- Joined
- Mar 24, 2022
- Messages
- 275
Sporadically, and with great zest, I purchased a poor old frazzled Ponymania crew on ebay and ...
I notice when one character gets 4 ink colours --
-- when another only gets 2, except on say, the face or neck: those areas that use different printing machines.
I got the sense how the designer liked to balance things, and the attention to details and style, and I felt that
... the Ponymania designs were INCOMPLETE!
they needed more complexity of colour balance and detail on some ponies (but not others),
... and that an industrial economy of some kind had forced the final result to be grossly simplified.
In contrast, the Ponymania Crysallis figure, I noticed, (which is the one I don't have, but which I researched) has all the design elements, and no ink spared, but then it is a deluxe singing doll with lights, and can command a higher price.
So I enhanced my Ponymania collection, by adding colours of ink and small details to achieve a greater unity of design.
AND THEN
I designed an Applejack from scratch, because, the crew wasn't all there until there's an Applejack.
She has that cowgirl-that-wears-black-eyeliner look, and is partially inspired by Bonnie Raitt's look (especially the hair), and Wild West Victoriana. I used a bait Applejack Cutie Mark Magic doll as the base, and copied that apple eyeshadow to the other eye.
I used artist-quality acrylic paint, which seems to work very well on these acrylic dolls. I used ink and silk paint for Applejack's dye job.
Pinkie Pie had all her colours of ink, but something felt missing from her make-up. A white heart in her Kiss-style eyeshadow.
That's all that was needed. It seemed to balance everything else out at once. Her bib necklace was extended to the sides.
Celestia has this interesting stripe of gray on her collar that didn't appear anywhere else.
It suggested the collar of a cosy dark academia sweater.
Her thigh-highs were not fuzzy enough to suggest this as well. And they seemed to make room for some kind of pin medallion, but there was nothing there.
All I added were grey lines to suggest knittted socks, and grey jewels at the top of each leg.
Rarity, having a white ground, needed no white ink, but something seemed missing. Her winter theme seemed colourless compared to the others, unless you factored in her eyeshadow, which was an ink not used elsewhere.
I brought that pale blue back into the rest of the design, by adding blue to the diamonds on her scarf, a blue diamond in her earring, and a row of blue ruffles at the bottom of her shoes, something I had seen done with Twilight Sparkle, but it seemed missing here.
With the ice blue, she looked more wintery and in keeping with her Ponymania design.
Twilight Sparkle was the hardest to balance.
She seemed to miss something, and it was more than just shoes to follow the modelling in the plastic, but a whole other colour before she could feel more Twilight Sparkle.
I missed the navy blue that is normally part of her colouring. It was absent.
I added a row of hearts on her choker, in navy, and shoes to match with her black symbols on the front, navy hearts on her earrings, and as a last touch, two white dots above and below each eye to give her a touch of Twilight Sparkle personality and focus to her gaze.
Fluttershy was missing any white ink, and any fourth colour ink. And she was missing ruffles.
It seemed obvious her design was supposed to show her wearing a high collar, in shy gothic style. That suggested ruffles at her wrists too. The fourth ink colour I decided should be the soft pink that Rarity shared. So white was added to the wings with that pink, and dots and hearts were added to her butterflies in those colours to bring them alive.
It was clear to me that the designer had David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust style in mind when they made Rainbow Dash's Ponymania paint.
I found it odd that she would have white ink in her cutie mark but not on the rest of her, and her asymetrical style just seemed a little too off-kilter and sparse. There was something missing. She had a pink and a fourth ink colour (purple), so the white was missing. With the addition of white zig-zags, white eyeshadow, and a row of white lightning, her look finally seemed complete.
And then there's Applejack. The custom addition to the Ponymania line-up.
I would have liked to have been able to rehair this pony, to have a true black streak and a white streak at her forehead, like Bonnie Riatt, but the dye job that I did worked out well enough.
In keeping with the other designs I chose a pink colour (the strong pink) and a fourth colour (wine red) to go with the white and black designs.
She has black cowboy boots, with apples and hearts on them, and frilly socks. Her bandana has apple leaves on it. And she's got apple eyeshadow and eyeliner, as well as extra freckles. The open stiching detail was her theme (and mirrors the sweater detail that we saw earlier with Celestia).
