Yoooooo guys, it's me, your um- 'favorite' person Jackie, here with a quick little chapter. This will most definitely be my last short-short chapter, so that's kinda cool. Currently, I'm working on a bunch of quick little mini projects, as well as the adoptables from my adopt book. I'm in the process of making children versions of some of my characters, as well as preparing to make updated references of my original characters (and prizes, which so far only PumpkingxAngel has sent me what they wanted drawn. I need you other four winners to tell me what you want). Anyways-

Let's just get started with this! 

This short chapter is to reveal what my first OC ever looked like (the first one I can fully remember, not the rainbow haired girl and the ppg OC I made when I was little) and the process I went through to redesign her and make her better fit the universe. My first ever OC was an MLP character named Sparklelight Star, who was the daughter of Twilight Sparkle and Flash Sentry, and I created her sometime around 2010-2013 era. It was before FNAF became my main inspiration, and you guys have seen the two paths the first ever OC I made from THAT fandom diverged into. However, I thought I might as well go through and show you guys the process in which you can use to revamp an old character you may still feel some attachment too, but can't really see the use in since they are so Mary Sue/Gary Stu like. So let's go on to the original design. Of course, this is just based on memory and the few pictures of her that I have in my old notebooks, and I've only ever colored her once (and she looked basically like Twilight Sparkle so-). I used a base, since I wanted to go through the process that a little 9-12 year old me would've gone through, just without the use of MS Paint and a mouse. Let's go!

Quick Note: I am in NO WAY an expert or professional in character design and all that. I'm just a girl with a big love of redesigning characters and thought it'd be fun to share my processes with you guys. I thought someone might appreciate seeing my process and may feel inspired to look back at a really old OC and revamp them. I highly recommend just taking my words and advice with a grain of salt and just see what works for you! Many of these are my personal preferences and they may not work for everyone, okay?

The base I used is by MLPColorfulPonyBases, in case you guys can't see that. Anyways, let's talk more in depth about the kind of character she is. Sparklelight Star (or Sparkle for short from now on) is a unicorn born pony who was born to Princess Twilight and Flash Sentry. She has 5 friends who are all children of the original mane six, and all become the new mane six. Just like her mom, she was an incredibly gifted unicorn who was turned into an alicorn at a pretty young age for being just... way too good at magic. Or something like that- anyways. She defeats Terik who comes back to get revenge on her mother all by herself by her own magical abilities and yeah. She's basically just an OP version of Twilight. Also, this all takes place before season 5 ever came out, so I was not aware of the stuff that happened after (and I'm still not, but I am more aware and realized just how bad her story was). 

Her design is very reminiscent of a more saturated, ugly version of Twilight Sparkle, and her cutiemark is just... too much. Now, I know sometimes children do tend to look a lot like one parent more then the other, but there is literally none of her father's aspects, and honestly, she is just a Twilight recolor. There's nothing absolutely unique about her design besides her gradient legs and wings. And her name is just too long, it's almost as if this could've been a joke character, but unfortunately... she REALLY is just an old, cringy OC. I could go into more detail but... well let's just go to this next part.

"Wait twins?" Yes, twins. Why twins? I dunno, I just liked the idea, plus I wanted the two different ideas I had for Sparkle to come true, so here it is. First of all, let's go with the designs and stuff!

So, besides the girls being twins, you probably noticed something major about their color schemes. For one, it's a lot less saturated and more of a proper mix of their parents color schemes. The spirit of Sparkle's original design does carry on with both of these girls manes and tails, but they have their own special style. Let's talk about their names now. I kept one part of the original's name for each girl, Star and Light. Star Dusk is a pegasus, like her father, and she is a big fan of Rarity. I imagine she loves to help the unicorn out with her fashion and whatnot, and is close friends with her kid. (I may also give the children characters redesigns too, but they won't be based on anything past Season 5, so keep that in mind). Dawn Light is full of anxiety and prefers being by herself, much like her mother, but instead of wanting to keep up with her magical studies, she'd rather just study magic (much like Sunburst actually).  She does have a good deal of magical talent, but she doesn't really wish to use her full potential, finding her talents more useful for writing and studying magic.

They are both close in every way and have their own dreams and goals, and don't particularly act like their parents. They each have their own group of friends from the original mane six, but they themselves are NOT the next mane six. They're just the children of the mane six, got it? Lmao, anyways- let's go over why I made the changes the way I did.

Sparkle's design was just far too busy, and a person's eyes struggle quite a bit to keep their eyes on her without being pretty confused at what they're staring at. So the color pallet had to be soften and made simpler to look at. With Star Dawn, she looks most close like her mother color scheme wise (I added the yellow as a little hint to Twilight's rainbow form, and I thought it'd be cool if the rainbow form's left some kind of genetic defect that got passed down, so um- yeah, that's pretty cool.) Her color pallet is very reminiscent of a sunset, at least to me it is, so that also explains her name. Her eyes are the same color as her father's, just darker and just *BARELY* on the warmer end, closer to purple. I may change it to yellow if I ever draw her again though, to match with one of her grandparent's eye colors. Her sister, Dawn Light, looks super soft and light, and a bit more similar to her father and mother. She's a more 'proper' mix of the two's color schemes, but we won't worry about that. She has her father's outer color, inner color mane color thingie going on, since I thought that was really cool, and I thought she'd look nice with long hair and bangs, as she may look a bit more up to her mother then her sister. 

Their cutiemarks are something else. The original had a book, a rainbow thing, and Twilight's main feature of her cutiemark all wrapped into one hot mess. However, the twins have two distinct cutiemarks that still maintain to their mother in some way. (I honestly had NO idea how to make Flash' fit in with either of them, so um- oops). Star has a shooting star cutiemark, which I think fits well with her need to be a fashion icon and to have high hopes to follow her dreams, and that's kinda what shooting stars are for, you know? Then Dawn's cutie mark is a book with kind of a part of her mother's cutiemark on the cover. This is just a nod to her admiration of her mother and her achievements, as well as her insane love of reading and writing about historical events and magic and all that stuff. I also consider the little magic sparkle a little hint that this unicorn IS more then just a book lover, but that she also has the skills that her mother has, that she just chooses to not bother with because her dreams don't really involve her magical gifts. 

Anyways! That's basically all I feel like I should talk about! There isn't a lot to say on this topic. Having a more cohesive color scheme, with 2-5 colors is usually the best course of action. Have at least 1-2 saturating or eye catching colors. For ponies, cutie marks are REALLY hard to come up with, so I recommend laying out a list of personality traits, likes, hobbies, and all that sort of stuff about your pony, then do some googling on cutiemark designs. Keep it simple and fun to draw, and something that pertains to some kind of aspect of your pony. Names can be a similar mess too, but I think more people struggle with butt tattoos then they do with the names so- yeah. Of course, I kept my ponies on theme with the show's usual ponies designs, but if you look at stuff like my own mane six designs, you know I prefer and LOVE doing far more with the designs then just a simple 'one coat color pallet'. In fact, I was almost added freckles to Dawn, because freckles are a big weakness for me, but I didn't go through with it since I wanted them to look like potentially cannon children. Anyways um- yeah- if I ever get around to it, maybe some day I'll actually go into full, understandable detail about the character designing process, but um... yeah not this time, I'm kinda tired and I need to start back to work on the projects I've been working on. So um- sorry for this mess of a chapter and for my ramblings. I hope you guys enjoyed!

Also- um- QnA stuff next chapter hopefullyyyyy!