The Derpy Hooves Scholarship in Animation?

The Brony Thank You Fund is now raising funds to start a permanent animation scholarship to Calarts, the school where such people as Lauren Faust, Craig McCracken, and Tim Burton got their start, among many, many others.

As part of their fundraising efforts there's a raffle; every $10 donated gets you another chance to win one of the awesome Comic Con 2011 posters signed by almost every voice actor in season 1!

You can find out more about the project and how to help from Equestria Daily or directly on the Brony Thank You Fund page!

Herd Funding a TF2 Twilight Sniper

Clicky the picture to see the project page

Interesting concept going on: Kassgrein, responsible for some of the best Team Fortress 2 pony re-skins around, is using a Kickstarter-like website to get group funding to create a Twilight Sniper complete with facial expressions and ponified HUD. You can see it here or click the picture above.

Did I say group funding? No, I dub this Herd Funding! And I think it's pretty neat. He's a productive, creative member of the community with a professional background in video game modeling that releases his work free for everyone. Now he's just trying to get a commission for his continued hard work and useful skills, like many artists in the community who accept commissions. This is just a little different because what he's making isn't for one individual commissioner. I wonder if we'll see more herd funding in the future?

Keep in mind that he's going to release the result free to the public once it's done, though 10 lucky supporters will get the model 15 days early. So, yes, you can just get this free when it's done, but never forget that supporting the things you love is the only way to help them grow and keep them going.

Note: this is already 48% funded, and when you pledge money you'll only actually pay if the project is 100% funded. Also, you CAN donate any amount you want just by clicking on one of the support options and changing the dollar amount. Even just a few bucks would help to make this a success!

Humbie Indie Bundle V Ends

Humble Indie Bundle V has come to a close, and with a bang: not only did they break the $4 million dollar barrier, in the last hours they reached over $5 million! Thanks to all the generous people out there, and to the developers of these amazing games, for making it possible!

And, of course, a big thank you to all of you generous bronies to contributed to the HBB, whether it was money or spreading the word! It's been a rather exciting Bundle, between the endless friendly competition with Notch and the nods from Wil Wheaton, Rock Paper Shotgun, and John Graham of Wolfire games and the Humble Indie Bundle itself. Oh, and a thread on Reddit that sent over 20,000 people to visit the blog, to check to see if I'm Gabe Newell of Valve. Ha! Spoiler: no, I'm not.

But, much more importantly, during the course of Humble Indie Bundle V the HBB surpassed $35k in total lifetime contributions, which is over $20,000 to charity and around $10,000 to indie game developers! I never imagined I'd be part of something like this, and I'm eternally grateful to all of you for making it possible. All of my thanks!

Squee!

Never Give Up, Never Surrender

It seems like my last post may have been TOO over-dramatic... The Humble Brony Bundle isn't giving up, and neither should you!

Spread the word far and wide that we're still going, still taking donations, and will still contribute to Humble Indie Bundle V until the very last minute! We can do it, guys!

Notch Wins!

Well, the sad day has finally arrived. Notch has out-generoused us. The Humble Brony Bundle is down to $2 in the gas tank and... well...

 At least he's not making me watch Care Bears. I don't know if I could stand being a Belly Bro.

Humble Indie Bundle V Launches! Humble Brony Bundle hits $25,000!

Humble Indie Bundle V has launched and it's a doozy! Donate above the average and you'll get:

• Amnesia: The Dark Descent
• Psychonauts
• Limbo
• Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
• Bastion

 all while supporting Child's Play and the Electronic Foundation Frontier! This marks the fifth "numbered" Humble Indie Bundle, and I know a lot of us have been looking forward to it. Personally, I'm not disappointed by the selection.

And you know what else isn't disappointing? (Wow, what a segue!) YOUR SUPPORT! Because the Humble Brony Bundle has, as of now, surpassed $25,000 in total donations collected! In just six months you guys have raised literally tens of thousands of dollars for charity and for independent game developers. I'm so very proud of all of you! Thank you so much!

