@ThatGlowingPony  
I was replying to Carcer actually. Seems my post lost the header somehow.  
and like I mentioned it is only the GOOD fictional universes that keep these things in mind. From F&E to Enchanted Chronicles to Earthsea. This is something i bring up when making the point the show’s losing its edge in S3 specific pictures, if it becomes a purely generic kids’ show then the only thing that will eventually separate it from other kids’ shows are they’re magical talking ponies instead of little girls with nubs or blocks for hands. And it’d be a sad, sad occurrence if S4 comes out that way.
 
Actually that does bring to mind that if Pat Wrede has nothing better to do I wouldn’t mind seeing something from her turn up in relation to MLP, she does some great work

@Niggoslav_Krawczyk  
But see they’re /pretty pastel magical ponies/. They’re not in a realistic setting, they can be as diverse as they damned well please. This piece isn’t even tokenism, it’s a realistic portrayal of a diverse group of peoples. Tokenism wouldn’t even be a problem if media wasn’t whitewashed and people weren’t constantly told that white is the norm, when it’s not, people are diverse. The idea that the inclusion of someone who isn’t white is an exemption or a token is racist thinking. I have one friend who isn’t white, is she a token? No. She’s a friend and she’s a human being. She’s my friend because of who she is, not her race, which is what normal people who aren’t created by a whitewashed culture actually take into consideration when deciding who to surround themself with. While yes in certain places it’s likely a group would not be as diverse, Equestria isn’t a real place. It’s a magical land with talking equines that can fly and do magic.
 
And if you want to go into canon, the ponies are all from different places. RD and Flutters are from Cloudsdale. Twi is from Canterlot. PP is from wherever her rock farm is. Rarity’s parents accents make it clear they’re not originally from ponyville. Aj is the only one from ponyville. So it makes complete sense for them all to be different.
 
Also, your base pigmentation isn’t affected by how you live, it’s in your DNA. And if you want to argue about Pinkie’s lifestyle, she’s seen outdoors far more often than indoors.

It really isn’t. Tokenism is more racist than the exclusion of all others. It’s a condescending feelgood-notion that without your assistance these ‘lessers’ wouldn’t stand a chance of sharing your (or your fictional world’s) spotlight. It’s also a lot harder, sometimes near impossible, to dig people with such views out of this rut, and return them to some semblance of sanity, because it feeeeeels good ‘that must mean we all equally feeeeel good, and if something feeeels good it can’t be wrong could it?”  
From a writing perspective it only makes sense for an ‘immigration hubpoint’ if every single portion of the main character’s nakama is different, such as California, New York, St. Louis, or (thanks to cronyist government actions) Maine. Even (good) fictional worlds follow the general rule of landlocked=homogeny for mundane day-in-the-life shorts, while the adventurer groups have excuses like being travelers from different regions, or breaking one of their number out of prison for the ‘one-of-each’ dynamic.
 
Now, if we’re going to do the skin-tone thing it does make more sense for AJ and the pegasi to be the darker ones, and Pinkie grew up on a farm, but baking and partying is largely an indoor affair, especially since we see no major bodies of water aside from that little pond around the community, so she could have lightened since then. Probably a Bassett/Long skin tone if black. Rarity and Twilight are basically shut-ins, and Rarity is at the spa all the time. If she’s ever tanned, it’s probably spray-tan. :Þ

Hey look, more people complaining about “forced diversity”! You know, it’s never stopped confusing me that in a show where the main cast are all explicitly very different people, from very different walks of life, with very different, contrasting personalities and skills and desires and pasts, different hobbies, different priorities, and actually literally different colours, it is only when it comes to their humanised versions that anyone cares about “forced diversity”.
 
Complaining about forced diversity is racist as it is basically a statement that it doesn’t “make sense” for a character to be a particular race, which I’ve already ranted at length about here.
 
@The Twelfth Doctor Whoof  
Constructive criticism is fine but a diatribe about how much you hate something isn’t. Rein it in.

@ThatGlowingPony  
Thanks for not being a racist shithead. It amazes me how people so against any other race other than white in pictures, yet for some unfathomable reason, they still think they’re not racist.

@The Twelfth Doctor Whoof  
Welp, that as a kind of rude way to say you don’t like it.  
It’s not forced diversity, nobody is holding a gun to my head to draw them the way I do. I draw them that way because people actually /are/ diverse, even a gaggle of white people. Everybody has slightly different skin tones.
 
And to be perfectly honest? I think Pinkie’s colour palette is fine. I see plenty of dark skinned people wear bright colours and they look just as nice as a white person wearing the same colours. I don’t see why skin colour (on the most basic level, not going into undertones of warm cold etc.) should limit the colours a person wears, even a drawn person. And I’m hardly going to change Pinkie’s actual hair colour.
 
