#the ponies are all g2s

[ladywaterfall]

it's spring, and I want to see it in the world of my childhood toy ponies.

the ponies are enjoying the first rays of sun. the winter is always so dark here. the ponies, just like me, take a few moments to just feel the spring sun on our faces.

three ponies are gathered. two of them are the birthday themed ones I got for my own birthday one year - they celebrate each day like birthdays. the excitedly tell me about the spring masquerade ball at the castle later today. the third pony there - dark pink and adorned with a moon and stars - is quietly listening. I know her, of course. I know she secretly is a thief who goes to the royal balls in disguise to steal precious gemstones, and she is planning her heist for today. I know she is, because I made her so. of course, I say nothing; her role is to bring some excitement.

I join them to the ball. before entering, I visit the castle garden, where I spot the unicorn with the dark red hair, tinkering with her latest invention. she often tries to mix her mechanic inventions with magic, to varying degrees of success.

in another corner further back, I see her. she has marker stains and scratches, or scars of her adventures, let's say. because she always grew into a villain. the others don't know yet, but she is plotting to betray them right now, and will soon leave for the mountains, where she will unleash evil magic. there will be fights and daring heroism and discoveries of magical artifacts deep in the secret parts of the ancient castles.

I smile, turn around, and walk into the castle. a playful jester pony hands me a masquerade mask. I know she will have her role to play, and will be granted the title of princess after this adventure. she will have to face a great quest first, though.

the ballroom is filled with beautiful decorations of suns and spring flowers, the daylight filling the room through the windows, stretching all the way up to the ceiling. the Queen enters, and everyone falls silent, waiting for her to welcome them, to welcome spring.

I smile. the adventure is about to start.

[lupusanghren]

Lost in the sauce

[heckyeahponyscans]

Four generations of MLP represented in my Japan haul!

I believe the G1 item is a hand mirror, it's from 2015.

The G2 Ivy keychain is vintage from 1999.

G3 Minty might at appear to be a pin or a barrette but no, she is Jibbitz for Croc shoes :)

The G4 plush purse is made by Japanese fashion brand Jenni Love (not to be confused with Jenny the doll) and is their licensed OC.

[black-salt-cage]

Day 12 for profiction-edits profic party! ✧. ┊ Prompt: A headcanon that is basically canon in your mind Answer: Leopold "Butters" Stotch is a massive fan of the My Little Pony franchise ☽ - ✰ - ☾ ☽ - ✰ - ☾ ☽ - ✰ - ☾

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚

[bonuscatart]

I'm curious if there's nuance to this

(bonus points for saying why in the notes)

[quantomeno]

I was watching Peace Petal's video on what might happen with MLP G6 (you should watch it, it's good).

Because I mostly agree with points raised, I want to instead focus on the fact that I find it rather funny that fans get up in arms at the idea of a new gen where the character names and colour schemes etc are re-used but with new personalities, with the argument that "that's not XYZ, they're changing the character etc"

Funny because I felt like that when I first saw g4. I was so upset to see Rainbow Dash was no longer the elegant and stylish mare she used to be, and how Pinkie went from being the voice of reason to essentially the opposite. And so on and so on.

But I happened to watch g4 in 2013 and I liked it and then I came to love it. The realisation that helped was the fact that Hasbro recycles characters all the time. It's most notable in g4, partly because the show had so many named characters while in g3 most repeated names would've been toy-exclusive and so you didn't explore their personality as much. It's a weird concept, since I can't think of many series that do this. Shows/toylines often either reboot the series with almost exactly the same characters (e.g. transformers has had the same Optimus Prime every time), or they start from scratch.

This is also why I don't feel too bad about Monster high's changes to the characters between generations. They're mostly using the names and stylistic elements to act as a springboard for a new series.

A similar thing could even be said about bionicle's g2. OK I'm finding a lot of examples, but these are all the ones I can really think of right now.

I do agree with Peace Petal that it would be wiser to distance itself completely from g4 and thus use inspiration from characters that aren't the mane 6, but if they do re-use Rainbow Dash's name for the third time (or Applejack for the forth) and make her a completely different pony, I really would not care. They're not the same character; it's not the same universe. They just happen to share a name and design influences.

But yes, the key thing is it needs to be a complete separation from g4. g5 was quite an outlier by retaining ties to the previous gen and I think that missed the opportunity for a fresh start, a blank slate with none of the complicated lore that had built up and complete freedom to do as they pleased.

I also really want them to bring back Wysteria. She could be the Rainbow Dash (g4) equivalent and I would not be mad I just want my first pony to get speaking roles and toys.

