
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the spring clips to the little hole on the front, and will be fairly taught when everythings hooked up, the prongs/ear bit is in place already, and you can see how it works, the whole affair kinda pivots downward, which makes the ear twitch and the hook will rotate up and push up on the plastic at the back of the eye, causing it to close before falling back into place.
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now that i had the basic mess sorted out i picked up the trigger and it took a lot of fiddling to finally grasp the idea (its late and im tired lol) it hooks into the smaller hole in the arm and hangs down to the chin. dont be fooled like i was, the trigger is PULLED DOWN not back and forward like a lightswitch. not sure why but this part baffled me for a while
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on to the tail...   the tail doesnt really have a true washer, its just looped in half then tightly wrapped with string and tied off, making sure the loop fits around the peg on the mechanism. make sure the actual base of your tail (that will be showing outside the pony) is between the plastic prongs on the mechanism. this will keep it firmly in place and the prongs will apply the pressure needed to make it twitch when the trigger is pulled. it may take a little trial and error to figure out how it all sits together and which way is up etc, im sure my directions are confusing at points.
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the stubbles from the mane, so you can see how that works. it looks like they just folded the mane in half (like usual, sorta) sandwiched it between a thin strip of folded fabric, then sewed thru the whole mess a few times. this in turn was just sitting in the neckseam with just pressure and the 'teeth' inside to hold it in place, tho im thinking i may put a little glue in there somehow to make sure it stays put.
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dissected pony.
...now that i know how it works... and i can put one half of it back together and have it still function... the real trick will be getting that second half on again once i have everything painted and ready to go and make sure everything lines up... itd be a pity to go thru all the work and miss one of the paddles or something and have a Stroke pony.

Post Merge: May 28, 2012, 09:05:02 AM

took a little time out to remove her eyes for easier primeing/painting. one teeny bit of plastic broke on one of them but its just one of the brackets that holds it in place and im fairly sure i can repair it with a little greenstuff on reassembly so im not too worried. tho it did suck having the screwdriver pop up and cut me under my thumbnail. but thats to be expected. all artists expect a little blood sweat and tears to go into each project...
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one empty socket
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the first bracket i removed one of the pegs broke but it looks like itll be an easy fix.
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and the reason i wanted to remove them, so i didnt have to worry about tape up the eyelashes etc
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second socket wanted to break so i pried up two of the pegs enough to slip the eye in and out.
prolly gonna spend the day sanding and filing

[rybett]

Very interesting!  Insert vision of mad scientist here... 

[hyenacub]

Liking the step by steps! Interesting!

[DevlishSmooch]

*sits and watches in awe*

Popcorn anyone?