I’m really never gonna change the races of the ponies when I draw them just to please a small group of people who hate to see diversity, I like them the way I draw them.
 
And I get it, you hate the lips. No need to repeat yourself so many damned times.
 
I listen to constructive criticism, not blind hatred thanks.

Ugly humanization is ugly. Forced diversity is forced. The only way this could be any more “rainbow coalition” is if Robynne did the semi-popular thing of putting ‘Shy in hejab.
 
For the record… I hate the lips, I hate the awful colour-complementing (esp. Pinkie), I hate the idea of Fluttershy as an amazon and Twilight as a midget (both seem popular among a certain class of humanized-MLP-artists), I hate the lips, I hate the sameface, I hate the hairstyles, I hate the lips. Did I mention I hate their lips?
 
If I had the power to send this pic to the moon, I would.
 
I really need to just filter this chick out, but her non-humanized art is actually decent.
 
PS - Another reason light skin is often preferable in drawn art is for this simple reason: White goes with just about everything. That’s not racist; it’s simple fact. Just like when you’re choosing an outfit. Racial baggage aside, going for a darker skin colour limits your options for using a hair or clothing colour that doesn’t clash. See Pinkie up there for a great example of how not to do it.

Fluttershy has one craaaazy forehead! I feel like I want to Jigglypuff it with a Marker.

The art style is pretty stiff, but it have lots of personality.  
Keep on drawing! I can forsee something great down the line.

I dunno, the lips just throw me off.
 
It’s good, but…

@Dax Rattler  
Oh no, I always welcome productive criticism! I like to know exactly what it is that seems off, so I can learn to fix it in the future :3

@ThatGlowingPony  
Practice is a never ending process for artists.  
Sorry if we came across as overly critical, we would not comment if we didn’t think it was worth it.

@Dax Rattler  
Yeah with Rarity and Twi I was trying varied lip shapes, rather than my default lip shape. I see what you mean though! I’m probably gonna do some lip studies soon, everything is a step in the right direction I guess haha

@ThatGlowingPony  
Apple Jack and Dash look alright to me, AJ especially but Fluttershy’s mouth looks a little to small, I assume this is because the choice of head angle.  
Rarity and Twilight seem a little round/puffy? hard to describe, maybe try drawing their lips a little more out to the sides and a little less puffy.  
Pinkie feels like she needs a bigger smile but I think that’s more personality bias on my part.

@Background Pony  
I guess in certain countries that true, I mean I’ll openly admit that the majority of my friends are white since I live in a mostly white region. But even then a group of white people can have a variation of skin tones, my two best friends are both white but have much darker skin than me, partially because of lifestyle (you can actually see that influence in this picture, RD and AJ are white here they’re just tan, whereas Twi is white as a sheet).  
Whenever I draw them diverse, it’s never as tokens, just how I see them :3

Is not that bad, only two of them look arbitrarily colored. Twilight is kind of a shut-in. Rarity’s colour complements her. And both Aj and RD look tanned (which makes sense).
 
Though I wonder why Rarity’s physique compared to Fluttershy’s is diferrent from this artist’s EG pics.

@ThatGlowingPony  
Again, it’s all opinion in the end, so I can’t say any are right or wrong as fact. I just really don’t think the dark skin color looks good on Pinkie with wearing bright colored clothes. It just looks ugly the me, the rest are passable, but Pinkie’s color pallette just looks funky.

@ThatGlowingPony  
Not diverse to the extent that’s portrayed in media (i.e. the black one, the Hispanic one, the Asian one, the Arabian one, the Native American one, the one in a wheelchair, the amputee, the retard, and oh yeah the white one).
 
In real life, a group usually has more white people than minorities. That’s just statistics.

@Background Pony  
Out of curiosity can you tell me why you think certain choices make zero sense? To me any racial choice makes sense since neither your personality or voice are affected by the colour of your skin, but more where you were brought up.

Forced diversity always feels worse to me than forcing everyone to be the same skintone. Especially when some just look bad in terms of colors or make zero sense for how the characters act or sound as ponies. Of course it’s all opinion in the end, but the ‘diversity is magic’ stuff just makes me cringe far too often cause someone’s always gotta make one of the choices make zero sense or just look ugly.

@Background Pony  
She’s supposed to be looking down but I guess I didn’t portray that very well haha. But the nose is on purpose.

Is it just me, or does Flutters have a huge forehead and nose?

@Background Pony  
What? Y’know, groups of people are a lot more diverse than whitewashed media would have you think.

I see where you guys are coming from haha, I’m trying out new lip styles right now instead of my usual no-lip-just-a-line mouths, the feedback is appreciated :3

Ah, token artificial diversity. If it weren’t for you, the kids in Ms. Frizzle’s class wouldn’t look like the Planeteers.