Everything Old is New Again · 5:04pm Dec 25th, 2014
(Redone because I hit ctrl-S like a gibbon.)
It is my belief that Winter is often a time of renewal. Often associated with death from the cold and rebirth in the Spring, the season is when most things prepare to refresh themselves for the coming year.
For that reason (and a few others, which I'll get to in a moment), I decided to commission an updated cover-art for Hand in Hoof.
This is the original cover, as done by DeviantArtist and fellow FiMFiction writer Void Heart. (DeviantArt Here) Rather simple grass textures and background things, aside from the flower petals in the wind, and all the characters look nice and distinct. I particularly like how Spike looks in this one, as he has a pretty nice, lean physique. While the author's titling is pretty basic, the cursive font for the title is pretty nice.
This is the updated cover, by DeviantArtist Eztp (FiMFiction Here). Right away, you'll notice a drastic difference in character arrangement and some of the character detailing. A lot of the coloration looks a bit more accurate to the story (though admittedly, the discrepancies in the original were more my own fault than that of Void-Heart's, and if he's reading this, I apologize profusely.), and there's a more stylized look that more closely resembles Friendship is Magic. The characters are arranged in a more dynamic and eye-catching way more reminiscent of a comic book cover by way of the "character spiral", and there's even a neat little coat-of-arms style logo!
If you are of the eagle-eyed, astute sort, you may notice that a couple of characters are in fact much different from one another, and you'd be right.
There is, however, a reason for that, and that is one I'd like to go over.
Originally, Hand in Hoof started out as an RPG campaign between a few friends of mine on FiMFiction that started as a dream. As such, I often had people wanting to play with me every now and again. In fact, most of the characters in this story came from characters either I or a friend made in various roleplaying games.
The two characters in question are Pint Shot the Unicorn (By Westphalian_Musketeer) and Jess the Diamond Dog (By someone I can't remember right now). The former was a character who only very briefly was involved with the story, and was not given time to develop character, and the latter just never appeared at all.
Because of this, I had little to work with, and I decided it would be better to fill in the blanks with a couple of characters I had invented, to make the story a bit more personal to my tastes.
The new Diamond Dog in EZ's cover is Kenta, who made a brief appearance in chapter 13, and as of this writing will officially be a part of the party in chapter 15. He was a character I'd made in Equestrian Legends, and while I rarely played as him, the concept behind his character was too fun to leave behind.
As for the white pony with the blond hair, odd blue eyes and armor? That is Juno, a character I plan to go into greater detail in the future within the story, but for now, I will say she is a character that resulted from my fascination with android characters, in particular Aigis from Persona 3. I have nice plans for her to come.
I primarily wanted to do this update to reward the patience of my small, but much appreciated readerbase and to make things more fresh and new in celebration of the climax of a story arc I'd been waiting to finish for quite a while now, as well as make the cover more up-to-date. I have more to come, but for now, think of both the new cover art and the coming update to the fic itself as belated Christmas gifts. They were certainly gifts to me.
Happily Holidays, Happy New Year, and thanks for sticking with me.
Wanted a Wii U for Christmas,
AdamThePony.
