Kalavista – Rebecca Enzor

And the Winners of #PonyFest14 are….

Happy Sunday, Aledan Merfolk! As the title promises, today is the reveal day for the winners of PonyFest14! You’ve spent the past two weeks visiting the blogs and voting for your favorite designs, and if you’ve seen the voting post anytime after the poll closed you already know who won the popular vote.

Air Elemental started out with a strong lead before Pestas pulled ahead early in the voting and held on to the number one spot for almost the entire race. Kasmira was right behind him for much of the time, often tied, but on the final day Hunger surged ahead in a last-minute sprint…that unfortunately winded her before she reached the finish line. Kasmira saved her energy until just before the midnight mark and pulled out a last-second win, much like Marce did in PonyFest12!

That fierce little pony wins a pile of books and a Mane Six character of her choice!

But that wasn’t the only vote this year, and although I’ve known who won the judge panel vote for the past several days, I’ve been sitting on that information like Smaug on a pile of gold. And it was SO HARD not to spill the beans before now, because I’m delighted! The winner of the panel vote has been playing PonyFest since it’s beginning in 2011, and I adore her writing. In fact, now that she’s won the judges vote, she’ll have an official custom to go with the poor excuse for a custom I made her last year 😉

That’s right, Cetus the SeaDragon is getting a friend!

Congratulations Air Elemental and Angela!

This angel of a pony also wins a pile of books – and a custom pony based on this design! The judges panel has already gotten to work helping Kalavista to sculpt wings, and I can’t wait until I can show you guys the finished product – it’s going to be stunning!

So there you have it, Aledan Merfolk, the winners of PonyFest14!

To everyone who played, I want to give a huge THANK YOU! I can’t express how much this contest brightened my days as I clicked through to look at the ponies time and time again. You’re all very talented writers, and very talented pony designers. I can’t wait to have your books on my bookshelf!

And if you didn’t win, or didn’t know about the contest in time to enter: No worries! I run it every year in September/October (around my birthday, because who doesn’t want all that happiness on their blog for their birthday?!) And if you’re really itching for your own custom pony let me know – I’ll get you in contact with a customizer who can make it for you 🙂

Welcome to #PonyFest14!

Surprise, Aledan Merfolk! PonyFest14 voting is starting one day early this year because it’s my birthday and that’s how I roll! It’s also Juliana’s birthday (you can see her ponies below) and the Warrior’s Ceremony for those of you from Fie Eoin 😉 With all the celebrations going on today, how could I not open the voting round a day early?

Last year I showed you my lovely Erie merpony, so this year I’m bringing you Finn as a merpony. Want to make your own merpony? Check out the Merpony Creator.

Now on to the voting! Remember, click on all the pictures below – some entries have more than one pony on the blog!

In the order that they arrived on the announcement post, I give you the #PonyFest14 contenders:

There you have it, Aledan Merfolk – eleven beautiful entries for #PonyFest14! Now it’s your job to decide which one is your favorite. Remember: the winner of the popular vote gets a Mane Six pony and a pile of books! Choose wisely.

Announcing #PonyFest14!

It’s finally here! PonyFest14! For those of you who’ve been hanging around the blog for the past couple years, you know what this means: my blog is being taken over by My Little Ponies for the next month. All the rules and prizes for the contest are below, but first we have a custom by the PonyFest customizer: Kalavista. And she’s for sale! $49 with free US shipping for all PonyFest14 participants – if you’d like to buy her, let me know and I’ll get in touch with Kal for you.

Heart's Blood, by Kalavista — Heart’s Blood, by Kalavista

She has tiny fangs and bat-wings! Kal has graciously agreed to customize this year’s winning pony as well. And based on her beautiful work, I think you’ll be happy with the results (click her name above to go to her website and see all of her beautiful customs).

And now for PonyFest14!

The Rules:

-either draw your own pony or use the pony creator to make a pony based on your novel. Choose colors for the body, mane/tail, and eye color, as well as a symbol. Ponies can be earthers, unicorns or pegasi (no ponies with both a horn and wings please). No Twice As Fancy symbols (the symbol design can’t cover the whole body).

-all ponies must come from a full-length, original work (no fanfics). Unpublished novels are OK. Feel free to plug your published novel in the post!

-it can be a pony based on a character, setting, or theme from your novel. You can make more than one pony, but they must be voted on as a whole, from the same book, and only ONE of those ponies will be customized.

-write up a short description of your pony(s), and a one sentence tag-line for the book.

