2012 Apocalypse Ponies

Well, 12/21/12 came and went.  And according to some historians it already came and went awhile ago since modern calendars are apparently way off.  Most blame the Mayans for this prediction of the end of the world.  But the Mayans never did predict the end of the world.

Yay history!

Most people wonder what the apocalypse would have entailed since details were lacking.  Some say the poles would reverse, destroy all satellites, cause continental shift ect, ect.  Others say a rogue planet would hit the earth, not unlike Lars von Treir's Melancholia.

:cough:Unnecessary friesian at (1:28):cough:

 Still others have a firm belief that humans will die due to their own hubris, from messing with the world and altering it with chemicals and science.  I'm, of course, talking about the most poetic of all Apocalypse Scenarios.  The ZOMBIE Apocalypse.

The Walking Dead is n(e)igh!

I even have a book on my shelf in case of such a reanimated former-human emergency.  The Zombie Survival Guide.  While the plan of "Going to the Winchester, having a pint, and waiting till the whole thing blows over" is a really good idea, this goes in depth if you don't live in Britain where bars are more sturdy against the undead.

For instance, it has horses in the chapter on transportation.  Horses would be beneficial in the apocalypse since they don't need gas to run and act as an early warning system against the shambling hoards.  However, they lack self-defense.

Or you can do what Sarah did with Uther on Youtube and clicker train your horse to not only make an escape.  But take out as many walkers as possible on the way!

Had the zombie apocalypse happened, we like to think they had a good chance of survival.

Artist's interpretation

Had the positive reinforcement not failed...

Horses have been an integral part of the apocalypse in Judeo-Christian lore.  In the form of the four horses of the apocalypse.

Hasboro.  Why you no make real?
Even Seth Green has asked them to make Apocalypse Pony toys.

The 4 horses of the apocalypse have even shown up in video games.  Like Darksiders, where you play the horseman War and obtain his kick-rump steroid steed named Ruin. 

Awww...  It's like a rhino-pony-volcano abomination of awesome.

Even Red Dead Redemption decided to take their spin on the 4 horses.  During a zombie apocalypse in the alternate universe of Undead Nightmare.  Forget Cowboys and Aliens.  We have Cowboys and Zombies!  There are even normal horses turned into zombies in this game and the decaying, yet at the same time accurate, anatomy accomplished on them is outstanding.  They have accurate teeth (with canines) and proper neck vertebrae placement.

 Out of the 4 horses, Pestilance has a swarm of lucusts that... don't really do anything, and a high pain threshold.  While Famine has the power of ocular bleeding... and infinite stamina.  Both of them are 'eh' since ALL of the 4 horses technically have a 'high pain threshold" by being practically immortal and all have an infinite stamina bar.  But War is on fire, and Death explodes zombie heads on impact.  You can guess which ones most people ride in the game.

Happy 14th Baktun!  Enjoy the world until the next apocalypse.  I'm off to play some Red Dead Redemption Undead Nightmare!

Late to Memorial Day

Hi!

Long time no blog.  Really long time.

I'm not dead I swear, just in limbo.  Not THAT limbo, (notice the not dead part in the last sentence).  Or even THIS LIMBO .  (Though it is a really fun limbo that I've been playing, but I wouldn't play it around children or those stuffy Victorian women.  Violence and giant wasps and all that...)

A technological limbo,  I am making the switch.  I am officially a Mac!

 The computer.  But that is a nice Mac too.

I have stuff and things and random, so much random!  But my random is currently stuck on a hard-drive that I have slowly been coaxing onto a new computer.  It doesn't like change.

In the mean time as this was happening I wanted to share images I had been taking or random horse related stuff I would run into on my phone.  Since I am horrible about having my camera on me at all times.  I also found out that all the images I have been taking on my camera phone are irretrievable.

Was it something I did?  Something I broke?  Or did it accidentally fall in a toilet?  No!  They just made my phone so you can take pictures, but not get them off the phone.  Ever.  Did I mention my phone is old?  Ancient even.  The model before it didn't even have letters above the numbers just hieroglyphs.  So I may have to do a new thing where we look at out of focus blurry images from my phone taken by my camera!  It might suck I warn you.

