Ancient Dragon Relic

[GoldenTerrabyte]

Character: 100% awesome, 0% boring.

Art: 200% awesome, -100% boring. Did you draw that yourself?!

[GlassMirror]

Character: 100% awesome, 0% boring.

Art: 200% awesome, -100% boring. Did you draw that yourself?!

yep!

[GoldenTerrabyte]

Nice!

[teacloud]

Since I see that you want to promote him on the actual canon show, I'm going to really critique you here. It's not hard feelings, I just want to let you know how you can improve! :>

First of all, I want to start by saying that I like the basic, bare-bones concept of this character. There are some things I would like to point out though..

Being a dragon-pony, that means that he is half dragon, and half pony. His ability to shift into a dragon at will doesn't seem to coincide with this at all. For a very vague example, a griffon is a predatory cat and bird combined into one; yet a griffon cannot shift willingly into a singular lion or eagle at will, do you see? And if he can shift into a dragon, I would assume that his dragon gene is dominant over the pony gene... Yet his character doesn't look like a dragon at all. It looks like a standard pegasus. If you're going to do this shift properly, I would suggest revamping the physical makeup of this character to appear more dragon-like. That would also help account for his overly-long lifespan. Ponies probably don't live over 80 years in the MLP canon, though I'm sure a dragon could outlive that easily. Add that to his ancient status and the character would easily fit his role much easier.

His kindhearted nature is a good spin on him; being forced into social seclusion would most likely make a character long for interaction, and thus be more compassionate. I find most people take the 'I'm so alone!' plot device and pair it with an antagonistic, evil or otherwise mentally unstable character. You didn't do this, so I applaud you for this creative and reasonable character development! :> Having made friends with the animals also encourages this nature, and also allows him to remain sane whilst living alone.

Also, his powers are limited and not over the top, which is very good in a character. I can see you're not trying to make him too overpowered or otherwise unbeatable. However, I would omit the part about being able to shoot fire from his eyes... It doesn't harmonize well with basic dragon lore or any lore for that matter; it just doesn't fit. The fact that he possesses great strength and can breathe fire are both reasonable abilities for a dragon pony. The ability to fly very fast is a little overdone with characters; isn't it okay for your character to just fly at an adequately fast level, similarly to others? Being half dragon, he would probably possess some bulk, and it wouldn't make sense for him to fly at a very fast pace. (Also, his wings-- by your description-- are far too large to be realistic, just sizing them down a bit would improve him!)

The plot is the next thing I want to get to. His parents were the ancient King and Queen of Equestria? So were they dragon ponies? And if so, where did the dragonpony bloodline originate? Were his parents descendants of a race where it was normal for dragons and ponies to procreate? And if so what gives them their status? I think it would be beneficial for you to elaborate on this plot to fill some of the holes. Also, giving him the title of 'King of all dragonponies and dragons' is a bit much... You're elevating your character to Celestia status in a way, and making him rule over two species. I think if you want to make a character that already has the perks of living for 6000+ years and possessing various powers and skills, you can afford to drop the high status. Perhaps instead of royalty, he was the descendant of a line of shamans, giving him the ability to read ancient scripts and decipher various other ancient artifacts? With MLP OCs: less is more! Simplicity is always better than making an OP character with a crazy special past and elevated status, especially when you intend to use this character for roleplay. This gives him an unfair advantage over all others. Whether or not your character has come to acknowledge this potential or not, it doesn't matter: it's still there.

I'd also like to see an elaboration on his personality, and his history/biography.
These should all be separate. I didn't really get a sense of his history/bio at all from what little you wrote. A character with this much potential needs a lot more backstory, but I see that this is under construction so you're off to an excellent start! :> I wasn't trying to be harsh in any way with this critique! I just wanted to help you improve Relic, as I think he's an awesome character!

[GlassMirror]

Since I see that you want to promote him on the actual canon show, I'm going to really critique you here. It's not hard feelings, I just want to let you know how you can improve! :>

First of all, I want to start by saying that I like the basic, bare-bones concept of this character. There are some things I would like to point out though..

Being a dragon-pony, that means that he is half dragon, and half pony. His ability to shift into a dragon at will doesn't seem to coincide with this at all. For a very vague example, a griffon is a predatory cat and bird combined into one; yet a griffon cannot shift willingly into a singular lion or eagle at will, do you see? And if he can shift into a dragon, I would assume that his dragon gene is dominant over the pony gene... Yet his character doesn't look like a dragon at all. It looks like a standard pegasus. If you're going to do this shift properly, I would suggest revamping the physical makeup of this character to appear more dragon-like. That would also help account for his overly-long lifespan. Ponies probably don't live over 80 years in the MLP canon, though I'm sure a dragon could outlive that easily. Add that to his ancient status and the character would easily fit his role much easier.

His kindhearted nature is a good spin on him; being forced into social seclusion would most likely make a character long for interaction, and thus be more compassionate. I find most people take the 'I'm so alone!' plot device and pair it with an antagonistic, evil or otherwise mentally unstable character. You didn't do this, so I applaud you for this creative and reasonable character development! :> Having made friends with the animals also encourages this nature, and also allows him to remain sane whilst living alone.

Also, his powers are limited and not over the top, which is very good in a character. I can see you're not trying to make him too overpowered or otherwise unbeatable. However, I would omit the part about being able to shoot fire from his eyes... It doesn't harmonize well with basic dragon lore or any lore for that matter; it just doesn't fit. The fact that he possesses great strength and can breathe fire are both reasonable abilities for a dragon pony. The ability to fly very fast is a little overdone with characters; isn't it okay for your character to just fly at an adequately fast level, similarly to others? Being half dragon, he would probably possess some bulk, and it wouldn't make sense for him to fly at a very fast pace. (Also, his wings-- by your description-- are far too large to be realistic, just sizing them down a bit would improve him!)

The plot is the next thing I want to get to. His parents were the ancient King and Queen of Equestria? So were they dragon ponies? And if so, where did the dragonpony bloodline originate? Were his parents descendants of a race where it was normal for dragons and ponies to procreate? And if so what gives them their status? I think it would be beneficial for you to elaborate on this plot to fill some of the holes. Also, giving him the title of 'King of all dragonponies and dragons' is a bit much... You're elevating your character to Celestia status in a way, and making him rule over two species. I think if you want to make a character that already has the perks of living for 6000+ years and possessing various powers and skills, you can afford to drop the high status. Perhaps instead of royalty, he was the descendant of a line of shamans, giving him the ability to read ancient scripts and decipher various other ancient artifacts? With MLP OCs: less is more! Simplicity is always better than making an OP character with a crazy special past and elevated status, especially when you intend to use this character for roleplay. This gives him an unfair advantage over all others. Whether or not your character has come to acknowledge this potential or not, it doesn't matter: it's still there.

I'd also like to see an elaboration on his personality, and his history/biography.
These should all be separate. I didn't really get a sense of his history/bio at all from what little you wrote. A character with this much potential needs a lot more backstory, but I see that this is under construction so you're off to an excellent start! :> I wasn't trying to be harsh in any way with this critique! I just wanted to help you improve Relic, as I think he's an awesome character!

Niiiiiiice! Thanks for the info! and yes, I am still making some adjustments to him, so some parts of his story will be changed anyway. His parents backstory and the Dragon Pony origins I will adjust and put some thinking into it. Other than that........
Thanks!!!!!!

[GlassMirror]

this will be in it's final construction phase! So for now, this will be locked!