Now that MLP #24 is officially out… I can show you guys some concept stuff! The jackals, the cats, the Butterdragon & the Roc (which the Roc isn’t really seen in it’s entirety in the comic..!)
As you can see, the first designs were more just “here’s a basic jackal” and “here’s a basic cat” in nature. This got called by Hasbro and they asked to have the creatures be more mystical. Back to the ol’ drawing board!
Anubis became a bipedal creature, more along the lines of how he’s depicted in actual Egyptian heiroglyphics, and Baast & the cats got spruced up. The three tails idea came from Jeremy, and he also suggested the wings were a bit much, so I ditched ‘em. (I kinda added the wings as a nod to my OC Ary, but was cool with leaving them out too). The colours for Baast weren’t from Ary though (Ary is also purple), but more so based on Twilight Sparkle’s palette. The cutie marks on their foreheads were asked to be removed by the peeps at Hasbro as well.
The reference to the blue cat being Rainbow Dash was more defined with the forehead cutie marks (I even have Scootaloo pointing to her own forehead while she talks about the cat being familiar), so hopefully the parallel is still easy to recognize without them.
And now you know the secret history of Ancient Anugypt!
I loved these characters! I hope you can bring them back in future issues!
I am a freak for anything Ancient Egyptians, especially Anubis and jackals!
