Slams onto desk Fullbody of Alicorn Twilight, as ordered, Ma’am! Azure-Art-Wave

Twilight through the ages! I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but needed to settle (“settle”, I say as if I’m not 100% gonna make changes in the future) on a design for Twilight’s final form. Because it’s fun to show how a character’s changed over time, especially when said character suddenly gains extra limbs and a magical design overhaul :D I thought about making her kid forms too, but decided to leave it at these stages for now :)

I tend to not stray too far from the canon designs, usually only altering body shapes. I mean, I like when they look different, and fun, and more realisic or more fantastical or… but it’s too much work for me to usually bother with =P I make do watching other people draw fancy ponies. So most of this isn’t that new –until Twilight’s future form that is. I’ll be honest, I did not like future Twilight. She looks a bit too much like Celestia with a dye job. So, at least for that, I’ve decided to make my own version :D

Unicorn:
Back in Canterlot, Twilight was… a bit of a wreck. Lonely, stressed and with a tendency of studying with no breaks until she literally dropped. She was really lucky that she had Spike, who forced her to do unimportant stuff like… take breaks. And eat. Still, one baby dragon does not a support system make….

So it was very good for both her and Spike to move to Ponyville. Turns out, having friends –friends who care about you and who makes you want to take breaks– makes you both much happier and healthier.

I really like when internal changes of a character reflect in their design. Like, for example, a character who keeps their hair short so it can’t be grabbed, that lets it grow out once they feel safe. So I tried to make Twilight a bit different before and after she had friends; before, she didn’t take very good care of herself. Why would she, when there were books to read? So I made her a bit weaker and thinner, and also more ‘angular’ to contrast with her rounder and friendlier look after she moved to Ponyville. Ponyville her also has more muscles and carries her tail higher in confidence. Lastly, I thought a bit about how Rarity would affect her, but eventually decided not that much; she was extremely neat before then, so her fur and mane would be cut and brushed properly before then too. But I did give her mane a bit of an upward curl to show that she’s doing (or, Rarity is doing for her) just a hint of styling in her mane :)

Ascension:
Once she ascended, the most notable change that happened was, well, obviously the wings. But that wasn’t all; she also grew just a little bit taller and… her cutie mark changed? It was all very odd, but she figured she could live with it. Except, she was also a lot hungrier than before. At first she thought it was because she had wings now; pegasi do have to eat more than unicorns or earth ponies after all. Except, she was needing to eat even more than that. Maybe it was an alicorn thing?

Once Rarity had to re-take her measurments a year later, she realised that, yes, this was an alicorn thing. She thought she was done with growing once she reached adulthood, but looks like she was just getting started. Buckle up.

Twenty years later, and she thinks (hopes, desperately) that she’s finally done for real this time. She’s now a bit taller than her big brother, she doesn’t need any more, thank you.

I think it’s fun if four ascended alicorns have different body-types. My Celestia is tall and… if you want to be nice –which most ponies do, she is their ruler after all– ‘slender’. If you don’t, ‘gangly’ is an apt description too. Second tallest is Luna; she’s lean and muscular. Cadence is also taller than the show, and the third tallest of the four; she’s a classical beauty, with lean and elegant proportions …Oh, and she towers over Shining, because I like it =P That leaves Twilight, forever the shortest alicorn. I wanted her to be the opposite of the sterotypical slender unicorn, so she’s… solid. Stocky. A bit more working horse-shaped than the others, which is ironic considering she’s probably the one who does the least amount of physical work.

As for the rest of her design: at first, I thought about yellow. A lot of people go yellow, which is understandable seeing as her rainbow power form has a lot of it. But for reasons, I actually wanted her to look more like the tree of harmony. (Oh yeah, in my nextgen verse it wasn’t destroyed, just fyi) So I tried to go bluer rather than yellow. I still kept her pink stripe, but made the outside of her mane darker to make it pop more. Oh, and sparkles. All alicorn’s gotta have sparkles in their mane, it’s mandatory.

I still wanted to lean into the ‘twilight’ aspect of Twilight though, so I tried to make her coat colors show that a bit, with a bluer back and pinker underside. Oh, and sparkles :)