I’ve already featured her artist once, but for school (Ashford Universtiy) i wrote a descriptive essay about this pony. Please enjoy my attempt to describe a pony to someone who’s never seen it!
Midori Sakura
Have you ever seen a painting and wanted to touch the paint just to feel the texture of the brush strokes? I’ve always been very tactile so it happens quite often for me, even with digital art. Of course, I can’t touch the pretty paintings hanging at a gallery, and digital art honestly doesn’t have any brush strokes, but I do own art that I can touch. Specifically a favorite of mine I received this last spring is a customized pony doll named Midori Sakura. Aside from being a piece of visual art, I can feel the strokes of acrylic paint that have been layered on her vinyl body, satisfying my need to touch.
Many people in my age range will remember the My Little Pony toys that were introduced in the 80s and collected by little girls all over the world. Most recently, the ponies have come back with new toys, characters, and a new television show which are known as the fourth generation to collectors. But what I have collected the most are customized toys from their third generation. The third generation of My Little Pony toys is most similar to the first and is also the one my children collect. The reason I collect customized dolls of this type is because I also customize them.
This past spring a cherry blossom swap was held for several artists. We listed our likes and dislikes about the piece of artwork we would like to receive and we all made something special for someone else. I don’t really recall what I listed, but when I opened this pony’s box I felt like someone had taken an image from my mind and painted it onto this pony.
Midori Sakura means “green cherry blossoms” in Japanese, a language I’ve studied for seven years. While that may seem odd since cherry blossoms are typically pink or white this is the freedom of art. Although not entirely monochromatic, this pony was painted with a limited pallete of colors on a plain white pony that deceive the viewer into feeling she is simplistic. On her display side she features a simple black sakura tree that is littered with bunches of tiny green cherry blossoms. Each blossom has a highlight at the center with black paint details. Spreading out from the tree there are countless blossoms and leaves that look like they’ve been spread by the wind over her neck and back, across her face and down each leg. Not only can I feel each blossom but she’s been decorated with scattered green Swarovski crystals as well adding not just sparkle to catch the eye, but texture.
The crowning glory to most customized dolls is the hair. Here Midori does not disappoint. Her artist fully replaced her hair with high quality nylon doll hair. My favorite difference between this hair and what actually comes on dolls is this hair is unprocessed. It retains its soft and silky texture because it hasn’t been heat styled and hasn’t had any products added to it. As in the painting on this pony there are multiple shades of green but for contrast there is dark grey as well as silver that sparkles like the moonlight on snow. A small portion of her mane has been pulled back into a simple bun decorated with white pearls and small green flowers. The majority of it hangs freely and flows like it’s been blown in the wind with her blossoms. Her tail is also decorated with the pearls and flowers but is otherwise free to be arranged for display.
I own many custom pony dolls and I am happy with most of them. I can touch them and enjoy them physically as well as visually. I chose to write about Midori Sakura because I love feeling the acrylic paint and brush strokes. Many of the artists work very hard to eliminate brush strokes on custom dolls to make it look more professional. Because I am tactile, though, I have not pursued that level of perfectionism and I find joy in ponies like this. While she is just as visually stunning as the rest, she is precious in my hands.