Customizing a pony based off a busty character?

[Katika]

Has anyone made any customs based off female characters with erm... noticeable breasts?  I'm working on a couple customs of this type and while my instincts are telling me "just sculpt the pony and forget about the breasts", the clothing that they will be wearing (I sculpt my clothing) kind of lend themselves to saying "Look!  Boobies!" 

Pretty much, I'm asking for any insight or advice that any of you have had in the past.  I really don't like the idea of sculpting breasts (it's not a modesty thing - I'm just pretty sure a pony with "chesticles" would look ridiculous), but am not sure on the best route around doing so.  Sorry if this topic is inappropriate, but all of the people IRL that I've talked to think I'm nuts for even wondering about this kind of thing.  Any help or suggestions would be great

[PhyllieBean]

I guess how you go about it depends on the style of clothing.  I can see something like a corset or bustier still working without something there to fill it out.  What exactly are you looking at for the top?

[saply]

The challenge here, if I can say so without treading into weird territory, is to translate "sexy" assets of a person to a horse, right? Personally, I would alter their attire to fit more with the style of the original character than match it exactly. Horses and humans have entirely different anatomy after all, so why specifically do you think a pony would wear a corset? I would guess it'd be to wick in the waist or something.

[blackestbird]

I remember someone actually sculpted 'chesticles' (lol) onto a pony and uh, no offense to the maker, but it looked rather odd. Really, if I remember right the custom came out really nice, it was just weird seeing that since ya know, it's not something you're used to! ^__^ Wish I could remember the pony just so you could get an idea since someone actually took that plunge, but I just don't remember. I agree with saply though: I'd just match the style more than exactly replicating, because like saply said, the anatomy is totally different. I mean, we don't know what the character is, but there have been many corset ponies done, and they always look nice, and you don't really notice that they don't have all the equipment to fill in the corset. You could still sculpt the neckline low, the idea would be there without actually sculpting cleavage.

[PhyllieBean]

The challenge here, if I can say so without treading into weird territory, is to translate "sexy" assets of a person to a horse, right? Personally, I would alter their attire to fit more with the style of the original character than match it exactly. Horses and humans have entirely different anatomy after all, so why specifically do you think a pony would wear a corset? I would guess it'd be to wick in the waist or something.

Well there have been multiple corseted ponies over the last few years.  I think it's a piece that you can still get the actual style, make it look like an actual corset, and not really need to "fill", you know?  If the neckline is (or chest line?) is done right, it can give the illusion of that sexy full look without actually having anything in it. 

[Maniah]

You could go for the sexy look in the eyes and hair style. Feminine hair. Eyes that are half closed in the valenshy or waterfire pose. Diva or sassy poses. You can sculpt the clothes onto the pony without breasts and still capture the sexy look to go with it as long as you choose the right pose/hair/eye combo.

I have to admit a pony with human breasts would look silly unless the pony were severely modded to be an anthro. And even then it would likely still look odd.

[Katika]

Thanks for the advice, everyone   What everyone here has been saying - that it would just not look right due to anatomical differences - is what had me hung up.  I'm trying to do this set of customs as accurate as possible and was worried about how to differentiate males and females of the set.  Then again, I'm pretty sure the only people who will care about these customs are those that know who they are, so it shouldn't be hard to identify boys and girls (plus, I'm keeping all of my girls as G4 unicorns, since they have such feminine eyes to start with).

This is a pretty big project of mine; I'm attempting to tackle the cast of Mass Effect (already have Wrex completed), and I've been investing a lot of time in them.  I just didn't want to go through the effort of sculpting, baking, then getting to painting and then deciding that I really wanted them another way (already did that with Garrus.  Twice.).  Thanks again for the input!  I'll give it a go making them stay pony shaped and just keeping curved lines to the necklines to hopefully get the point across

[Maniah]

I like to give my boy ponies very few eyelashes, while my girls get lots. Again, pose helps a lot. I like to use the ponies with the fat heads as boys. But if you are going all G4s, then pose isn't an option to help define the pony, so I can see your problem. Could you maybe sculpt the boys with the more squared faces like they have in the show?

[Sarahlacewing]

I have explored this issue also.  My best advice is to browse DA or Google and look at some anatomically correct ponies.  When I was working on my project that is what I did and let me say my personal opinion... it looks really weird.  They were just not flattering.  It was almost... well garish in some cases.  All you could see was the boobies.  So in the end I decided I would translate the design to pony anatomy.  Ponies don't have cleavage, so if one were to wear clothing it would be clothing designed for a horse.  Even if you are doing a specific character, it's that character as a pony so I don't feel human attributes like fingers, breasts, bulge, human teeth are warranted.  But that is solely my opinion.

[Maniah]

I'd like to add, that a character should be about more than just her boobs. If there is really so little to the character that the boobs are all that she is.. Well.. That is a poorly designed character and whoever made Mass Effect should be shamed.

Hopefully there is more to her that you can use to identify her. I'm giving the Mass Effect creators the benefit of the doubt I don't actually play the games lol.

That said, I'm sure you will translate them beautifully and I look forward to seeing your ponies!

[Griffin]

^ Maniah made a good point. My first character based customs were not accurate translations at all; I kept them ponylike with symbols and all, tried to pick body colours that fit the overall design, and only matched the eyes and the hair to their human looks, plus added some accessories. I think anyone who's familiar with the characters will recognize them immediately. Hair especially can do a lot! And like Maniah suggested, pick poses that seem to reflect each character's personality.

I don't know how recognizable/unique your character's outfit and hair-do are, but take Lara Croft as an example, I think she'd very easily translate into a pony and no one would ever notice that she's missing her notorious bust...

[MonstarNomNom]

I just wanted to add that maybe you could just sculpt her a bigger chest area? Like some cartoon animal females just have big chests but not boobs. If that makes any sense? lol Just thought I would throw that idea out there