It's Twilight Sparkle as a pinata!  If you squint your eyes and tilt your head.  More to come regrettably.

Also this.

It's a gray horse statue on the side of the road.  It's next to a landscaping company near my town.  Now I have passed by this thing for several years.  This guy gets dressed up for whatever holiday is on it's way and I've always wanted to take images of it.  But I almost never did because of the four lanes of traffic I would have to be crazy enough to be in the middle of to get a decent shot.

Yup, I'm that crazy.

 Notice the car on the far left going "FWOSH"

Thankfully there is a small patchy grass area between the 4 lanes and instant death.  So expect some fun images of this guy around the various holidays.  Happy late Memorial Day!  I hope to interview whoever dresses him up, but every time I visit no one is there.

Beautygirl1510 and I will have a post on the equine show Appasionata that we were lucky enough to see...  Right before it's US tour for this year was permanently suspended.  Yeah...

I am also working on having another video up soonish?  Kinda, maybe...  We know my track record with this, it could be another several months given my technological luck.  Is is Equestriad the review I have been promising since the Mary King Riding Star vid came out 9 months ago?  Actually no.  It will be the first Obligatory Equine Episode!  Where an episode with a horse (or equine)  in it from a TV series is made fun of... I mean.  Deeply read into and examined... yeah.  You will find out what TV series it is from when it's posted!

I have some hopes for trying to get back on random-but-not-months-apart-at-a-time schedule soon and thanks to everyone for hanging in there!

I would like to thank cassiem from HGS for helping encourage me to post something.  ^_^  Thanks again!

More Sims 3 Pets Demo and Youtube Roundup!

Ok, I'm just going to stop planning what I'm posting. Otherwise it's going to make me a liar when I end up posting something completely different. XD

Without further delay the My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Sim ponies! Had to do a bit of tweaking with the markings options, but for what was available I'm glad I could get them this close. Controlling precise marking locations in the pet maker is a sketchy and hard to control when the markings get tiny. I'm thinking it will only be a matter of time before the MLP fan masses create Sim modifications to make horses exactly like the cartoon.

Rainbow Dash

Applejack


Pinkie Pie

Twilight Sparkle

Rarity


Fluttershy


Dr. Whooves!

I also fiddled around with the breeding options in the demo. If you're looking for genetic accuracy don't look here. It uses the blending inheritance theory. A long disproven belief held in the 19th century that offspring are a resulting mishmash of mom and dad. Dominants and recessives be darned!

Behold, a puggle.

It's totally understandable that this game would use this method of making offspring. You can make completely unrealistic colors and markings. What would the inheritance of a lightning-rainbow-cloud marking be anyway? And the color purple. Is it recessive, or the result of the blue modifier working on a red-based coat? Are teal and green eye color co-dominant?

Confused yet? Yah, accurate genetics would fail in this uber-customizable setting.

That said I performed something blasphemous and attempted a breeding between Rainbow Dash and Dr. Whooves. It illustrates the game mechanics of inheritance fairly well. The first offspring looked like a pretty even split of both parents, while the second looked exactly like rainbow Dash but inherited the Dr.'s eyes. So the degree of how mixed the offspring become varies.




Sims 3 Pets also has had a whole bunch of commercials for it recently. Some of them are exclusive only to the internet. Do you know Randall? You might. Because honey badger don't care. (Language warning. Not that you guys who still watched the Equus Retrospective after being warned will care anyway).

The Sims got Randall to do a commercial for them explaining all the animals you can get by pre-ordering S3P. Sadly, no unique pre-order horse designs. Sigh. I wanted a robo pony.




Also how cute is this commercial tribute to the Old Spice guy for Dreamwork's Puss in Boots movie?




Also...



Cowboys and Equestrians
We have come full circle.

In Production 2

I had a comic planned for this week that didn't get done in time. It will be a continuation of VP IRL including more horse apparel craziness. Next week!

So instead I've decided to do a behind the scenes of eventual future randomness. I really don't have planned release dates for anything as you may have noticed and some of this stuff may not be out for awhile. Still getting the hang of making videos (like the 7 months for the Mary King vid, yeahhhh) and hopefully with practice things will come out quicker and better.


I'm planning on doing one more review of a video game before delving into a movie or TV show. So what other projects does VP have in store for the future? And what the heck is a Mo puppet?