[catboynutsack]

For my fellow MLP collectors of any generation: I'm very curious as to what the weirdest part of your collection is in your opinion. I was just grabbing my old Muffins/Ditzy/Derpy hooded bathrobe from when FiM was at its peak and I realized how weirdly specific this item is and I started wondering what other weirdly specific stuff is out there. Fakies more than welcome!

For mine, I've attached pictures of the robe! I got it from Hot Topic when I was in high school but it was a little bit so it ended up sitting in my attic until I moved earlier this year. It's now my go-to bathrobe cuz it's very soft and plush! Unfortunately I can't find very much online about it but I do know for certain it's licensed merch.

[sachikohitsujiyama]

Oh hello there, it’s G2 ponies redesigns!

[ashleyfableblack]

Ahriman hands this to me and says "She loves chasing wives and relaxing on the dudes" and now I can't unsee it. 😄😁😄

[otteroflore]

*clenches fist* when you cant respond to a comment on your art because it would seem to hostile but you have Issues with it

[prettyponypillowfort]

theyre so pretty...

MON PETIT PONEY I absolutely adore gen 2 of mlp- i grew up with it! ^^ so i wanted to draw my redesigns of the main 4 but in g4's style<3 Please do not use or repost without my explicit consent<3

[ladywaterfall]

Easter ponies my beloveds 💕🐣

[thesepreciousgems]

Working on a more official tags page, and I'm realizing man I need to post more of g2 don't I.

[heckyeahponyscans]

at this point I want Hasbro to retroactively make a G2 Minty toy so she's officially in every generation (even if G1 Minty is teeeechnically a different character)

[cocopudu]

a little aquatic g2 pony commission for u all 🐬🪸

[otterloreart]

MLP-Takara generations: a design experiment

Takara MLPs are considered generation 1 My Little Pony; the original ponies look like little horses and the takaras are obviously very different.

But the standard MLP toyline underwent a lot of changes throughout the years... so, if the takaras had been successful, what would their changes look like?

Generation 1 year 2+ takaras.

Year one MLP was only a few ponies with a single color of body + matching hair... just like the takaras. It was year 2 that they introduced unicorns. pegasus, and seaponies.

You all know I've already been concepting these so it's not surprising at all. As MLP g1 went on, they ended up doing more and more gimmicks throughout the 80s which would also be kind of fun to see the takaras do... (hint hint if you want me to draw those lmk which gimmicks are your favorites)

I also think they should bring in markings like the normal ponies but that could be part of the gimmicks. Maybe on their cheeks, or on their bellies like care bears?

In the later years og MLP also had a lot of variations on the normal pony body type, so maybe you could also see the takaras with that kind of variant, so that might be cute:

Moving on!

Generation 2

If you aren't big into early gen My Little Pony you might not know that generation 2 didn't do very well; it was a reboot of a beloved franchise, it was new, and different, and all that jazz:

Main differences between them and g1: first, you can see they have a very late G1-type body, which is why I pointed out the thinner pony in g1. Their face is less detailed and rounder, but they have a little more expression, very smiley.

Their ears have a more horse-y curled in shape, they have fur around their hooves (in g1 only the boy ponies had hoof floof), and they have a gem in their eye.

Also they had a lot more moving-leg gimmicks where you could push one part of their body and another would move (eg push tail -> bobs head)

So you may ask, how am I could to g2-ify the takaras? After all, they are already much rounder than the g1 ponies. Well, I'm not going to make them just *look like* the g2 ponies, although I'll borrow more elements.

Instead: I am going to take and exaggerate all of the differences that I listed above and see what we come up with.

So! Here is my idea for g2 takara pony. I feel like its the exact balance of very cute and something that would upset collectors familiar with the original takaras, just as g2 upset the g1 fans.

First off, she's thinner, the iconic takara nose is removed in favor of a sculpt with a smiling mouth, the legs are more horse shaped with fluff and human fingers to match the additional foot detail. a lot of people find the g2s a little "uncanny" so I feel like this works.

The sparkley eye gem and ear shape are just straight off the original g2s, just to have extra gimmick to it (also the og takaras basically had the g1 ears)

g2 came out in the late 90s so I like to imagine the pony eyes would be extra shoujo too

Finally, a ball jointed head for more flexibility. (yes the arm would be posed like that in the doll, because its a more dynamic pose, and we can also assume that the larger size allows the doll to have a joint with more flexibility)

g2 had pretty similar gimmicks to g1 but also had some light up ponies, so maybe the takaras could have some with that gimmick too

fun fact, g2 MLP was sold for a longer time in Europe and performed better there.