Seeds of Kindness Launches!

 Bronies for Good have launched their amazing Seeds of Kindness campaign!

Seeds of Kindness is collecting $10,000 to build a self-sustainable medical clinic in Uganda, to provide free emergency medical care even for those who can't afford it! And where will donations go after the first $10,000? To build a self-sufficient Green Village in Burundi, to house refugees--including children--displaced by unrest and civil war.

Obviously this is a cause worth donating to, and, if you do so, you'll get access to an exclusive 41 track album of music by brony musicians! Plus if you're amongst the highest donators you may end up winning some incredible rewards for your generosity.

Seriously, please consider donating to this extremely worthy effort!

24 Hour Charity Livestream with Special Guests!

The Elements of Charity: Art for Africa 24 hour livestream (click to join!) is going right now, raising money to fight hunger in Africa! There are a lot of guests lined up, ranging from mediocre (the founder of the Humble Brony Bundle? Yawn.) to incredible (Egophiliac and John Joseco!).

Here's a copy-paste:

Hello friends! We are going to be doing a 24 hour charity video game mare-a-thon of Mount & Blade!

The target of all this goodwill will be the wonderful ‘Inked! Art for Africa’ charity effort organised by Maddy Peters, the incomparable voice of Scootaloo. The fun will begin at our stream this Saturday evening at 6 PM EST (3 PM Pacific, midnight CET), and it will continue through Sunday evening at 6 PM EST (3 PM Pacific, midnight CET). On Sunday at noon, the stream will be cross-promoting Bronies for Good’s wonderful ‘Seeds of Kindness’ effort.

This is a cooperative effort, including some of the biggest names in the brony community. In addition to the TPM and Ponies Live, we’ve got interviewers from Everfree Radio and The Brony Show. They will be providing interview services to all the various guests who will be calling into the livestream during this 24-hour period.

There will also be prizes given out! For each ten dollars donated, you will be put into a raffle to win a full paid trip to either Bronycon or EverfreeNW!

We are going to help them reach their $10,000 goal! There is about $4800 to go bronies! See after the break for full details!

The link to the charity is right here! To Donate, Please use the chip-in widget below the stream!

 

Guest List:

 

SATURDAY:

6PM-7PM: Soapie Solar (Ask Pinkie Pie Solutions tumblr)

7PM-8PM: TrotCon (PinFilly/DarklyCute, Starshine)

8PM-9PM: Cupcakes Nom (creator of the Humble Brony Bundle project, co-head of the Albany meetups, charity org for BronyCon)

9PM-10PM: Fetchbeer (artist of adorableness)

10PM-11PM: Pen Stroke (author of Past Sins)

11PM-Midnight: Calpain (EqD staffer extraordinaire)

 

SUNDAY:

Midnight-1AM: Xiagu (head of DC meetups, admin of bronies.com, BronyCon staffer)

1AM-2AM: Egophiliac (creator of the one and only ALFALFA MONSTER!)

2AM-3AM: John Joseco (the one and only)

3AM-4AM: Purple Tinker (charity promoter, retired founder of BronyCon, Bronies-NYC, bronies.com)

4AM-5AM: Circuit Mane (host of The Brony Show)

5AM-6AM: MrPoniator (amazing animator)

6AM-7AM: Tsyolin (Musical pony, f/k/a ApplejackTheEngineer)

7AM-8AM: LaserPon3 (incredible pony laserist)

8AM-9AM: Foal Papers (Twitterbrony and brony scholar extraordinaire)

9AM-10AM: KefkaFloyd (Ponygoons admin, editor of The Round Stable)

10AM-11AM: PixelKitties (pony, comic, and background artist extraordinaire)

11AM-Noon: Garrett Gilchrist (artist extraordinaire, plus the best Orson Welles voice outside of Orson Welles)

Noon-2PM: SEEDS OF KINDNESS CHARITY CROSS-PROMOTION (With BRONIES FOR GOOD)

2PM-3PM: MrDragon (admin of RainbowDash.net)

3PM-4PM: Puzzle Plate (admin of the Phoenix meetup group)

4PM-5PM: GalaCon staff (bringing Equestria to Europe!)