Well Mo is the faithful, non existent, generic vectorized demonstration horse. He's in the logo.

Our hero.

Mo gets manipulated, prodded, tweaked, and rotated into different positions. His limbs are also detachable and your average model has 17 separate parts.

If you tilt your head and squint your eyes it spells FWOSH... sorta.

And like GLaDOS from Portal, I keep stockpiles of 'test subjects' for various purposes.

This is one section of a much larger example of the madness.

Mo is fairly versetile in that a few modifications can make him appropriate for representing various characters and actions in the videos and posts.

Shh. It's Heather on Beauty.
She has orange tack and green everything.

So in regular Guess That Pokemon fashion we have a sneak peak of some future projects in silhouette from.

See how many you can guess.

And officially the next video is going to be Equestriad. I'd like to thank Dreamflite from Blab!

My Little Realistically Colored Ponies

Ok, another MLP post. I've been doing some work on the eventual My Little Pony Friendship is Magic episode between the Riding Star work.

The infamous Riding Star episode is making progress although slowly. Windows Movie Maker Live sucks. Just throwing it out there. They reduced the program to a slide show maker with almost no options for further customization or editing. However, Windows Movie Maker the older version before Live, is nowhere near as frustrating to work with. I'm an Adobe Flash person, so WMM has a learning curve. With luck I might have the review done by next week's post. YAY!

Back to My Little Pony FIS. I've been watching the show, taking notes, making the Mo puppets, researching bronie culture... So dangitt I have MLP on the brain.

Also Kelpie and DemonicSymphony have gotten me to thinking about real life MLP colors. I affectionately blame you both this week.

So here is a personal take on possible coloration of the FIM ponies. WARNING: The following contains a horse genetics geek-out. I apologize if I sound like a raving lunatic who makes no sense. We sadly do not provide glowsticks for the rave.

Twilight Sparkle

Seal Brown Roan - E( ), At( ), Rn( )
Her body is lighter than her mane and tail, and she has too much warm in her tone to be a blue roan, but not enough to be a bay roan so seal brown is a happy medium. Even, Dr. Sponenburg a horse color genetics researcher calls Seal Brown with Roan 'Purple Corn'. (Please, Dr. Sponenburg. The names! The silly phenotype names!) Speaking of silly...

Pinky Pie

Chestnut Roan with minimal Frame or Splash - ee, Rn( ) with ON or SplN
Chestnut roans are pink. XD Frame and Splash can cause blue eyes and in minimal form don't always leave white markings.

Rarity

Grey with dark mane and tail, minimal Splash or Frame - E( ), A( ), G( ), with ON or SplN
Rarity is mostly white with a purple mane and tail. So a dilution for her wouldn't work since none of them would allow a body that pale with a mane and tail that dark. So she could be a grey with a black mane and tail that have yet to follow the rest of the body. A bay base would more easily allow the body to get lighter first because of the red pigment which often grays faster. And for the blue eyes she could have minimal Frame or Splash. Poor fashionista would get gray hair soon at this phase of grey progression.

Applejack

Gold Champagne - ee, Ch( )
I have to go with Kelpie on this. Flaxen sorrel was probably the color intended for her as DemonicSymphony stated. The light mane and tail, golden body and green eyes would all fit perfectly for a Gold Champagne (Chestnut + Champagne Dilute) As an added bonus the Champagne dilute exists in stock horses like this western gal.

Fluttershy

Perlino - E( ), A( ), CrN
Fluttershy had me wondering for awhile. Her mane is too dark for a palomino even though she is a pale yellow elsewhere. Her light colored eyes made me realize that Perlino would be a good possibility for her. 2 cream genes on a bay can create a light cream toned body and almost rust colored mane and tail. It also makes those light colored eyes. I guess you could also get a palomino with pinto blues and dye the hair pink. Someone has to do that for a costume class. :P

Rainbow Dash

No clue... ??, ??, ??
Nope, no idea. If you leave a blue roan under a rainbow you might get that color for awhile. Then again, she could be the mount of the Native American Thunder Spirit (pictured above) who has a rainbow for it's tail. It is strangely fitting since she can control rain clouds...

