#the polymer clay i used took 3 days to fully dry

[elecmon]

@beelko

Right 😭😭 like that's why the original 20~30 prices I was thinking of just felt too off. The other ones I would be making are Technically more complicated as I'd have to remove a lot of the original figures hair/fabric folds on the body to build up the new design.

Materials are whatever I have enough left over from this and other previous projects, it's super about the time it'll take me to get to the end look that's landing me on the 50/per

[madisockz]

Hello! I wanted to share my process of how I made my Easter Pony! She is my second ever custom and she made all the trouble I had with the first one seem like a walk in the park in comparison ಥ_ಥ Let's begin!

DISCLAIMER: Custom ponies like this one are not to be played with by children nor made by children. This pony was made with the use of nail polish remover (acetone) which is toxic. You need to wash your hands throughly after use and use in a well ventilated area. This pony was also made with sharp tools such as an xacto knife, sewing pins, rehairing needles, and an awl.

First, the concept art! Trial and error caused her to look a little different than the concept art but I still love the end result!

I wanted to start with a white base to give myself a clean canvas for dyeing so I got this G3 Breezie off Ebay for only $3. I decided to first remove her mane and tail which requires removing the head. If you know anything about G3 pony customzing, you know their heads are difficult to get back on once they come off. Even when you run them under warm/hot water. So to get it back on for dyeing, I tried trimming a little excess of vinyl off the neck ring with my xacto knife. It slipped and got me right under my nail! Bad omen for what's to come!

After getting her prepped (removing her mane and tail, cleaning her, using acetone (nail polish remover) to remove her cutie mark) she was ready for a dye bath! I used Rit DyeMore as regular Rit Dye won't dye the vinyl material that ponies are made of. This was my first ever time dyeing anything that wasn't fabric so I was thrilled when she came out this warm rich brown! So pretty!

I read online that dyed ponies will leach dye onto other ponies if they touch, so I wanted to try and prevent this as much as possible with some matte sealer. Lesson #1: Even though she was dry, the matte sealer reactivated the dye! The smallest touch left a print! :(

I pushed forward! And tripped immediately after! I thought, "Surely matte Modge Podge will seal her just that much more" and to my dismay, the Modge Podge kept every brush stroke I made when it dried!! She looked like a leather hand bag! ˚‧º·(˚ ˃̣̣̥᷄⌓˂̣̣̥᷅ )‧º·˚ I learned later you can buy matte Modge Podge spray online but all I had was the type you brush on to your surface.

Thankfully, with the help of sixteen cotton balls and a q-tip with acetone, I managed to remove all the sealer but she was no longer that nice rich brown. Oh well I still loved her!

And whoever said the paint will protect the eyes from the dye has clearly never dyed a dark pony! Her eyes were so brown after this lol

Painting, adding of polymer clay easter themed confetti, and adding her 3D chocolate bunny cutie mark went great! It was all going well until the eyes.

I had never fully painted pony eyes before so the first attempt was pretty bad. Not even my multiple attempts at glitter and using clear nail polish as a cheap gloss on the eyes could save them.

It was so bad that I almost didn't take any pictures but when I went to seal her head, this weird white powder covered half of her face?? I had never seen this before and it freaked me out thinking I just ruined her. I managed to get it off with a cotton ball and some acetone but her paint was fully damaged.

Turns out this was caused because I didn't shake the can of sealer well enough. I needed a break....

While I took a break for a few days, I decided to watch tutorials on how to paint doll eyes and learned that it's actually pretty common to use high quality watercolor pencils; either Faber Castell or Derwent (which is what I ended up buying).

When I came back, I made the hard decision of removing all the paint and decorations from the head and starting over. Hours of work gone but it was so worth it! 🩷 Removing the paint with acetone ended up making her head lighter than her body so I had to redye her head lol. This time I mixed Derwent pencils with acrylic paints for her eyes.

Time for the hair! I've never done curls before and my original plan was to buy curly hair online but it's so hard to find in the color and curl size I wanted.

So my second idea was to buy small curlers to use on regular nylon doll hair bought from ShimmerLocks on Etsy. But when I tested them out on poor Flower Bouquet it looked so bad ಥ_ಥ

I discovered a Youtube channel you may know called Dollightful where in one of her Stock Box videos she used yarn that she unraveled to make super cute tight wavy hair for a doll. It was a perfect solution! It looks so good but omg it was tedious haha! I used it for her tail too; sectioning off the colors hoping they'd stay separated (they didn't lol).

She's nearly complete! Time for small decorations! I tried so many different ears from air dry clay to stealing some from bunny decorations I bought at the store and nothing was working! But I had one last idea...

I gave these old Littlest Pet Shop costume bunny ears some use with a flat top sewing pin and some glue so now my pony has bunny ears! Yay!

I forgot it in the concept art, but I originally wanted to add flowers to her mane but I couldn't figure out how to do that without glue which I didn't want to do, too permanent, so I opted for some beads I had on hand. I didn't have any light blue so I made some with the use of acetone (nail polish remover in my case) and boom! Light blue beads! Then I washed them off so the acetone wouldn't damage anything :)

I used a gold topped sewing pin, a butterfly charm, a felt flower and two faux flowers to create a cute hair accessory!

Finally I sewed a hair tie to a puffball to give her a removable cottontail if I ever wanted to take it off.

And DONE! She looks so good after so much time and effort! I worked on this girly for two weeks I think? She actually had a partner I designed but I've run out of time to make her :') Maybe next year? 👀 🩷🩷