Happy holidays from Stormy Weather

[GreenGreenWhirlWind 161]

Needless to say it's been a while since the last time i've drawn a pony, but honestly i don't think this turned out too badly.

This was going to be just a regular drawing at first, but during the thought process i decided to give it a slight holiday twist with the winter clothing and such, it's nothing much, but it looks nice nonetheless.

Anyway, i've been thinking a lot about the weather lately: here in Brazil it gets really stormy around this time of the year, thus for the last few weeks or so i've been hearing a lot of rain, thunder and lightning coming from outside my house, which eventually inspired my new OC: my fellow users, say hello to Stormy Weather!

She's a young adult pegasus, would probably be around her early 20s at most if she were a human, born and raised in Cloudsdale by her mother Stormy Tide and her father Heavy Weather; both of them weather ponies, and ever since she got her cutie mark she had wanted to follow their hoofsteps. Now that she's grown, Stormy works at the rain division* of the weather team, specifying in heavy rains and thunderstorms, it only makes sense: Stormy Weather's talent is, as her name would imply, causing storms.

Weather is a mare of above-average height and somewhat athletic build, traits that she shares in common with her father, but still retains an overall feminine appearance.

Backstory:

Spoiler

 

Stormy Weater grew up in a pretty peaceful environment: her mother was a level-headed and easy going type and her father, while slightly stricter, was mostly just stoic and aloof, but not outright aggressive or authoritarian. This clearly reflected on her behavior: as a foal, Stormy was really mellow and reserved, mostly just letting the days go by and keeping to herself, somewhat replicating the aloof nature of her dad. This all changed about two years before she got her cutie mark, when, during a powerful storm, her classmates gathered around and made a bet during recess: whoever could fly three laps around Cloudsdale during the storm and come back before recess was over, would win the allowance money of everepony in the class.

To a filly, that was an awful lot of money, and as such this bet awakened something inside Stormy that she never thought she had, a little something called "courage". Ignoring her fears, Stormy was the only pony in the classroom to take up the bet, and once all the other foals made sure there was nopony around to see it, Stormy took off. She was doing just fine up until the final lap, when a sudden gust of wind sent her off course and caused her to crash on top of the mountain Canterlot was built on. Few seconds after her crash, the storm cleared out, and upon getting up Stormy was able to see...Everything. Canterlot, Ponyville, Cloudsdale, Everfree Forest, Foal Mountain, they were all within her sight, they were all right there before her all along, and now that there were no clouds below or around her blocking the view, she could see it all, and my what a view it was. This awakened something else within Stormy: the "spirit of adventure", a thirst for discovering new things and seeing new sights, it changed her for life.

Shortly after she flew back to safety - thankfully the thick layer of snow broke her fall and allowed her to come out of it mostly unscraped - and returned to Cloudsdale for a severe scolding and a month long grounding, but that didn't matter: Stormy Weather had rediscovered herself entirely, and that alone made it all worth it in the end.

Stormy got her cutie mark pretty late all things considered: it was in her early teens rather than when she was a filly, and what led her to discovering it was an accident that happened while she was visiting a friend's house in Ponyville, long story short there was a fire in the house and, since the weather was already rather overcast, Stormy was able to fly into the sky to gather enough clouds to start a powerful rainstorm, putting out the fire before it cuased any major damage. As soon as she landed, Stormy's cutie mark revealed itself: two raindrops and two lightning bolts, arranged in a way that formed a diamond-like shape, from that moment she knew it was her calling to become a weather mare.

It was the perfect job for her, really: flying to a bunch of different places and back bringing the weather with her was a great way to fulfill her thirst for adventure while still making a living, and having the rest of the weather team to chat with along the way didn't hurt either, she had definately found her purpose in life.

 

Personality:

Spoiler

 

Personality-wise, Stormy is a very extroverted and impulsive mare who acts "with her heart rather than her head", to the point of being flighty and abrupt most of the time. 

Stormy's a very curious and adventurous pony, always seeking to see new sights and try new things without a second thought, consistently showing interest in visitting other parts of Equestria and tasting exotic foods and drinks, even if they don't look particularly apetizing at first sight. This curiosity extends to having an habit to try to learn the bottom line of anything: if Stormy percieves something as being "mysterious" or "curious" she'll immediately become deeply enfatuated with it, asking questions about it nonstop until she feels like she's learned enough or simply annoyed whoever she's talking to away. This ultimately comes to Stormy's benefit as it makes her a difficult pony to trick or decieve: if she feels like something is suspicious or poorly explained, she will question it and question it without hesitation. And if someoene does manage to decieve Stormy, it's in their best interest to make sure she doesn't find out: Stormy Weather absolutely hates being manipulated and, more than anything else, hates those who manipulate others.

