Come and meet some ponies! · 8:40pm Sep 10th, 2014
Hello to everyone out there!
TB3 here, sharing with you some behind-the-scenes glimpses from 'Last Train From Oblivion'. Tonight, please have some renders I built of a few OC ponies.
These were assembled in Hasbro's official online builder. Although basic, I found it worked pretty well for me, and it had an excellent range of costume elements with which to build up the character's personalities.
If anyone wants to try their hand at drawing any of these guys, be my guest!
So, let's meet...
Nepenthe, the Pretty Private
Ah Nepenthe...this is what happens when a character just 'zings'. All I wanted when I began writing her was a nightmare vision of a first-person ponification...somehow she grew from a one-off horror to something more. Trying to build the human she was formed from led me to moulding the resulting newfoal into a twisted mirror image...she began to develop...and then she got a name...
"Hi there! I'm Nepenthe, the Pretty Private!"
With those words, meant to emulate a toy's 'try me!' phrase, this little abomination captivated me. To try and get a better idea of what she looked like, I 'built' the above image, and I was sold. I wanted this creature to be a main character...a newfoal main character. What a challenge!
Hopefully she'll prove worth the investment.
Notes: Nepenthe is meant to be quite young (or at least, younger than her 'donor' - mid twenties at tops), very lithe, muscular in an athletic way, and tall. I was afraid she ended up looking too much like Babs, but I simply had to use the show-default 'filly' eye-shape to give her that glazed look. Honestly, she probably has Fleur's stature and Applejack's physique!
Her outfit is meant to be a fur-tight red undergarment with some light armor on top. I dabbled with giving her boots and decided against it.
And honestly, I just love how she came together.
Mercy, the 'Merciful Light'
Voxadam correctly guessed that Mercy was inspired by the character 'Morning Glory' from Somber's 'Fallout Equestria: Project Horizons'. While she started out this way, she has bent in her own direction.
This is another case where building the character's image influenced the story. Mercy started out as a vague analog of Glory in my head (grey coat, long lavender mane). Pushing the colours around brought me to this pleasing pallette, and the pink eyes acted as contrast. Adding the glasses seemed to give her an even sadder look the the downcast eyes already leant her, as well as gave her a bit more of a visual personality.
What I'm really pleased with though is her uniform. I tried to build a doctor's outfit and then accidentally selected the same breastplate I had already used on Nepenthe. A few colour-tweaks later I had this, a slightly-armoured combat medic for the Salvation Army...
...so sad. So very sad. Oh Mercy, what made you this way? What sins do you bear?
And what am I going to do with you?
Notes: Although I used the 'alicorn' body build on this image it's only because the other sizes didn't seem to 'fit' Mercy well. I imagine she is 'average' pony size, maybe a little smaller than most.
Oh, those white parts on her wings are not meant to be feathers, but more like 'wing sleeves' in the coat.
Not sure what her cutie-mark is, hence why I'm glad that the coat handily hid it. Any suggestions?
Verity Carter, the reluctant pony
Verity, Verity, Verity...what are you?
Well, you're a nerd, I know that. I also know that you're inspired by one of my favourite Transformers characters...
And you're a human mind in the body of a pony...
But how?
So mysterious...
Honestly, this is the design that works the least for me. I think I should have gone with navy-blue on the flak jacket rather than army green. Ideally I would have her wearing a hoodie under the vest rather than the urder-garment, but this sells her militarist nature nicely.
The stripes on her snout are meant to be scars, I think...unless they are actual patterns in her fur. I just thought they looked nice. I'm also glad that her mane doesn't clip through the cap, which pretty much every other option did. Went with the torn ear and piercings just to make her look a little roughed-up.
Notes: As with Mercy, Verity is meant to be 'average' pony size, although maybe a bit more 'buffed' as a result of her recent life. Her eyes are also meant to have bright blue rings around the edges of the irises, but I couldn't get that effect to my satisfaction.
Well, that's it for now. Hope you all enjoyed.
But before I go, here's some piccies of our rolling stage, Canadian Pacific locomotive #9782.
In the snow, in happier days.
Seen here in the company of Chris Pine! Yes, 9782, along with her sisters 9777, 9751 and 9578, were the four engines leased by the late film-maker Tony Scott to play runaway train #777 in the 2010 action-flick 'Unstoppable'. Of the two engines used as the movie's 'lead engine', I chose 9782 because she was used primarily in the second half of the film, where the action mostly occurs.
The cab, the closed set where all the drama happens. Although this is not 9782's exact cab interior, it's one of her identical classmates. Just imagine it a bit dirtier, and with the middle-seat missing.
Oh yeah, and with a gun-rack mounted over the windscreen.
:origin()/pre00/9ed5/th/pre/f/2018/012/d/d/hama_of_the_lamp__part_1__by_teebsy_86-dbzs3ob.png){kind=link}
All who wish to board the train... Remember to pay the Price of Oblivion. The conductor thanks you for your co-operation.
Before I say anything about the blog, I thought Nepenthe's head would look more like Fleur then, just tall.
ha ha! Good to finally understand the whole train deal!
Interesting. I'll have to toy with Hasbro's more.
2444389
I did fiddle with other heads, but Fleur's made her look a little too wise...I wanted a certain 'innocence'.
2444544
So apparently they don't have a wide eyed Fleur's head which I guess would bring up a good amount of wrongness if there is. Sounds like something someone else should draw, but at least I not know she does have her shape.