🐎 Beebe Ranch Fundraiser Update!

Since releasing the Chincoteague Pony Coins as part of our fundraiser for the Beebe Ranch, we have raised…

Since our last post, the Museum of Chincoteague Island announced their new total is $317,000 with a donor now matching all donations up to $100,000. This means any donations sent will be doubled! If you wish to donate to the Beebe Ranch fundraiser directly, you can visit their GoFundMe here or donate to the Museum of Chincoteague Island here.

Our fundraiser through the sale of Chincoteague Pony Coins is still ongoing with coins on sale from now until April 28th at 11:59 PM EST/ game time. All proceeds from the sale of these coins go toward the Beebe Ranch fundraiser. The Chincoteague Pony is a limited edition rare breed that is only available for purchase via Chincoteague Pony Coins for $5 for 2 in the Ingot Store. After the sale, Chincoteague Ponies will only be found in the wilds.

As a note, Chincoteague Ponies had grey and silver in the custom generator due to incorrect ref images. These have been removed until we confirm these genes.

📜 A Note from the Team

As some may know based on replies on our previous news post, Solo is no longer producing our breed artwork. Both Bedouin and I had planned to announce Solo’s departure at a time that would not eclipse the Chincoteague fundraiser, coincided with a bug update, and allowed us to publicly post as eloquently and honorably as possible our absolute sadness to see Solo go. It is disheartening to us that such information was released without our consent and became public in a fashion in which we never would have liked Solos’s departure to come to light. So, let’s explain.

Solo has been our breed artist since both Bedouin and I began working on the game in early 2019. Her style, work ethic, and mentorship have been invaluable to HoFa’s success and we are immensely proud of where both Solo and the game are today. Because of Solo’s efforts, Bedouin and I have always had peace of mind pertaining to new breed releases and breed redos and always knew we had someone to go to when we had our toughest decisions to make. Solo is a once-in-a-lifetime artist who we are so, so, proud to have called our own. We have had the privilege of seeing Solo transform her style over the years which has evolved into the breed artwork HoFa gladly sports today. Solo, there are so many more words we wish we could use to express how much we cherish you, but they cannot do justice to the feelings we all have.

Solo is leaving HoFa as our breed artist to pursue her dreams, of which we are beyond supportive. She is not leaving us without us being prepared and has graciously offered her mentorship to me (Curly) by teaching me all aspects of breed art creation and has given feedback as we have been pursuing possible new artists. We are forever thankful to Solo for helping us transition to someone else and allowing us to continue to ask her for help when needed.

Our artist search has currently not netted any new artists to join our team. Solo’s style is exceptionally unique and losing that style is not something we see as an option. In order to keep Solo’s style and continue breed releases and redos, I (Curly) have been training myself with Solo's help on how to manipulate bases, color greyscales, and create markings to closely mimic Solo’s style. Currently, there is only one breed in-game where this has occurred, Chincoteague Ponies.

Our intent on releasing the Chincoteague Ponies was to quickly get out the breed before the end-of-month deadline for fundraising. This meant creating the base, markings, colors, tack, and special code for the breed in a matter of 13 days. During such time our focus was on the fundraiser and announcing Solo’s departure never crossed our mind to do so during the fundraiser post. Some may view this as “deceptive” however, our intent was never to do so.

From here on out, we will continue to use the same workflow as we did for Chincoteague Ponies until we find a new artist. All new breed art and redos will be done by me using Solo’s previous work. Given the artist search has netted no one in the several months and multiple artist onboarding trainings I have done, in situations like these, you continue on with the best that you have. Otherwise, we will never have another breed art release.

We hope you all have an excellent rest of the weekend!

Cheers,

Bedouin & Curly

bangarain

Post Count: 1

4/20/2023 3:55 pm

Grey is no longer present in Chincoteagues, nor is silver. You may find this website helpful :)

http://www.thecolorfulchincoteague.com/

Sojourn

Post Count: 19

4/22/2023 3:30 pm

I've been slowly ebbing my way back into the game, and I can only say that I'm both shocked and incredibly saddened to see Solo go. It was a pleasure to see her and her art develop over the years and it is what made the game so unique and eye-catching for me. I wish her the very best with her career and hope that she excels.

As for the future of the game's art, I would highly reccomend a temporary halt to breed art re-do's and new breeds until a new artist is found. With the complex genetics in the game, it seems like manipulating and recoloring past art would be an incredible burden for Curly. That time and energy is simply needed elsewhere in the game. I say to continue the search for another artist, or worst case scenario, hire an artist with a different style and gradually redo all of the breed artwork. This would be an incredibly long process, but it would provide the game with a consistant art style and would flow much better. It would also make the artist search much easier.

Whatever the team feels is best, I wish them nothing but good luck and I will continue to support Horse Fable!

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