HOME | DD
brewing-trouble — Customized Rainbow Dash
Published: 2011-03-23 19:33:54 +0000 UTC; Views: 47074; Favourites: 947; Downloads: 2580
Redirect to original
Description
So, pretty much everybody's seen the latest My Little Pony incarnation, right?Well, if you're a fan, you're probably rather painfully aware of how much the toys don't really look like the ponies they're supposed to represent?
Anyway. Rainbow Dash is my favorite character on the show. And she probably has the most inaccurate toy of the bunch. So, I decided to fix her. This is how Rainbow Dash SHOULD look. I customized her myself. She is re-haired with all her own original hair, except the red, which was too short for me to re-use. So I got some "Pomme d'Amour" Dollyhair, which was almost a perfect match to the original red, and used that instead. I also touched up the pinkish-maroon in her irises and reshaped the eyelash line to look more like Dash and less like Fluttershy, and tried to give her that "determined" look. I also had to touch up all the white on her, in her eyes and on her cutie mark. The decapitated Dash head there (which will belong to my ponysona) is there for comparison.
So, fillies and gentlecolts, I'd say this is at least 20% cooler, wouldn't you?
No, she isn't for sale. And I don't really have plans to mod and sell them because this took a lot of time and I have a real job and a life and other hobbies.
Lauren Faust is one of the few people that I would GIFT one of these girls to, though, for making such an awesome show. She's free to ask for one at any time.
sorry about the edits if you're seeing them all. It's been so long since I uploaded anything that I realize I keep forgetting stuff like the keywords and things...
ADDENDUM:
Okay, unfortunately, I have to reiterate this. While I appreciate that other fans like this mod,
No, I am not selling this toy, and
No, I do NOT do commissions for these, and I do not plan to. There was only ever one exception, and that was at a different point in my life, so please do not ask.
Thanks.
Related content
Comments: 358
Much better!
I wish Hasbro would actually spend more time on their toys so there would be more market for it.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hi! Love this! If you decide to sell them let me know.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Hasbro.... Get with the program!
This is at least 20% cooler than your version of Rainbow Dash.
Now I need to mod my own Rainbow Dash. I guess that means I gotta go to town and get a bunch of fake hair from the hobby store. Sure would be nice to be a pegasus like Dashie, hay and oats and daisies aren't exactly $4 a gallon, unlike the gas for my car!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I was wondering for her eyebrows did you paint them on or did you use a black marker? =o
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Wow, you got the hair to look just like the animated hair. 0.0
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
This is amazing. o-o
You sir, are my hero.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
ever thought of making a tutorial for someone wanting to fix there own toys?
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
ever thought of posting a tutorial for those of us new to pony making but wanting to have acurate figures as well.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
That's incredible. Much better than the hack job I did.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
have you had an trouble detaching and reattaching the head/getting the tail out? i found it almost imposable. in my opinion i think the new head/body shape is partly to keep people from modifying the new generation.
👍: 0 ⏩: 3
Oh, I meant to add.... when you're getting ready to smoosh the hot boiled head to loosen the mane glue? Dump the hot water out of the head before you do that. Because seriously. OUCH. I totally did that more than once.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
thanks so much for the advice, part of my really wants the old gen of ponies back, they had more personality,, these look more like my little pet shop that mlp.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I hope that was easy enough to follow... It's TRICKY to mod these tiny ponies, but some masochistic people love a challenge. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I can't very well say it's NO trouble, but I have found a few things that help. It kind of sucks I haven't seen more people talking about this part because I can see how it's hard for a beginner to figure out.
As I told someone else, I've found that heating up the pony makes it easier to get her head off the little peg that allows it to turn. A hair dryer (preferably after removing her mane because it tends to fly around and get all over the place) helped a lot because the heat makes the vinyl soft and smooshy. Then you use a pull-and-twist-repeatedly motion to pop the head off while it's still ALMOST too hot to handle (or you could, y'know, be smart and hold her with a washcloth or mitt... but I apparently like burning myself... lol).
Step 2, getting the plug out, varies a little based on how much glue I think there is. A lot of people cut the plug out with an exacto knife. I HATE doing that, but I have done it... it's just a risky operation, because even experienced pony modders occasionally slip and cut the neck! If I think I can get it out MOSTLY without cutting the neck vinyl at all, I'll try that first! The way I do this is by putting the pony in scalding-to-boiling-hot water, usually I use a "double boiler" with the pony in a pot of water balanced inside a bigger pot of water so she isn't sitting directly on the hot metal of the pot that's on the stove. It also helps lower the risk of burning/discoloring her, but you'll still want to make sure that neither pot goes dry or she may burn. And I put her head in too, just in case the heat makes the vinyl change color slightly. The heat and water loosens the glue that holds the plug in. What you'll want to do then is take the pony out with tongs or a spoon, let her cool enough to handle, and then try to push the peg INTO the body. That'll usually show you a lip of vinyl that you can slip something small and sharp-ish-but-not-a-cutting-edge into like a really big safety pin or other metal edge. Even if you don't see the lip, you can still try.... I just keep running the tool around the edge and prying and working the glue loose from the peg, immersing the pony in the hot water occasionally as it cools. It can take anywhere from half an hour to a couple of hours, but I think the result is worth it. Don't forget to take the hot pony head and smoosh it around to loosen the mane glue, too! It makes that stuff SO much easier to pull out! When you're done, you just dump the remaining water out of the body and head, let everything cool, and go to town!
