Doing my rounds of the blogs this week, I came across Brian Taylor’s post in which he has created a My Little Pony version of his main character, Mitsuko (the original Pony Creator is on DeviantART here). I thought I might as well have a play around.
Too, as you may know from following my Characters as Flowers series, this gives me an opportunity to be creative with relevance to my novel and my characters’ personalities.
More about When the Clock Broke:
Thanks to a timepiece Aidelle chucked at her fiancé as he slammed the door on their relationship, she’s frozen out of time. When she can’t search for the man she still loves, hope comes only from attempting a patch-up of the clock. Unbreak the clock and unbreak time, right? But, time, with all its bumps and eddies, doesn’t play fair.
Aidelle catches a glimpse of her fiancé in the midst of a temporal fissure. His heart still seeks her, even from a war-torn future. If she doesn’t rewind time – and, in the process, win back the man she adores – they will both be erased from existence.
Aidelle: For the base colour, I went with an ‘average’ shade of brown, to emphasise how mundane Aidelle and society believe she is. Obviously, I wanted to make the pony remotely like Aidelle in appearance, so her mane and tail colour are that typical earth/mud brown, interpreted by Phillip as ‘chocolate brown’, showing how subjective emotive sight is. Her wide, questioning eyes are as hazel as in the book.
Whilst so many hair-types existed, and many would have fit both Aidelle’s personality and her appearance, I couldn’t resist going for the wild, ‘unbridled’ fluff of the massive curls. Too, this adds to the ‘softer’ edges of her personality. Yes, Aidelle has a sharp temper, but, in general, she is the woman. When Zara wishes she were a man, Aidelle rebukes her by insisting they stay as who they are. I think, despite how she knows her sex has closed off many routes, Aidelle is proud to be feminine.
This, I hope, I have also shown through the curves in the body-shape and face and eyes. As for the other facial features: I wanted to give pony Aidelle an unusual appearance, ie. not that stereotypical cute-and-cuddly, because of Aidelle’s belief that she is ugly – note the crooked tip of the ear and the snub snout.
I had never intended for there to be any sort of marking on Aidelle quarters – after all, she has no extraordinary marking on her human body (though, fun fact, she has a mole on her left wrist like I do) – but I fell in love with the dappled marking when I saw it. It mimics the suppressed side of Aidelle and her love of space; with moonlight-like clusters over the pony’s flesh, I see the stars beyond Aidelle’s eyes.
And, because I enjoyed that too much, I also created a pony for Phillip!
Pragmatic and practical, Phillip’s pony also helped me discover more about the pony creator, including the range of poses. Whilst Aidelle’s is in basic pose, Philip here has a custom move of mine. I tilted his head back to show his pride and determination, but tweaked one toe to suggest his independence away from the Costello name – as if he is ready to dance more than fight.
You can’t really see his cutie mark (a special symbol on the flank of the My Little Ponies, expressing their personality or their powers), but I felt it appropriate to give him one, as his family is of status. The mark is a dagger, to emphasise the Costello history success of Warfare. If The Continent really was a My Little Pony world, I suspect people would judge each other by cutie mark instead of family name. Notice that Aidelle does not have one, suggesting that she is of a much lower status than he.
Nor could I resist giving him a cape to suggest status as well! (Ironically, one could argue that he subverts his given status by hiding his cutie mark under his cape.) Phillip can’t help sometimes conforming to his childhood and parenthood.
I chose a cool blue colour for the base after much deliberation; I believe this shows Phillip’s pacifism, his attempt to keep from shouting. The mane and tail are a little too purple for my liking, but, especially as his straight hooves and cape are black, I wanted to vary some of the colours. I wanted to show Phillip’s Raven black hair, to give it more colour than one level of ink. In the book, Aidelle describes Phillip’s eyes as ‘forest green’, which I’ve always taken to be a cross between emerald and dark green, a colour I would never be able to replicate.
For a pony, he’s surprisingly handsome.
Those who’ve read the query might recognise the house in both backgrounds – in Aidelle’s, a dull but homely space; in Phillip’s, the place is ruined.
What about you? What would you say are your characters’ most defining features or those you’d incorporate into a My Little Pony?
Alexandrina Brant 