Sunset’s loft flat · 10:57pm Apr 3rd, 2022
I’ve posted some additional ruminations as well.
This is a very rough approximation of the delightfully weird and wonderful loft flat in which Sunset Shimmer lives. It turns out reconstructing a location shown on-screen in Equestria Girls—or, very likely, any other movie or series—is vastly more difficult than generating original designs from scratch, as I did for the new locations described in my stories.
In many cases I simply had to make my best guesses. Building code provided some guidance, but on the other hand this idiosyncratic space may pre-date much of that code and so might be grandfathered in many ways. The lack of safety railing on the staircase, and the absolutely minimal pipe-railing on the platform itself, are prime examples. (Of course the real reason for that almost certainly is to reduce visual clutter and layering hassles in the animation.)
As a starting point I assumed the loft platform is ten feet (about three meters) square based on the furnishings shown, including what appears to be a queen-size bed. From there I estimated the main room’s overall dimensions to be fifteen by thirty-two feet (around 4.6 by 9.8 meters). That was the easy part.
While preparing to add details of architecture and furnishings I examined a sheaf of screen shots for reference, whereupon I discovered a series of profound and terrible truths. Perspective is subtly distorted. Scale is inconsistent. Windows, staircase, and furniture move around by as much as several feet from one scene and even one shot to the next. As with the railings mentioned previously, I’m sure all of that is in service of composing clean, clear camera angles, but the result for me was trying to build an edifice on a foundation of shifting sand. Still, I persevered.
Limitations of available art assets made it impractical to duplicate precisely all the plants, furniture, and colors, but I did what I could. Hanging articles, including the light strings festooning the room, are absent for several reasons: clarity, lack of close matches, or requiring more time to fiddle with than was worthwhile. (I’m not getting paid to do this, after all.) As well, I couldn’t find analogs for and so didn’t bother with the random stuff stacked on the microwave or the fast-food containers and drink cans sitting around. Let’s assume Sunset tidied up before an important visitor or something.
Finally, issues of perspective and framing demand a word. If one believes the visual arrangement of Sunset’s work area under the loft platform, the upper flight of stairs would have to be perfectly vertical, which of course is implausible. Other distortions making a literal representation impossible are the wardrobe and guitar amp and the couch, speakers, and potted plant. Last but not least, most of the bathroom was never shown and so is constructed from whole cloth.
Isnt a vertical staircase, a ladder?
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Well, yes, but the video clearly shows a staircase and not a ladder, so it’s an inherent contradiction.
Everyone knows Equertria (and the Human dimension in which Equestria Girls takes place) holds cartesian space more as a suggestion!
fantastic! :O if this can be taken as fully canon, my recollection and picturing of her apartment is like, 85% correct?
does she not have a kitchenette or am I just not seeing it?
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She does not, in fact, seem to have anything resembling a kitchen or kitchenette. As far as I can tell, the closest thing she has is that bar refrigerator with a microwave on top of it, between the entry door and the desk. I bring it up in Three-act Play and have Sunset muse on her lack of domestic effort.