If you guys have your own theories share 'em. Speculate the madness!

Early 1900's Gossip

First off I want to have a huge thank you to everyone who has so far participated in the questionnaire. Suzie and Maria from Centenary, thanks so much for your kind words you guys made my week. ^_^

Just because a week has gone and a new post is up doesn't mean it's over. If you want to still participate please do! If I get enough responses I'll have a post dedicated to breaking down the results of replies.

~~~

So this past week the awesome Admin from the equine genetics forum I'm a participant on posted this interesting excerpt from Types and Market Classes of Livestock, By Henry William Vaughan. You can blame her for this entire blog post. :P

"Color With the possible exception of the saddle horse color is of more importance in heavy harness horses than in any other type The dark solid colors are preferred as being in proper accord with the elegant vehicles drawn by this horse White ankles are often favored because a horse so marked has his action emphasized and easily seen Grays roans and light colors are heavily discounted or even rejected except for certain special restricted uses such as sporting tandems road fours or cross matched pairs and in horses for ladies use even the white markings are discriminated against True elegance and good taste are wanted and this excludes colors that are flashy and calculated to attract undue attention."

This caused my imagination to kinda run with itself.
Click to enlarge or view higher quality at DA here.
Two overly aristocratic ladies gossiping over the impropriety of flashy colored horses.

Yes horses with too much 'chrome' were horribly out of fashion in those days. Meanwhile back in the 1700's white and fancy colors were all the rage. You know those Lippizans? Those uniform gray prancing ones from Vienna? This is what they looked like a few hundred years ago. Yah, crazy right?

So really if anyone was anyone back in the early past century then their horse was as plain, normal and unassuming as possible.


Ugh. A blaze and palomino? What were they thinking giving it a show. It learned to talk just to get people to look at it. Pay it no mind, and keep walking. It can smell disgust and fear.

Viggo Mortinson you attention seeking harlot of poor taste! Who let you in front of the cameras on that creature?

No more. No more! Is that purple and a horn? What in heavens is on it's hindquarters?
My weak constitution can't take much more of this.

Yah. Better to let this fall away into the aether.

~~~

Speaking of My Little Ponies, Kelpie from HGS has made us no longer need to wonder what Applejack from MLP Friendship Is Forever might look like as a real horse.

If you believe in alternate universes or string theory, this does exist somewhere.

This is Kelpie's horse Pyrros. And an interesting story occurred because of it:

"-when I showed my husband [the picture it] caused us to end up in an argument over whether Applejack is palomino or flaxen chestnut. (I maintained flaxen chestnut as her mane and tail were not white, he maintained palomino because her body was too yellow. I guess someone should jump in with "gold champagne" next since her eyes are green.) UBER CARTOON-HORSE PHENOTYPE NERD ARGUMENT."

And it is for the uber cartoon-horse phenotype nerdness that we thank you. ^_^

~~~

For more MLP color madness.
Click Here

Blast from childhood past!

Right now you are on a computer. And if you are reading this you very likely are into horses. Statistically you are more likely than the average web-surfer to have been into My Little Ponies at some point in your life. So use your web-savvy skills and get yourself over to generalzoi's My Little Pony Creator!

Brownie points to whoever can guess the famous animated horses!

Love this thing. It is highly entertaining and will keep you fiddling around with all the options. And it keeps getting updated with new things added. You chose things like head size, manes and tails, colors for everything, expressions. You can even customize body types! Seriously, I wish horse video and computer games would take a note from this thing and make in-game horses this customizable.

I'll be adding random MLP's made by Beautygirl1510 and WSTopDeck later.
So grab some friends and start ponifying!

Have fun freaking them out by turning them into weird pony-persons.

Second order of business. New anti-rollkur/hyperflexion/low-deep-and-round shirts in the store.
(Note: I am not "anti-dressage" or "anti-insert discipline here". I'm anti abuse.)

Dark color anti-rollkur shirts.

Light color anti-rollkur shirts.

~~~
UPDATE 06/16/11:
Heather/Beautygirl1510 MLP's!

MLPs based on real life horses we know.

Simba, Altair, Beautygirl1510's horse Beauty and George (He's pink because he's a strawberry roan XD)

Carly My Little Pony!

Carly Pony!

~~~