What time is it? Pony Time!

So I actually have a semi-secret nerd hobby of collecting and customizing my little ponies. Yeah that's right those toy ponies from the 80's as well as the ones from recent years. If you consider the fact that you have Barbie collectors and Disney collectors, the idea of people collecting my little ponies isn't so strange. But the topic of collecting and the "pony community" is one that I could discuss for hours. Rather than bore you with an indepth analysis of the hows and whys of collecting, I'm going to cut to the aspect of pony collecting that seems to have universal appeal, Customizing!
To customize=To make or alter to individual or personal specifications. So you take a pony (generally a one in poor/used condition or a common/low value pony and you turn it into pony of your own creative vision!)

1. Well the first thing you need to do is you need to have a vision! For today's project I'm dreaming big. I decided that nothing would do but that I have a Rainicorn(as seen in the above picture) of my very own!
2. Next I selected a pose that I think will best fit the look I'm going for. I chose for this project Crystal Lace. So cute! However in this picture the state will not do as I require a blank canvas to work with.
3. So now that I have the idea and the pose, I have to "bait" the pony. Baiting a pony is when you prep it for customizing. I use 100% acetone(nail polish remover) to get all the paint off. Removal of hair is usually more difficult. It involves first removing the pony's head and then using a pair of pliers to pull out the hair. Generally this portion of the process involves a lot of swearing on my end. I tend to stash up a bunch of ponies and then bait them all in one go. Kind of consumes an afternoon but if you have nothing better to do it's not so bad to just sit in front of a tv and go to town on it. Unfortunately I didn't think to take pics of the freshly baited pony. So I'm substituting with a picture of some baits that I dyed semi-recently. That's what a prepped bait should look like.
   
4. So now I'm sure you're wondering to yourself, 'How's she going to take a squatty pony like that and turn it into that picture of the rainicorn?' Well I could just paint the bait as is into the pony in the picture, but I decided that I'm too much of a badass to let it sit at that. So I cut out the stomach with an exacto knife and gave the pony a new stomach with tinfoil. Yey tinfoil!
   
5. So now that the basic structure is ready I cover the stomach in super sculpey and try to smooth out the lines as best as possible. Then it's into the oven she goes on cookie sheet. :)
   It's serious art business! I promise I know what I'm doing. Anyway the clay that I use is the baking variety. Baking is definitely a must, especially considering that we still have to add horn, mane, and a tail. So pony comes out! And that is the end of sculpting round one.
6. In the beginning I mentioned that when a pony is baited, all the hair is often taken out. Well when it comes to replacing the hair you have two options. 1-Put more synthetic hair back in, except this time in colors of your choosing. Or 2-sculpt that hair! As I'm not in the mood to rehair a pony this time, I decided to go she sculpting route. So sculpt sculpt sculpt. And bake! (p.s. pay no mind to my mini bottle of rum in the background....many things fuel my cannon of creativity!)
7. Now that the mane, tail, and horn have been baked to perfection and the body sanded down to near smoothness it's time to apply the base coat. The kind of colors needed for this won't sit well on just plain, ol' flesh toned clay. So it shall be whited out!

And actually...this is where I leave you because this is as far as I've gotten since starting Thursday night. Thanks for looking and tune in next time for Rainicorn: the paint job!