My Little Pony Cosplay and Costumes: Twilight Sparkle

My Little Pony has been through many different incarnations over the years. The latest offering from Hasbro, titled Friendship is Magic, began in 2010 and has run for four seasons so far.

To everyone's surprise the show is not only a huge hit with its target demographic, pre-teen girls, but also with adults! It's a show with beautiful animation, well-rounded characters and interesting story-lines.

If your little girl (or boy) wants to dress up as a MLP:FiM pony this year, you may have to tread carefully, as there are still costumes from previous My Little Pony series available online and in stores. The characters from those shows look very little like the characters from the current show. Kids will know the difference (and so will any adult fans you encounter on Halloween night!)

I'll gather together resources for each of the 'mane' six ponies in MLP:FiM, as well as the supporting cast, with tips on how to make your own costumes as well.

Cosplay is when you try to get your look as close to a fictional character as possible (usually for a convention). Often people who cosplay will stick to a specific version of a character, such as a human version of one of the ponies, where they don't attempt to wear any horse-like accessories, but instead will simply interpret the character as they would be if they were human.

This page will concentrate on Twilight Sparkle, but I will also make pages for the other ponies, which I will include below the comments.

I hope you enjoy!

You might wonder how someone can really dress up as a pony for Halloween or a convention without looking completely awkward. Well, there are several important features that distinguish each pony and getting each of those features right will help you to get the look right.

Each pony has very distinctive hair, a unique cutie mark (the picture on the flank of each pony), wings or a horn for the pegasi and unicorns and their coat color.

Usually the ponies don't wear clothes, but they each have a distinctive personality that can serve as a guide if you want to figure out what they would be wearing. For example, Applejack is an apple farmer and cosplayers usually find overalls or something similar in her color in order to dress as her.

You can have a lot of fun getting the details right with these costumes, being as subtle or extravagant as you like.

The intellectual bookworm of the mane six, Twilight Sparkle is the one who usually summarizes the adventures at the end of the episode in her letters to her teacher, Princess Celestia. She is the most powerful magic-user and her Element of Harmony (discovered in the first episode) is Magic.

From the end of season three, Twilight has been considered a Princess in the show, and now has the wings and horn of an alicorn.

Twilight has a purple mane with a pink streak and a purple body. She doesn't really have a typical accessory, unless you count Spike, the baby dragon who is her companion and helper. Twilight is never happier than when she has a quill in hand, checking off to-do lists, or is reading from a book. She also has a pet owl.

Her cutie mark is a big pink star with five smaller white stars around it.

Spike is a real cutie who always wants to help. He's Twilight's Number One Assistant at the library. No Twilight Sparkle costume is complete without Spike, the baby dragon.

Alternatively, you could carry with you Owlicious, Twilight's pet owl. Be careful though, you might make Spike jealous.

Twilight has very distinctive hair. It's long, straight and a dark violet with a pink streak through it. There are wigs made specifically to mimic her hair coloring, or you could use temporary dye on your own hair.

You can be very creative when it comes to a cutie mark. It really colors everything about the pony and shows what talent makes him or her extra special. Since Twilight's cutie mark is made up of stars, that really means the sky is the limit. Any accessories that include stars will do, although if you can find them in pink or purple, or find clothes or jewelry with her specific cutie mark on it, that's even more perfect.

Alternatively you can use makeup or non-toxic glitter paint to put your own version of Twilight's cutie mark on your arm or face.

A princess in Equestria is always an alicorn, which means she has both a pair of wings and a horn. Since Twilight was only made an alicorn recently, you can get away with a costume that only features her horn if you prefer. But why pass up a chance to wear a big, beautiful set of wings?

If you're shopping for a quick costume for your little one, there are plenty of options out there.

There are several different approaches to ready made pony costumes in the adult section. They range from a sweatshirt with a pair of ears attached, to a full blown body suit in the right color. Most of them have decent accessories, and you may wish to buy them in order to get those all at once (such as a tail, wings, horn and so forth).

Cosplay isn't really about buying a costume so much as it is about making one. I'm not an expert cosplayer, but there are plenty of excellent tutorials out there for people who are interested in doing this. And a pony costume is a perfect place to start, as they can be a simple or as complicated as you want.

I've included a few photos of cosplayers for inspiration below, but there are plenty more available on the internet.