-post the pony(s) on your blog by Sunday September 28th and reply here with the link to that post.

-from October 5th through 17th visit the other blogs and vote for your favorite pony!

-winners will be announced on October 19th!

The Vote: This year there will be two votes: one popular, one panel. The panel vote is made up of pony customizers including Kalavista, LightningSilver-Mana, jupiternwndrlnd, RevRuby, Nichi Tsukinoko, TexasGal, and Saja, among others. The popular vote will be the same as in years past.

The Prizes: The winner of the panel vote will have their pony made into a real custom pony by Kalavista, plus receive a copy of her book, The Secret of Shadow! And this year the prize is even bigger, because the winner will also receive a copy of Spookygirl by Jill Baguchinsky, Angelfire by Courtney A Moulton, Postcards From Asgard by Amalia Dillin, Ink by Amanda Sun (the first PonyFest winner!), and Inspired by Danielle Shipley (last year’s PonyFest winner!).

The winner of the popular vote will receive their choice of Mane Six pony, plus a copy of The Secret of Shadow by Kalavista, SUPERPOWERED by Jamie Butterworth, The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter, Forged by Fate by Amalia Dillin, and I’d Rather Not Be Dead and Pride, Prejudice and Curling Rocks by Andy Brokaw.

Restrictions: The custom pony will not have clothes or accessories (no sculpty/clay will be used), so make a representation of the character, rather than a carbon-copy right down to their underwear. No Alicorns/Unipegs, Twice-As-Fancy symbols (symbols that cover the entire body) or sitting poses. Open to US/Canada residents only (you can still play, but only US/C residents can win the prize, sorry!).

Good luck everyone!

Custom of the Week: Gloriana

Happy, um, Monday, Aledans! I spent a busy weekend being social and wasn’t able to get up this week’s custom, but it’s so colorful and well-done that I couldn’t let it pass. So, to keep celebrating the month of Kalavista, here’s one of her new peacock series:

Look at all that beautiful detail! And those colors! She’s so vibrant!

If you have a pony that you would like featured as a Custom of the Week, please email me: rebeccaenzor@gmail.com

Custom of the Week: Lunara

Happy Sunday, Aledans! We’re still celebrating the Month of Kalavista for CotW, and it’s a good thing today’s pony has already been sold, because I’d be sorely tempted to buy it. It became my new favorite as soon as I saw it. All the pretty blue and black ❤

Look at all the pretty jewels! I adore her.

If you have a pony that you would like featured as a Custom of the Week, please email me: rebeccaenzor@gmail.com

Custom of the Week: Marce

Custom of the Week is back, Aledans! And we’re dedicating this month to our very own PonyFest customizer: Kalavista!

As you probably know by now, I love Kal’s work. The detail on her customs is amazing, especially on those tiny G4 ponies. I’ve tried customizing a couple G4 ponies myself, and not only is it nearly impossible to rip their heads off and dye them, but the symbols (“cutie marks” to those FiM fans out there) have to be extremely small. Much smaller then a G1 symbol (of course, you only have to put a G4 symbol on one side ;)). Not sure how tiny that is? Go to your local Target/Walmart/Meijer and find the toy aisle. They’re tiny.

Which is why Kal is my go-to customizer for PonyFest. Two years ago Diana Beebe won PonyFest12 with Marce, and I haven’t had a chance to show her off yet. So in place of any further fan-girling (we still have three more Sundays of Kal’s CotW), I give you Marce:

Marce: design by Diana on the left; custom on the right. — Marce: design by Diana on the left; custom by Kalavista on the right.

Do you SEE the detail in the eye? Do you know how small that eye is? I’m amazed.

If you have a pony that you would like featured as a Custom of the Week, please email me: rebeccaenzor@gmail.com

Welcome to #PonyFest13!

Happy Saturday Aledans! I know we don’t normally have Saturday posts around here, but I couldn’t wait another day to start the voting round of #PonyFest13…could you? I didn’t think so.

But first, I found something the day after the contest closed for entries, and that’s probably a good thing, since it would be impossible for Kal to make one of these babies. It’s a Merpony Creator! And since my newest novel, Speak the Ocean, is a mermaid story, I thought I’d show off Erie, my little seapony:

Now on to the voting! Remember, click on all the pictures below – some entries have more than one pony on the blog!