To put the plug back in the head and neck is tricky because you probably have already got a new mane in, so you may not want to boil the head to get the peg back in because it might hurt the new mane, and as much as you can, you don't want water in the pony's body anyway (it could cause mold or "pony cancer" bacterial growth later, if you live in a humid area.) DON'T work it directly backwards and try putting the plug in the body first - you want to put the head on the peg first, and THEN put the plug back in the body! First, I take the neck peg/plug and use some nail files to file down the peg (where the head fits on) diameter just a LITTLE TINY BIT, all the way around, and make the transition edge from the angle of the peg to the maximum diameter of the peg a little smoother. Then I take that hair dryer again, wrap her mane in a damp washcloth to protect it (because it hasn't been properly styled yet), and blast that neck hole til it's nice and hot and smooshy. Then I use a similar "push and twist" motion to put the head back on the peg. Once it's on the peg, you have a pony plughead and a pony body. At this point, you may choose the style the mane, because you can still dry the head out fairly easily from the small amounts of hot water you're using for styling, but you should try to let the head dry out as much as you can before you put it back on the pony, again to prevent pony mold. If you were, like me, not smart enough to mark where the peg should sit in relation to the body, then you will also want to experiment to figure out how best to rotate the plug so that it fits best into the neck. Then you should mark it lightly on both the plug and the inside edge of the neck where you can't see it when the head is on, take some locktite gel glue, put that around the inside of the neck about 4mm from the edge (NOT ON THE PEG!! you'll get seepage if you put it on the peg and then her head will never turn again!) and put the plug back into the neck, making sure the marks would be in position if you could see them. Then let the glue dry.
Tada, your pony is now happy because she has her head back!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
The eye brows look too demanding. D:
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
... oookay. Well, to each their own. There are plenty of actual shots in the show where her eyebrows are actually LIKE that, though -- like, about half the time during the show. You can even see it in the intro, too, every time you see her IN the intro, so it's not like it's out of character for her. I was trying to make her look like she looks when she's trying to look awesome.
Sorry you don't like it. Thanks for commenting, anyway.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
I saw the toys in Wal-Mart the other day and stared at Rainbow Dash for a while. I couldn't get over the strange hairstyle she (and the rest of them) had, but you made her look so much better!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Aw I would love one like this! I went to the store yesterday to buy a rainbow dash figure and I was so disappointed in what I found. 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thanks.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
The hair part seems pretty tricky actually XD; but thanks for the tut! it should maybe come in handy oneday...Just a quick question. If you were to open for commissions, how much would you charge for a customized rainbow dash? im honestly just in love with the one you made!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Just went to Toys R Us today, and saw all of them. Honestly, you did a great job improving her!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I would love to do this sometime. Been studying some youtube viddya after seeing your results, which inspired the interest entirely 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thank you. If you're interested, has a nice photo tutorial, too, which goes into the basics of customizing a pony.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Oh wow, I didn't expect that - Thank you infinitely! And again, wonderful job on yours.
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Where do you get the hair?And how do you remove it from the pony?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Which hair are you referring to? As I said in the description, the only color I needed to special order was the red. All the rest of the hair came from the pony, and was put back into her own mane and tail. I just sectioned it off by color, tied each color bundle of hair with some thread, and then cut it off the pony as close as I could get to her "skin". Then after you remove the head from the pony, you have to heat up the head somehow (boiling water works well), moosh it around to break up the glue, and then use mosquito forceps to pull the roots of the hair and glue chunks out from the inside of the head, through the neck hole.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I hope that hasbro will sell a version like these, or for less a line for the fans.
could be cool that the line could has luna, gilda, trixi , a correct celestia, derpy and other characters
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That would be really nice if they did that. Heaven knows I'd buy it!
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
Very nice job on the redo <3 Does the head come off the same way as the other older pony heads do?
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Thankee!
That depends what you mean by "older". If by older you mean g1, which are the ones that were originally sold back in the 80s-early 90s, then no - their heads were held on by a lip in the vinyl, and the heads didn't turn at all. I can't even speak for the g2s. But if by older you mean last generation (g3 - g3.5) which were sold until mid 2010, then yes. They have a head plug that allows the head to turn, but it's kind of hard to work with. Essentially, I warm up the pony with a hair dryer til the vinyl is soft and squishy, and then I pull on the head while twisting it, and it usually comes off the peg on the plug. The plug is a whole nother matter to get out, but you usually do have to get it out in order to change the tail.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
Your very welcome and thanks for the help :3
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
You can get the basic tutorial that you'd need, WITH PICTURES, from
👍: 0 ⏩: 0
[link]
Petition to make hasbro make their non-molded toys look more like the cast.
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
<= Prev | | Next =>