I notice when one character gets 4 ink colours --
-- when another only gets 2, except on say, the face or neck: those areas that use different printing machines.
I got the sense how the designer liked to balance things, and the attention to details and style, and I felt that
... the Ponymania designs were INCOMPLETE!
they needed more complexity of colour balance and detail on some ponies (but not others),
... and that an industrial economy of some kind had forced the final result to be grossly simplified.
In contrast, the Ponymania Crysallis figure, I noticed, (which is the one I don't have, but which I researched) has all the design elements, and no ink spared, but then it is a deluxe singing doll with lights, and can command a higher price.
So I enhanced my Ponymania collection, by adding colours of ink and small details to achieve a greater unity of design.
AND THEN
I designed an Applejack from scratch, because, the crew wasn't all there until there's an Applejack.
She has that cowgirl-that-wears-black-eyeliner look, and is partially inspired by Bonnie Raitt's look (especially the hair), and Wild West Victoriana. I used a bait Applejack Cutie Mark Magic doll as the base, and copied that apple eyeshadow to the other eye.
I used artist-quality acrylic paint, which seems to work very well on these acrylic dolls. I used ink and silk paint for Applejack's dye job.
Pinkie Pie had all her colours of ink, but something felt missing from her make-up. A white heart in her Kiss-style eyeshadow.
That's all that was needed. It seemed to balance everything else out at once. Her bib necklace was extended to the sides.
Celestia has this interesting stripe of gray on her collar that didn't appear anywhere else.
It suggested the collar of a cosy dark academia sweater.
Her thigh-highs were not fuzzy enough to suggest this as well. And they seemed to make room for some kind of pin medallion, but there was nothing there.
All I added were grey lines to suggest knittted socks, and grey jewels at the top of each leg.
Rarity, having a white ground, needed no white ink, but something seemed missing. Her winter theme seemed colourless compared to the others, unless you factored in her eyeshadow, which was an ink not used elsewhere.
I brought that pale blue back into the rest of the design, by adding blue to the diamonds on her scarf, a blue diamond in her earring, and a row of blue ruffles at the bottom of her shoes, something I had seen done with Twilight Sparkle, but it seemed missing here.
With the ice blue, she looked more wintery and in keeping with her Ponymania design.
Twilight Sparkle was the hardest to balance.
She seemed to miss something, and it was more than just shoes to follow the modelling in the plastic, but a whole other colour before she could feel more Twilight Sparkle.
I missed the navy blue that is normally part of her colouring. It was absent.
I added a row of hearts on her choker, in navy, and shoes to match with her black symbols on the front, navy hearts on her earrings, and as a last touch, two white dots above and below each eye to give her a touch of Twilight Sparkle personality and focus to her gaze.
Fluttershy was missing any white ink, and any fourth colour ink. And she was missing ruffles.
It seemed obvious her design was supposed to show her wearing a high collar, in shy gothic style. That suggested ruffles at her wrists too. The fourth ink colour I decided should be the soft pink that Rarity shared. So white was added to the wings with that pink, and dots and hearts were added to her butterflies in those colours to bring them alive.
It was clear to me that the designer had David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust style in mind when they made Rainbow Dash's Ponymania paint.
I found it odd that she would have white ink in her cutie mark but not on the rest of her, and her asymetrical style just seemed a little too off-kilter and sparse. There was something missing. She had a pink and a fourth ink colour (purple), so the white was missing. With the addition of white zig-zags, white eyeshadow, and a row of white lightning, her look finally seemed complete.
And then there's Applejack. The custom addition to the Ponymania line-up.
I would have liked to have been able to rehair this pony, to have a true black streak and a white streak at her forehead, like Bonnie Riatt, but the dye job that I did worked out well enough.
In keeping with the other designs I chose a pink colour (the strong pink) and a fourth colour (wine red) to go with the white and black designs.
She has black cowboy boots, with apples and hearts on them, and frilly socks. Her bandana has apple leaves on it. And she's got apple eyeshadow and eyeliner, as well as extra freckles. The open stiching detail was her theme (and mirrors the sweater detail that we saw earlier with Celestia).
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