Genie -- The First Sculpt

As I half jokingly mentioned in an earlier post, back in the day when you were customizing a pony you worked with what you had.  I distinctly remember designing a custom unicorn to be made in the G1 Posy pose, then being terribly upset when it dawned on me that it was an Earth Pony pose, not a unicorn.  I don't believe I gave any serious thought to trying to create a horn myself.

Later, however, some more experienced customizers, Woosie foremost among them, began creating customs with the addition of sculpted parts.  It was amazing what she did with with clay.  Naturally, I eventually worked up the nerve to try some sculpting of my own.

Genie was my first attempt.  It's only a small sculpt, the genie's lamp symbol, but it's a start.  The symbol was made with Sculpey clay, which has to be heated to be cured.  Rather than risk melting the pony in the oven, I immersed the body into boiled water instead, which works just as well for small amounts of Sculpey.

Genie was made from a stained Blossomforth, fully repainted.  The painting on this pony was a bit of an issue.  Most of it went fine, but painting the lamp became a problem.  I was using Testors brand paint for the gold parts of the pony.  Although it adhered fine to the vinyl on her legs, it refused to adhere to the Sculpey and kept peeling off.  I finally had to give up and got some Reaper Master Series gold paint, which worked just fine (although by that time I'd lost some of the detail I'd sculpted into the lamp because it was clogged up with bits of gold Testors paint.  The hair is DH Black Magick and Sunlight.

Genie was made for Baginslover in the 2008 MLPArena Disney Custom swap.

Elf