Lionel23

Hey all, thanks for wishing me a Happy Birthday!  I am very much alive, just been very busy with a big project of mine, gathering artists and working on the story line and world-building needed for this!  I've actually been at work since March (my job had ended and had plenty of free time on my hands!).  Been a lot going on my end, I went to two conventions in July/August (sad that Bronycon is ending next year! But they'll always be other pony conventions to check out!) as well as visited my sister up in the New England area (she just landed a job as a director, and I hadn't seen her since my grandmother passed away a few years ago as she was always busy), on top of having to job search too (though good news is that I might have a job in as little as two weeks!).

So yeah, a lot's been going on, but I decided tonight I should do a massive dump of some of the contents of the work I've been working on.  I'm excited to say the stars must of aligned as my amazing and super talented and awesome friend Gray--Day has become free just as I was getting this off the ground, and when I ran by the potential content of what I'm doing, he was super excited!  We're already planning another massive comic project in regards to this story, in a similar vein as my Of Kings and Changelings, which you can check out on his Deviantart page or when I eventually upload it here for cataloguing and organization.

I haven't posted much since I began this little personal project of mine (I didn't want to put too little stuff up that people wouldn't have an idea of what I was trying to do), but with the map done and a good chunk of the new 'races' completed, I am comfortable enough now showing off some of the work that's been going on behind the scenes!  Much thanks to all these talented artists who have helped make the vision in my head a reality now!

To explain how all this came about, I watched and adored the MLP Movie and love the direction Season 8 has been going with MLP (though I'm only halfway caught up with the season).  I was especially inspired how Hasbro made it canon that the transformation of the seaponies to hippogriff form isn't some rare thing, which inspired me to redesign both the knights of Canterbury (who can transform with the magic of the Lady) and Neighpon Kirins to be able to transform into different forms!  From there, I'm a huge fan of Arthurian legend and lore and a big lover of everything underwater.  I thought there is a lot of potential of making a sort of headcannon with 'Well, what if the waters off of Equestria are just as varied, creative, and vast as the show's above water counterparts?', and viola the reboot of my series came about.  I will be recycling a lot of content from my previous inception of Equestria Expanded (hence why I had stalled on that, as I was not only wrapping up work but was planning and debating this reboot), and I think I like where this is going.

Featuring Tempest Shadow heavily (I just ADORE her character!), my Equestria Expanded will cover two primary areas of the world.  The first will be the Undersea Realm and the Coral Kingdoms, heavily based off a medieval/Arthurian period of knights and fiefs.  The second part of the story will have Tempest Shadow accidently whisked away to the far corners of the world, where she will interact with Muskovy (Russia), The Middle Kingdoms (China), the Crystalline Raj (India), and eventually the Middle East and various ponified European nations as she tries to find a way back home.  I'm super excited about this, and I hope you are all too!  Thanks for watching me and following me this whole time, and I much appreciate and thrive off any excitement or interest you guys and gals have for my work.  Nothing feels better for a creative writer than to hear comments and get mail from people wanting to know more about what I do - with the big reason (other than wanting to contribute to such an amazing fandom) of me doing it is so that others can be inspired and create their very own stuff from the show.  There is so much creative potential that MLP brings out in me, that I can't help but overflow with ideas once everything sort of clicks into place!

On another note, I again want to thank everyone who has wished me Happy Birthday!  A year older (ugh! curse you time!!! *shakes angry fist*), but I'm very happy someone noticed other than my family.  It means a lot to me, thank you all!