Been wanting to announce this for awhile, now seems like as good a time as any.
The Clone That Got Away is going to be rebooted as it’s own original comic. It will now take place in a more cartoony universe (along the likes of ToonTown in Roger Rabbit, and it will also take place in the same universe as my other original project in the works Think Ink).
The url of the current blog will be changed to “theponyclonethatgotaway”, while the new blog will keep the original url.
Most of the original characters from the blog will transition into this new version, redesigned as anthro animals. Some various story elements are still being worked out such as who’s gonna play the “Twilight Sparkle” role in the origin, as well as how the rest of origin is going to play out, but it is being worked on.
So far the story is that Diane is the clone of a mascot pig actress for a meat packaging company, this pig also loves to eat meat. There are a few more details worked out but they’re a bit too long to go into here.
Some people not in the know might ask “Why are you doing this?” or “Why not leave it as an MLP blog?” While I still love MLP and the universe, I don’t exactly have a ton of free time to completely devote to ongoing fan projects (a one of comic page or maybe a short story sure, but not an ongoing thing). If I’m going to devote a ton of time to a project this big I want it to be something I can make money off of in the future without having to worry about Hasbro issuing a Cease and Desist. Not to mention I’ve been working on the character of Diane for so long that I consider her as original as the rest of my original characters, and I wanted her to be completely mine without a tie to something I don’t own the rights to.
As for when this new original version will come out. Don’t expect it anytime soon. If I had to take I guess I assume it will take no less than a year to get it ready, but there’s still a lot of factors to work out.
Anyways, I thank you all for your support and I hope you all look forward to the new original version of “The Clone That Got Away.”
Ah I just want to say that I really enjoy your blog ^^ and thank you for making great content! Here’s a human Diane.
Thank you for the fan art. This is very cute. X3
A sketch I did a few months ago based on a quick idea I had. She looks awfully cute in that outfit (and now I’m tempted to draw Diane in various other jobs).
For today’s Diane Art here are anthro animal versions of Diane and Spotlight, cause it’s always handy to have a back up plan in case Hasbro sends you a cease and desist. The one with Spotlight as a Wolf was done much earlier in the year, the one with her as a mouse was done more recently (I prefer the mouse version myself).
I probably will do a new series at some point with these versions of the characters, but that probably won’t be for awhile (the current story I have has a bunch of ideas that only work within the MLP universe). Let me know what you guys think of these versions of the characters.
Diane’s new outfit has actually already been decided on (in fact you can see it now by becoming a $5 patron), but I thought it would be fun to have a little contest. Diane will be trying on some various outfits in the next update and I want you guys to choose which ones she wears, you can either design them yourself or send a reference photo or picture to my submit box.
You just need the following two rules:
1. The outfit must cover Diane’s flank so that no one can see her cutiemark. 2. No purple (Diane hates purple). 3. Please keep the submissions to one per person.
The top 5 best ones will be included in the next story update. The due date for submissions is midnight EST January 3rd, 2018.
Also to celebrate the end of 2017 the ask box will be opened up again (not sure for how long, but it will definitely be longer than just a few days).
This is a new feature of blog I like to call “Diane Art”. Every week where there isn’t an update I’ll post a bit of art I’ve done featuring the Clone characters. This is so I don’t burn through the updates I’ve already done so quickly and so people will stop asking if this blog is dead.
This piece of art here is based on a dream I had where Diane actually appeared as a canon character on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. In the dream I was watching a new episode of MLP where a few of the characters go to Manehattan and Diane was in there. Diane was animated in show style (wearing the outfit seen above with the first set of colors) and chatting with the main characters. While part of me was worried about the legal problems that might come out of this I was just so happy to see Diane animated and hear her talking.
I also did a few color variations on the dress to see how it would work with black (That’s Diane’s favorite color).
Bonus:
Later I noticed how blank Diane’s expression looked in that first drawing, and I realized it made it look like she was suppressing some rage. So I made this:
For those of you curious, Diane hates purple because it reminds her of Twilight.
Something to keep fans occupied till the next update. This is “Diane’s Theme” for the blog The Clone That Got Away, written and composed by a good friend of mine Pennoink (Go check out his work here: http://pennoink.tumblr.com/).
Originally I was saving this for a possible Clone dub series, but seeing as how that’s unlikely to happen anytime soon I’d figure I would post it now.
The theme was inspired by the work of the late James Horner, known for composing many favorite movies but the ones in particular I cited for Penn to get an idea of what I wanted were An American Tail, Land Before Time and most notably the 1995 live action adaption of Casper (in fact you may notice several similarities between this piece of music and the track “Casper’s Lullaby”). I specifically mentioned him because I wanted Diane’s theme to have a similar tone to the early Don Bluth films, one that acknowledges that the character goes through a lot of sadness and heartbreak on their journey, but still has a feeling of optimism and that everything will be okay in the end.
With this month marking the second anniversary of his death it seemed like another appropriate reason to post this homage to him. Thank you for the many years of wonderful music James Horner. Hope Casper is keeping you company.
