@Jarkes  
Agreed. It’s still sparkly, cute, marketable, and possibly powerful but it’s not anywhere near as over the top as the OG Rainbow Power.

@Background Pony Number 17  
We already went full DBZ with Twilight’s Kingdom.
 

 

 

 
@SD50-2  
Yeah, it could be possible this is could be something for one of the toys. Hasbro and the other higher ups have done that before in the past.

I love how this is a step DOWN from Rainbow Power. It’s just her wings this time.

Rainbow Power Level 2
 
They’re going full DBZ here, aren’t they?

@Night Eternal  

 
@PonyPon  

 
Are y’all sure that this is the writers, and not something one of the corporate heads at Hasbro decided?

@UserAccount  
Oh nice. I had a feeling the movie was hand drawn. It didn’t really look too much like puppet animation.
 
@IceKitsune  
I think they look pretty.
 
@ApplejackFan204  
I’m excited.

@mjangelvortex  
Yup.

Sweet! Movie animation!

@Nephilim Rider  
I can tell it’s Toon Boom Harmony

I honestly think the wings look kind of good personally.

@UserAccount  
Ah, so my initial guess earlier was probably correct then?

@Nephilim Rider  
Probably yes. Like I said here before, Boulder Media’s banner at last year’s Irish Comic Con featured a movie-style Pinkie Pie. It probably means that all specials they’re going to animate will have the same style as the movie!

@UserAccount  
The movie was hand drawn, why some people this day don’t appreciate this movie. Do you know how many stress level these people have while making this movie with the deadline in front of them.

what the

thats nice :)

WHAT?! THE SPECIAL USE THE MOVIE ANIMATION?!

@mjangelvortex  
He’s wrong. You can tell if you look closely at the animation. Scenes that really standout are when Twilight’s crying and Tempest’s reaction when Grubber tells her that Twilight got away. Those scenes really highlight the amount of character acting that is impossible to do in puppet animation. Those are just examples, though, the whole film is like that.
 
Now, I think they did use a fancy integration method, their eyes were certainly not given all of that detail frame-by-frame, for example, but most of what you’re seeing is hand drawn.
 
The CG was only used for layouts to my knowledge. The classic Disney films used to film live actors as a reference for the animation. This is similar in some ways to that, as it gives the animators an understanding of what the characters look like at different angles in different shots.

@UserAccount  
A person in the comments told me that the hand-drawn stuff was to help with shot placement while they used puppet animation for most of the film.
 
I’m curious. Did anyone who worked on the film officially say anything on how the movie was animated?

That’s the new animation for the short? I like it!

@mjangelvortex  
That GIF shows full hand-drawn animation with a hand-drawn layout of the scene for comparison. There were a few cheats in the film, specifically with lots of the background ponies in the crowd scenes, but the vast majority of the character animation was drawn by hand frame-by-frame.

Suddenly I might start caring for the show again.

@UserAccount  
From what I’ve heard the movie did use puppet animation.

@PurpleSmart2  
The movie was hand-drawn, not puppet animation like the show. It takes more time and money to use the movie’s animation style.

Special using mlp movie animation?  
I doubt it

@Darth Shy  

 
There’s no real reason why Hasbro wouldn’t use the movie assets anyway. It’s all there for them to use.