If this weren't a commission, I would have thrown this against a wall so many times it would no longer be distinguishable as anything remotely resembling a pony. The mane and tail, not to mention the wings, caused me SOO much frustration.. I'm just finally glad she's done!

This time around its Nightmare Moon. I started with a brushable Celestia base, and proceeded with my usual routine.. remove hair, mold the mane/tail, bake.. but I knew I had to do something different here, as just painting on the necklace and hood would not be enough! I got out my Green Stuff, and started shaping it.. I started with the hood, globbing on some of the sticky green stuff, then moved on to the necklace..after I had a satisfactory sculpt, I let it cure, then sanded it smooth.

Next came her wings. Leaving the feathered wings of Celestia just wouldn't do, and simply doesn't portray Nightmare Moon the way she was intended. I stuck on some more green stuff smoothing out the feathers and filling in the gaps between them.. to get the contours of her wings right, I had to cut some of them off, but that doesn't matter.

After letting the wings cure, I started with another layer of green stuff, to add the inner feathers to her wings. This was insanely frustrating, as fresh maleable green stuff doesn't not stick to cured green stuff very well.. but in the end, and several hours later, I got it done. Let cure, sand, finished.

Next came the "easy part", or so I had thought. Normally, I don't have much issues with getting the mane and tail done, and done quickly. But much to my chagrin, the sculpting job didn't go so well, though I didn't realize it until I had paint applied (I had even completely painted and finished the body), and even the clear coat! The sculpts were lumpy and ugly, unbefitting my standard.



Reluctantly I tried to fix it, by adding some sculpey to the low points in the sculpt to even out the surface.. after baking and sanding, I painted it again, and STILL it looked bad. You could clearly see where I had added the sculpey.

At this point I was getting annoyed. I decided to take essentially start over, but instead of molding and sculpting a whole new set, I completely covered the surface of both the mane and the tail with green stuff.. this was a tedious process, made all the more so by the green stuff being incredibly sticky.

After letting both pieces cure for a few days (necessary for the amount I used) I started sanding.. which was actually pretty easy, considering the trouble I went through before. Painting these green stuff clad parts was straightforward and routine, and the final result is what you see above.

Hope you like!

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Commissioned by:
Character: Nightmare Moon

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Want a custom pony of your own? See this post for information!