Open and talkative to others, Stormy isn't afraid to speak her mind, she's an outgoing and social pony who won't hesitate to openly talk about herself and her life to others, maybe being a little bit too open occasionally and giving others too much information or otherwise simply talking too much, not stopping to think if its is appropriate or not, Stormy Weather mostly lacks anything resembling a "filter". She loves to tell stories about her work at the weather team and takes great pride in it, sometimes to the annoyance of those around her, and can sometimes come across as cocky or egotistical to others, even if she has no intention to. Stormy thrives on interaction and will quickly become uncomfortable if things get "too quiet" for her taste, trying - sometimes way too hard - to strike up conversation with whoever happens to be around at the moment, which can result in some painfully awkward moments.

Stormy doesn't care too much about being "ladylike" or anything like that and will usually just do whatever feels right for her, she's not tomboyish per-se, and she still has quite a few "traditionally feminine" aspects, especially when it comes to the songs she listens to, the way she speaks and - when she does wear them - the clothes she wears. Weather's main hobbies mostly revolve around physical activities - dancing, flying, playing buckball, that sort of thing, but she also shows an interest in watching movies - showcasing a preference for cheesy old horror movies - and tasting and making new dishes. Reading isn't among her main passtimes, but she has no problem with reading and will do it if there's nothing else for her to do, usually prefering fantasy novels about knights, dragons, wizards, that sort of stuff(althought, in Equestria, i guess that wouldn't really be "fantasy").

Not very good at making decisions, Stormy lacks the patience necessary to carefully plan ahead of things, choosing instead to jump head first into whatever option "feels right" to her at the time, needless to say this tendency oftenly backfires, althought it also allows for some moments of legit ingenuity thanks to her great ability to "think outside the box", coming up with creative, if not downright bizarre, solutions to many kinds of problems. These solutions however may be shortsighted somteimes, causing more harm than good in the long run and creating more problems than she already had to begin with, overall Stormy is unable to take decisions that do not come out of instinct and is heavily self-conscious about this limitation, often panicking and nervously stating things like "Don't make me choose" and "You know i'm bad with decisions" when presented with difficult immediate decisions.

Corageous and confident - sometimes to a fault - SW is the owner of a fierce determination that makes her able to stoically endure most hardships she comes across, physical and emotional alike: no matter how dire things get to her, more likely than not she's going to muster the courage to toughen up and power through it, which in itself can be a double-edged sword, leading her to act stubborn and push herself too far, running the risk of hurting herself for the sake of things that sometimes ultimately aren't even worth it, and acting really hard on herself upon failing, even when it's something small. Stormy Weather doesn't understand that some things just aren't worth the effort, and that can be her downfall a lot of times.

Beneath her seemingly brash personality, Weather has legitimately honorable morals and deeply treasures her family and friends, doing everything in her power to help and motivate her companions, and she truly believes in the good of others: if she believes someone has good intentions, Stormy won't hesitate at all to invest her own time and energy into helping them, and even if she initially dislikes someone, she'll still try her best to give them the benefit of the doubt; that being said, if Stormy feels like her trust has been betrayed somehow, her demeanor will immediately change completely, becoming bitter and sometimes hostile to the percieved traitor, and even if they make up afterwards she still might have a hard time letting go of it.

Stormy Weather is terrible at time management, very often overshooting or undershooting the amount of time she actually has on her hooves, frequently showing up either really late or early for appointments and spending too much or too little time on a single activity, completely messing up the rest of her schedule and easily losing track of time.

 

Commentary:

Spoiler

This is the part where i talk about the creative process that went into making the character, rather than the character herself.

Stormy's design alone had quite a bit of thought put into it, i wanted her to have an "Electric" look if that makes sense, so i made her mostly dark blue with some light blue accents, since those are the colors that lightning usually comes in, overall i wanted her body to look like the sky during a thunderstorm. Her color scheme ended up not being all that interesting since it's mostly the same two colors, maybe i should have thrown in some purple for variety's sake, but i suppose what's done is done.

On a similar vein, that's why her mane and tail have this sharp and jagged look to them, contrasting with most other characters in MLP who's manes and tails are usually smoother-looking, that of course was intentional: i wanted them to be somewhat shaped like lightning bolts, or at least how lightning bolts are usually portrayed in cartoons.

Her cutie mark was the difficult part to be honest, originally it was supposed to be a black cloud with three lightning bolts coming out of it, but i was afraid that'd look too much like Rainbow Dash's CM, so instead i went with the "raindrops and lightningbolts" design. First the lightningbolts were going to be yellow, but it clashed too much with the rest of her color scheme, so i made them dark blue instead.

As of writing this i'm thinking a lot about her voice, mostly because i'm having a hard time imagining how it would sound, but for the time being i think of her as sounding like Jolyne, from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.

One of her forelegs turned out looking kind of awkward, i know, but i'm kinda rusty at drawing ponies, and getting the hooves right has always been the most difficult part to me.

It's really a shame that the drawing got cut off like this, but that's all the space i had on the piece of paper i was using, so yeah.

*my headcanon is that the weather ponies have a "division" for each different type of weather, so there's a rain division, a snow division, etc.

 

Edited December 23, 2017 by GreenGreenWhirlWind