Needs Moar G4

Rainbow hair returns — this is Moonstone, a G1 pony from 1983. As you can probably tell I don’t have much of a story today; my mind’s currently on other things. I thought I should inform you, however, that her backcard explains she went looking for rainbows at night and ended up finding one when her hair was reflected in a waterfall… and she thought it was a real rainbow.

I don’t like that story. I think it’s silly and it’s also kind of depressing considering her friend decides to keep her oblivious. However it does say that, apparently, rainbow hair magic means colours shoot out of your hair when you’re happy. Explicitly described as ‘like fireworks’. That’s kinda cool.

I wonder how bright your tail fireworks are, Moonstone. Can you light up the surface of the moon?

I really enjoy drawing ponies like this, so I might keep doing so.

This is Sunrise Song. Sunrise Song has a particular skill: the ability to mimic birdcalls. Though, note, she’s more of a musician than an ornithologist. She loves the particular noises that birds make.

I went and drenched her hair in more colours since it wasn’t really shouting ‘sunrise’ to me to begin with. let’s just say that this is how light and volume affects the perceived colour of her hair or something. It’s pretty easy.

Okay so…

…This actually turned out visually the entire opposite of Sombra.

I basically reassessed all of Sombra, who, at this point, should not be called Sombra anymore (sombra means shadow). The things that I think are most important about this guy are his taking over the Crystal Empire and being banished to the north, pulling the Empire with him into the arctic. I decided to cut out everything about the ‘heart as black as night’ stuff because… well, to put it in a more fandom-related sense than my actual logic, we already proved two seasons ago that night and darkness aren’t necessarily evil via Princess Luna. This left the northern ice — and ice and crystals genuinely work well together. There’s a connection in the colours, the light, and there’s an opposite too: cold versus heat.

As for his armour, this is based on medieval European horse armour with some adjustments. Sombra’s armour doesn’t work very well — his neck has no mobility or flexibility, his body has barely any genuine coverage, and his face is really oddly plated. So I looked up some real armour instead and messed around with the proportions. I also took off the saddle, but replaced it with a bit of flexible plating because the remaining bustle didn’t work.

So, here’s my new version at the menace of the Crystal Empire, a once normal unicorn who, thanks to being sealed in the arctic for so long after his original attempted coup, has become completely formed of snow and ice, barely anything of his old self left inside. His threat to the Crystal Empire is an incredible snowstorm that will wipe out both the city and the power of the Crystal Heart.

When the power of the Crystal Heart defeats him, it is not light but heat that tears him apart, freeing the Crystal Empire from his grasp and ending the snowstorm.

Dear needs a new name. Anybody got ideas?

Hey guys, guess what!

It’s snowing today!

Like, schools are closed snowing!

Like, SINCE YESTERDAY snowing!

So I made you all a Powder.

Gusty takes care of various grounds in Canterlot. Which is… a lot of work, but that’s okay, because Gusty really enjoys doing it.

And then here’s today’s pony, Apple Stars! Before doing this I asked myself: is there a type of apple called Stars?

Well, no. There isn’t. There is, however, an apple trademarked(!?) as Jazz.

But there’s still a connection - the pips on the inside of an apple form a star shape!

SHOW CAMEO: Apple Stars is based on a pony who sings in the Smile Song. The winning placeholder name on the series wiki was Katt Apples.

This is Holly Dash! Holly Dash is a somewhat special pony, for the precise reason of, she’s the OC of a person who worked on the show for a while, and essentially the pony version of that person. Now she’s an official pony figure. Wow. That’s pretty damn awesome.

Now, I know that every pony on this blog, every toy that was redrawn, was at some point somebody’s design. Holly is particularly special, though. Although we have artists who design ponies on the show, Holly’s designer is one of the few who is publicly credited with the design. So, as a change to the anonymously-created and vector recolour ponies I usually deal with, Holly here is pretty much the same Holly. I just gave her a fancy hairdo.

SHOW CAMEO: As stated above, the toy is based on a pony designed by an animator working for the show. She only appeared in Swarm of the Century and, due to her specific nature, was never given a fan-name.

Kiwi Tart is… confused because her recolour render is inaccurate! She doesn’t know if she’s an Earth pony or a unicorn, and it’s all the box’s fault!

I’m actually serious — look at the back of the pack. They took time to edit the render by that much… but then they cut out the horn when it’s still there on the toy.

Therefore I declare this pony fair game, even if her render is ‘unique’!

Pick-A-Lily doesn’t have any skill growing plants. She’s never been the gardening sort. She is, however, a bit of a decorator who loves arranging flowers and collecting pressed ones for use in projects.

Magnet Bolt doesn’t need unicorn magic to cast a levitation spell — her knowledge of magnets lets her do that without wasting any mana whatsoever! As far as she’s convinced, everypony could do a whole lot more if they just stuck a magnet in their hooves!

So a little while back this huge set with Nightmare Moon appeared, and inside was a surprise pony by the title of Lemony Gem. When the packshot was zoomed out a lot of people thought she was Lemon Hearts because of her close colours.

While looking around on the internet for stuff based on sapphires I suddenly wondered why I was always shooting for uses or metaphors. The idea of G4 is supposed to be ‘any kind of girl is a-okay’ but my head seems to be stuck in the mode of ‘but not doing the dirty work’ (unless we’re talking about mechanic girls. I sort of like mechanic girls).

So let’s have a change.

Lemony Gem is a miner. An honest-to-Celestia, down-in-the-tunnels miner. A pick-bearing, light-shining miner.

She might be very clean-looking in this picture but this is just the start of the work day.

SHOW CAMEO: Lemony Gem’s figure is based on a pony who usually appears in more sophisticated crowds than usual and only showed her cutie mark in The Best Night Ever. Her fan-given name was Lemon Tart.

Lots of ponies have a voice. Mimic on the other hand, has a million! She’s a young voice actress with a vocal ability that most ponies would rather die for. Mimic grew up listening to radio broadcasts and learning how to imitate voices from there, and people were taken back by her ability enough that she realised it was her talent at a very early age. Nowadays she spends several hours in front of a microphone doing vocal warm-ups and sending long thank you messages to friends and fans. She’s clearly the most enthusiastic person in the recording studio.