I keep using these pony doodles as warmups before animation and spending too much time on them whoops 😬

Anyway just gonna keep riding the alicorn motivation train! Here’s Luna, Celestia, and Gaius pre-assentation as kiddos; back when they were still Blue Moon, Morning Glory, and Garden Patch.

I’m still hammering out Gaius’s design (especially his cutie mark) so he might be subject to change in the future.

A few headcanony facts!

• The trio grew up in an orphanage together and are not related by blood, but consider each other family
• They were taken in by Starswirl a short time after they received their cutie marks; he’d sensed a great potential for power in them, though he tended to be dismissive of Luna and Gaius
• Celestia received her cutie mark the first time she participated in the unicorn ceremony of raising the sun
• Luna received her cutie mark when she cleared the sky of clouds so everyone at the orphanage could watch a meteor shower
• Gaius received his cutie mark when the other orphans got to try the food from his makeshift garden for the first time