Hello everyone! It's nice to see you all again. Today, I am going to show you some new art from the development team. They have all been working hard to make Legends of Equestria a fun and unique experience for all of you, and I'm really excited to show you some of the progress they've made!

I know that Bloomberg has been covering these artist showcases up until now, but he is very busy working on other parts of Legends of Equestria. Since I love showing and teaching people new things, I was very excited to be given this opportunity, so I'll be bringing you the showcases from now on. So, Bloomberg, if you're reading this, thanks for all of your hard work up to this point!

This month's showcase will be showing off the brand new public Canterlot library, which has had many hours of work put into it by some of our talented artists. Let's start with when the library was only just an idea and a sketch.


This is the earliest sketch of the Public Canterlot Library. Since this building has never appeared in the show, our artists had to come up with something new and exciting. Concept artist Nick Hydock used towers, windows, and other building components seen all over Canterlot to design a building in Canterlot's style. He also drew some inspiration from his own hometown. Here is what he had to say:

"I come from an old town in Pennsylvania, and I liked basing some of my design for buildings off of the classic architecture around here a lot of the buildings have a more colonial style to them, which doesn't exactly fit in Canterlot. However, it does work for some things, such as government buildings or offices."

After the initial designs were completed, our wonderful people over at the 3D department took over. Below you can see the work done by 3D modeler Ryan Scanlon. After receiving the sketch, he was able to form the first 3D model of the library, with two ponies in the doorway for scale. Here are Ryan's thoughts on this building, which was his first with Legends of Equestria!

This one was actually pretty straight forward.  It did come with that fun little book statue side project though and I really liked that, I prefer modeling props over buildings. This building doesn't have a lot of complex geometry, its basically a rectangle with things attached to it, which is frankly what most buildings in video games are. Things with more complex shapes are always more of a challenge to model and to layout the UVs [texture maps] for. Prop items for the most part have lots of smaller complex parts to them and thats what makes them more fun.

Once all the 3D modeling is complete, it's time for the 2D artists to come in and add texture and color. For this particular work, 2D co-lead Vector/AirBrush determined the colors and created the texture. He worked within Canterlot's overall color scheme to help the building fit the style of the city. The facades of most buildings in Canterlot tend to be in lighter shades, and to that the library is no exception. Vector/Airbrush has spent considerable time working on textures for Canterlot buildings. He describes Canterlot's distinct style as such:

All the buildings have off-white colored walls, and the roofs usually either have a swirl, stripe, or checkerboard pattern. I studied buildings that we have already seen in the show to decide some of the texture choices. Other patterns were drawn from the concept artist's original vision of the model's texture. Color choices were drawn from studying the color palette in various screenshots. Canterlot primarily uses blue, white, purple, and gold for most of its color.

After the artists have put it all together, we have a finished building. Below, you can see the Canterlot library in its completed state, which has now been placed inside the game!  Check it out!


The Canterlot library is just one of the many places you'll be able to visit in Legends of Equestria when it gets released, but there are still going to be many fun and exciting adventures to go on both in and around the library. The beautiful artwork shown here is also going to be a large contribution to making an immersive and enjoyable experience for all of you. Don't forget to look for the Canterlot public library during next month's open weekend! I might even see you there myself. ;)

Until then, thank you all for coming, and I hope you'll come back to see next month's artist showcase as well!

Exciting news everyone!
Missed the first Pre-Alpha Stress Test?
The Legends of Equestria Development Team is here for you!

I have just received word that during the weekend of Everfree Northwest 2013, July 5-7th, Legends of Equestria will be opening its servers to the public once again! Jump online and explore an expansive world while hanging out with friends and fans alike. Legends of Equestria will be available to download from the official website. Attending Everfree Northwest? Legends of Equestria will be available via flash drive at Everfree Northwest's gaming table in conference room Columbia A.  All Legends of Equestria accounts are made through the Legends of Equestria forum, so register before attending! Afterwards, why not check to see if your computer meets our system requirements at this page: http://forum.legendsofequestria.com/index.php?topic=2189.0
I look forward to seeing you there!

Staff from Legends of Equestria, a massively multiplayer online game set in a My Little Pony-inspired universe, will be attending both Fiesta Equestria! and Everfree Northwest. In addition to presenting panels, representatives of the Legends of Equestria team will give convention attendees an opportunity to play the game in its current pre-alpha state. Convention-specific quests within the game will be available to those who attend.

The team members who will be attending Fiesta Equestria! in Houston, Texas, on June 28th through 30th, are:

• Bloomberg - Editor-in-Chief. Bloomberg has been on the project for the past two years, where he now serves as the allegedly deciduous writing team leader.
• Blue Ink - Writer. A professional editor, Blue is the second-in-command of the writers and has been working on the game since last year.
• TheGrandFunkasaurus - 3D modeler. The grandest of all dinosaurs, Funk is a live sound technician in real life who has worked on the game for the past two years.
• Tekner - Programmer. Tekner is a self-employed game designer and developer, and has been working on Legends of Equestria for one year.

For more information about Fiesta Equestria! feel free to visit their website at www.fiestaequestria.com/


The team members who will be attending Everfree Northwest in Seattle, Washington, on July 5th through 7th, are:

• AnyaSmash - Concept Art leader. A long-time lover of tea, Anya has been working on Legends of Equestria for nearly two years and is a graphic design student.
• Cerebrate - Programming leader. Cerebrate owes Anya $5.50 and some burnt banana bread, and has been working on the project for nearly two years.
• Kit - Graphic Art leader. Kit teaches children how to make computer games and works with horses, and has been working on the project for nearly two years.
• Ryan Scanlon - 3D modeler. Ryan has been on the team for seven months, and has modeled several lovely buildings for Canterlot within that time frame.

For more information about Everfree Northwest, feel free to visit their website at www.everfreenw.com/

Hello,

I am AnyaSmash. As most of you may know me, I manage the Concept Art department as well as work on the forums. In light of recent events, I felt the need to apologize for what has been happening.

I'm sure many of you have noticed the screenshot of a forum user's immaturely "modified" post roaming around Tumblr, Facebook, deviantART, Skype chats, and the forums.

I would like to mention that all of the forum user's ideas were not wasted, we have a copy of all their suggestions, and we are already taking them into consideration. We normally do not censor any user's valid suggestions, and the posts were only censored due to the fact they were being spammed multiple times.

I will admit that I am the one who worked on word-filtering their post in order to say such ridiculous things. However, please note this post was not modified permanently, as word-filtered posts are returned to their original state once the word filter gets removed.

The word filter was put in place to prevent multiple temporary accounts from spamming the forum with the post, which had happened three times before I began working on the word-filter. The immature phrases were a joke I did while testing the word filter before they were replaced with the phrase "I will not spread drama."

The post in question was not visible to the public, and was only visible to team leaders. One of the other team leaders thought it would be a good idea to jeopardize their position for a screenshot of a  temporary filter not visible to anyone but a small group of seven people.

I know this does not excuse my actions. I take full responsibility as far as modifying the word filters.

I apologize for any tarnished reputation that the Legends of Equestria team may now have. I am hoping that we'll be able to move on past this small bump together and look forward to a summer full of fun events from Legends of Equestria.

I will be answering questions and comments as honestly as possible in this thread.