In the order that they arrived on the announcement post, I give you the #PonyFest13 contenders:

Montesque, by Diana Beebe — Montesque, by Diana

Dennis, by Jamie Butterworth — Dennis, by Jamie

There you have it, Aledans – twelve beautiful entries for #PonyFest13! Now it’s your job to decide which one is your favorite. Remember, the winning pony is made into an actual custom by Kalavista, and the winner gets a pile of books by pony-collecting folks as well. And this year the runner up gets a pile of books too! Choose wisely.

Announcing #PonyFest13!

It’s finally here! #PonyFest13! For those of you who’ve been hanging around the blog for the past couple years, you know what this means: my blog is being taken over by My Little Ponies for the next month. All the rules and prizes for the contest are below, but first we have two very special customs by the PonyFest customizer: Kalavista. You see, this year was the thirtieth anniversary of My Little Pony, so Kal made two beautiful customs to celebrate.

Kal has graciously agreed to customize this year’s winning pony as well. And based on her beautiful work, I think you’ll be happy with the results (click through to go to her DA page and see all her beautiful customs).

And now for #PonyFest13!

The Rules:

-either draw your own pony or use a template or the pony creator to make a pony based on your novel. Choose colors for the body, mane/tail, and eyes, as well as a symbol. Ponies can be earthers, unicorns or pegasi (no alicorns/unipegs please).

-all ponies must come from a full-length, original work (no fanfics). Unpublished novels are OK. Feel free to plug your published novel in the post if you are that lucky!

-write up a short description of your pony(s), and a one sentence tag-line for the book.

-post the pony(s) on your blog by Sunday September 29th and reply here with the link to that post (please don’t link to your home page, the contest runs for a long time and you don’t want to make people scroll).

-from October 5th through 12th visit the other blogs and vote for your favorite pony!

-winner will be announced on October 13th!

-previous winners can play, but they cannot win the grand prize. In the case of a previous winner getting the most votes, they will win the books that have been added for this year and the second place winner will get entire prize pack, including the custom pony.

The Prizes:

The winner (based on popular vote) will have their pony made into a real custom pony by Kalavista, plus receive a copy of her book, The Secret of Shadow! And this year the prize is even bigger, because the winner will also receive a copy of Spookygirl by Jill Baguchinsky, Angelfire by Courtney A Moulton, I’d Rather Not Be Dead and Pride, Prejudice and Curling Rocks by Andy Brokaw, SUPERPOWERED by Jamie Butterworth, and Ink by Amanda Sun (the first PonyFest winner!).

And for the first time, we’ll have a runner-up prize as well! The runner up will receive a copy of The Secret of Shadow by Kalavista, SUPERPOWERED by Jamie Butterworth, and I’d Rather Not Be Dead and Pride, Prejudice and Curling Rocks by Andy Brokaw.

Restrictions:

The custom pony will not have clothes or accessories (no sculpty/clay will be used), so make a representation of the character, rather than a carbon-copy right down to their underwear. No Twice-As-Fancy symbols (symbols that cover the entire body), alicorns/unipegs, or sitting poses. Open to US/Canada residents only (you can still play, but only US/C residents can win the prize, sorry!).

Good luck everyone – I can’t wait to see all your beautiful designs!

Custom of the Week: Jasmyne

Welcome back, Aledans! My Brief Internet Hiatus is over, and I’m ready to jump back on the pony. Specifically, the Custom Pony of the Week. The time off has been good for me, and to celebrate my return to the blog I’ve got a custom pony by my favorite customizer: Kalavista! We’ve seen quite a bit of Kal’s work on CotW, because she’s the generous customizer who makes the PonyFest customs (like Tomo-pony, whose book, INK, is in stores now!). I’m happy to say she’ll be back again this year for PonyFest13, so keep an eye out for the announcement post in September.

For now though, I give you another beautiful Kalavista custom:

Do you know how tiny the G4 ponies are? Look at the detail! She’s gorgeous.

If you have a pony that you would like featured as a Custom of the Week, please email me: rebeccaenzor@gmail.com (I’m now accepting all customs, whether they be story-based or not!)

Custom of the Week: Tomohiro

I don’t even think the weekend existed, Aledans. I really don’t. I remember doing things this weekend, but I think I must have been dreaming, because it went by so fast I forgot to even put up the Custom of the Week! Which is crazy, because I’ve been waiting a year to feature this custom. Who is it? Why, it’s last year’s PonyFest11 winner!

tomohiro_by_kalavista-d5hu0dr — Tomohiro, by Kalavista

You might remember what a pain Tomo was to customize from this post, so I was happy to see how great he turned out! To find out more about Tomohiro check out Amanda’s blog (and don’t forget to add INK to your to-read shelf on Goodreads!)