Finally! New toys.

Well with con season being over and my budget getting tighter, I haven't really been in much of a position to get any new toys. That's why I'm glad for Christmas! I got several new ponies, thanks to my wonderful friends and family. I even got a new styling pony (which I'll have to put pics of her up later because she is being styled right now). The new ponies are pretty cute, despite their downfalls. I got Scootaloo who comes with a logic defying tricycle. How can she pedal and hold the handlebars at the same time? It's a mystery! She has those disgusting worthless rubber clothes, too. The hats are cute, though. She had a little bike helmet. Speaking of hats, new Cheerilee has a little cowgirl hat that really looks better on Scootaloo. My good friend gave her to me at the Texas Roadhouse, so we felt it appropriate to leave her out on the table the entire dinner for "atmosphere." I actually ended up with two Cheerilees, and I actually like the tats new Cheerilee is sporting. What I don't like is the "name on the leg" tat that Hasbro came out with and my new Starsong is sporting. Who gets their own name tatooed down their leg? But it's ok, because I didn't have a Starsong before. Of course, I'm still upset that they all have the same pose, makes photo ops boring. Anyways, I've got a few customs in the works that I'll hopefully be able to show off somewhat soon. My next convention isn't until May, though, so it'll be a long wait to find any other cool toys. Until then, look forward to me getting up some pictures of a decent Venom I found a while back.

Latest work

I just got finished with my second commission for the very sweet TrashedBabydoll on Etsy. This seemed like it took forever, just because I've been so busy lately. But it's done, and I think it came out well. She said she was inspired by the "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video, and luckily that's what everyone said they thought of when they saw the finished product! I'm kind of sad to part with her now. I think the black hair on white body is stunning, I'm going to remember that for the future. The skirt was Cheerilee's cheerleader skirt that was repainted in black and red, and it's detachable. I love being able to reuse pony accessories since I prefer my ponies to be naked. The pom poms are glued to rubber bands so that they can be detachable too. Oh, and I recently got a jeweler's visor, which makes painting those details much easier.

Anime ponies

Well, I haven't been collecting as many ponies lately, mostly because of the bad lineup this year, but I have been making quite a few customs. I started making customs a little less than a year ago, and few and far between at that. But recently I've been doing a lot more customizing. I enjoy it immensely.
A very fun thing that I just did was participate in my first custom swap over at mlparena.com. It was an anime/manga swap. I put out a list of the characters I liked, and I got someone else's list. Unfortunately, I really didn't know any of the characters on my partner's list, so I just had to pick which one I thought I could do the best (They were all pretty complicated). I ended up creating Iria from Iria:Zeiram the Animation. This was the most sculpting I think I've done, with a lot of little details to get right. I had to modify the outfit somewhat to form to a pony body, so that was another challenge. I used Sculpey for the armor, painted it with acrylic paint and then put a gloss varnish on it to make it shiny. The only disappointment I had with this pony was the hair. I don't think it looks great, what I really should have done was rerooted it all over her head to give it more body. But I've never done that and was kind of nervous, plus I had a time constraint and was cutting it close. So I ended up using hair wax to try to get it to stick up correctly. The beads were a bitch, too. I really did not know how to make those beads, I ended up just wrapping some clay around sections of hair and painting it. I couldn't harden the clay, though, so it's not the best job. If I were to do it over, I would use air dry clay for that part. But now I know. I learn new stuff every time I make a custom.
So what did I get in return? REI!
My partner did a GREAT job on her. Everything is perfect. I can't wait to do another swap, it was a lot of fun.

Pony ranting

There's a lot of disappointment in the pony community lately. It seems that the G3 line is fizzling out. There are less and less variations in the new ponies, and we haven't yet seen any baby ponies, boy ponies, or seaponies. What we keep seeing are earth ponies, with an occasional unicorn or pegasus. Up until recently, I haven't been too bothered by it, I like the earth ponies just fine and there are enough pretty color combinations to keep me happy. The biggest things that have bothered me about the ponies are tinseled hair and the release of Ponyville sets.
Ponyville is like chibi My Little Pony. They come in little playsets and I guess are more fun for little kids. A lot of collectors seem to like them as well. I don't because I don't want a bunch of playsets in my house, they are all molded so there is no hair to fix, and frankly, I think they're kind of ugly. But ok, everyone has their different tastes, so I just don't buy them. Problem is, they are constantly updating and putting out new Ponyville stuff. Not so much for the regular MLPs, though.
Hasbro more recently broke collectors' hearts when they announced that they would be going to a "core 7" line so that little girls could feel connected to the characters. It makes sense, right? Think of any other toy line and there are "main characters." Up until now, only select ponies would be rereleased, so there are hundreds of different ponies to collect. Try remembering all of their names.
Of course, there would be occasional extra ponies, the "best friends" line to go along with the ponies, which could be the new stuff for collectors, at least that is the plan.
Except that the latest line up from Hasbro is their biggest disappointment yet. The core seven turns out to be:
Pinkie Pie
Rainbow Dash
Toola Roola
Cheerilie
Sweetie Belle
Starsong
Scootaloo
One unicorn, one pegasus, several ponies that aren't that common, and 2 that have already been rereleased too many times.
So ok, none of the ponies are my favorite, but at least they'll be released in different poses, with cute outfits and accessories, right? For god's sake, Barbie is still going strong and all she's got is different outfits. So I was expecting like "party ponies" "ballgown ponies" "career ponies" etc. But Hasbro fucked me again, since they decided to start making all the pony outfits rubbery, like Polly Pocket. EW. To accommodate the rubber outfits, all the ponies have to be in the exact same pose, which has prompted the term "My Little Clonies." I don't care for the accessories either, since they just clip on to the leg, as though the pony were "holding" it. I'd like to see more hair accessories and jewelry, personally.
Basically, Hasbro is hoping to draw more little girls away from dolls like Bratz and Barbie and get them onto ponies, but in the process they will probably lose some of their current collector market. I know that I'm not too happy about the new releases. I just hope the next line (which will be several months away) is better. In the meantime, this gives me a chance to backtrack and pick up some older G3s that I missed out on.

Pony Collection

I guess I should start with my ponies, since that's the majority of my collection. I first got into collecting about 2-3 years ago, just getting one every once in a while. Like most kids growing up in the late 80s/early 90s, I had MLPs as a kid, but not nearly as many as I have now. As soon as I saw the pretty G3s in Wal-Mart, I had to have them. From there, I expanded slowly, and added in some G1s. However, and this is blasphemy to other collectors, I prefer the look of the G3 to the G1, so I'm sticking to them (with a couple select G1 ponies).
My collection stayed at about 5 or 6 for a long time, until a couple things happened.
1. I found the MLP Arena, which pushed me to get more involved in collecting
2. I got a real job, which added funds to the mix.

Now I have a little more than 60, and soon I'll be weeding out my G1s.

The problem is, I have nowhere left to put them. Soon I shall have to buy or build some sort of display case and move the ponies out of my room.