Generation 3

Generation 3 ponies are a pretty clear return to g1 MLP style, kinda scrapping most of the changes g2 made, other than proportionally thinning out the ponies a bit.

g3 ponies have very similar face sculpts with bigger eyes, nearly the same legs, and their heads just a bit bigger in proportion to their body

They do remind me a lot of the g1 Petite ponies, which were 1 inch sculptures that also had those proportionally bigger eyes and chunkier legs.

I have here included the g1 so you can see the slight changes better! I think the main difference would be the g3 takara would be a lot rounder, smoother, and cutesy-er. While the original has the hello-kitty simple cute look, the g3 version would definitely have like eyelashes and big eyes.

The only other thing to note about the body is some bigger ears, a generally rounder face, and round feet.

There weren't many gimmicks super /unique/ to g3 but one I wanted to highlight was the Breezies. G1 did have the flutter ponys, which were ponies with butterfly/dragonfly type wings, but the breezies are like their own little species AND they have antennae. While the flutter ponies were sort of graceful and thinner than the other ponies, the breezies are like little chibi-er ponies.

A little bit Littlest Pet Shop-core, since its the early 2000s too.

SPEAKING OF

Generation 4 Generation 3.5

Before there was gen4 there was a subset of Gen3 ponies with a different and unique style. They were basically an exaggerated version of the Breezies with even bigger feet and tinier snouts. They are also VERY littlest-pet-shop-core.

So, pretty straightforward changes

Just an even more chibi, kid-ish style pony. I think the g3.5 ponies were even meant to be kids. So this is just an even more child-friendly, littlest pet shop type horsey.

Generation 4

So, obviously generation 4 ushered in a whole new era of My Little Pony with its unique and bright artstyle, which did need to transfer over to the ponies

Personally, while I love g4 in a lot of ways im not a fan of the toys in the same way I am the other generations, their little noses have shrunk to specks, they're skinnier and more big-eyed than ever. Well, g3.5 was pretty big-eyed but at least those ones were like little kids.

This is such a drastic shift from g1/g3 and even g4, I would be unsure about the takaras.

So: eyes, bigger. Snout, so tiny and so smooth. Ears, bigger. Hooves are flatter and parts of the legs are just kinda featureless. a longer neck. They released a decent amount of ponies with plastic hair this gen, too.

I was struggling to come up with a doll for this one, but I finally realized I was doing it backwards. The thing that makes g4 stand out, I think, is the fact it was fundamentally designed opposite from g1. Lauren Faust, an animator, designed the ponies and the toys had to be designed around her art.

So the primary difference was considering what a tv show- a tv show concieved in the 2000s and airing in 2010s- and I did look into some kids properties from that time period as I was designing

I think these Strawberry shortcake dolls are really close to the concept I'd want for a early 2010s mirror of MLP g4. So basically these toys but more anthro.

I ended up making a 3D mockup so I'd be able to plan the different angles and keep them consistent.

The eyes are kind of far apart but I think thats true of the g4 pony toys as well. Again, because of the way the g4 show was stylized as animation, there was sort of cheating with the anatomy, especially on the face.

Generation 4.5

Gen 4.5 was a spinoff of gen4, just like gen3 had 3.5 where the ponies are more chibi. More big eyes with even bigger ears and a face like... a cats? instead of a horse. Hoof fluff again.

I think this nailed the style without being as much of an outright copy. The bendy arms with fingers seem so silly but also I think that matches the vibe/artstyle.

G4.5 don't look like horses to me really at all though, they're like cats with hooves. Out of all of them we've seen so far they're suffering the most from "predator eyes" where they've gone so far as to make their eyes just face forward.

Generation 5

Generation 5 premiered with a CGI movie, so the toys that would be released are fairly on model with their movie selves except for the fact their heads are smack dab in the middle of their neck which i find extremely unsettling and dislike

We've gone full "predator eyes" (no the predator eyes thing doesnt 100% biologically hold up but I find them freaky and I get to say it) AND full human eyebrows stenciled in like a makeup vlogger in the same color as the hair.

The ears are back to cup shaped (more horselike) but again the face is round with a little muzzle (more catlike). The hooves have really detailed feathering on the legs. Otherwise the body is mostly just structured like the g4 body (except a bit longer) just with more specific horse details.

These continued the trend of having a lot more articulated versions with moving legs as well. I think given that most dolls these days have articulated elbows and knees, it is reasonable to expect the takara g5 dolls would too.

Again, I made a 3D model so I could keep it consistent from various angles.

ta-daaaa heres my takara pony generations 1-5 lineup! Tell me which youuuuur favorite are. if you want.