5PM-6PM: Robbob (the pony behind the Epic [X] Time series)

Two Quick Indie Gaming and Charity Links

Two more tidbits of charity and indie gaming for you all to consider:

The Groupees "Be Mine 2" Bundle ends in just four hours. You can buy the indie games listed across the top for just $4, and every $2 you spend converts into a meal delivered by Feed Them With Music.

Another Kickstarter going on right now is for Spriter, an animation and effects tool that will help indie gamers create better 2D graphics for us all to enjoy. Also of interest: one of the two guys making the tool is a brony. Just something to look into if you're interested in this kind of thing!

Humble Botanicula Bundle Launches!

Botanicula is the tale of a vampiric arboretum who... oh, wait.

The Humble Botanicula Bundle has launched! You can pick up some really interesting adventure and platforming titles from Amanita Designs this time around, including the absolutely brand new Botanicula! Looking for imaginative, lovingly crafted games? You're in the right place!

And this time if you pay above the average you get not just the games but also a gloriously bizarre looking movie, Kooky! The founder of Amanita Designs worked on the art direction, hence the unique visual style. It's the tale of a teddy bear who has to stand on his two stuffed legs and... oh, just go watch the trailer.

This time around the Bundle is supporting the World Land Trust, an international organization dedicated to preserving habitats such as rainforests. This is a new charity to the Humble Bundle line-up, and seems to be a good fit! Let's all work together to support the effort!

Why Should You Support the Traveling Pony Museum?

Click Here to help the Traveling Pony Museum!

And why should you support the Traveling Pony Museum?

A) You know all that incredible art, those amazing customs, and the adorable plushies that you see pictures of online? Sometimes it's easy to forget that there are actual physical versions of them! It's nice to scroll through galleries and see art or photos... but what if you could actually see the original piece framed on a wall? Or get an up close and personal look at customs or plushies that normally only one person would ever get to own and enjoy?

Well, the Traveling Pony Museum is making it to BronyCon on the East Coast, but needs our help to get out to Everfree Northwest in Seattle, so more people can see the art our fandom has created firsthand!


2) The Traveling Pony Museum isn't JUST going to Everfree Northwest... it's going to take a detour to Seattle Children's Hospital! So if you donate money to the cause you're not only supporting art, you're sending adorable pony art out to visit children too sick to leave the hospital, or even leave their beds.


Pie) The Traveling Pony Museum is a big supporter of charity! The favorite seems to be Inked! Art for Africa, which is a project organized by none other than Scootaloo voice actress Maddy Peters!

So, please, I hope you'll consider supporting this good cause! To do so please follow the big link at the top of this post!

Lauren Faust Charity Auctions + Operation Sharing Kindness

Last year Lauren Faust ran a charity auction, putting up development sketches from MLP:FIM on ebay with the proceeds to benefit survivors of the disaster in Japan. Well, she's running another charity auction starting on Friday to benefit a storyboard artist and his family dealing with serious illness in their children. You can find more information about this here.

Operation Sharing Kindness is a long-time brony movement that has been raising money for the organizations Toys for Tots (toys for needy children) and Doctors Without Borders (international humanitarian aid). I definitely hope you'll give them a look and a donation: you can read up on Operation Sharing Kindness here.

Another Charity Bundle: The Indie Gala!

Obviously we're all very familiar with the Humble Indie Bundle, but not everyone has heard of The Indie Gala yet. Here, let me help with that...

The Indie Gala has a batch of indie games up for grabs at whatever price you want to pay, and you can choose what percentage goes to the Gala, to the developers, and to charity. Which charities?

• Child's Play, which as you probably know by now provides games and toys to sick children in hospitals.
• Save the Children, providing humanitarian aid to children and their families in impoverished, vulnerable communities worldwide.

Right now for just $5 you can get 5 games and all bonus materials that are added as The Indie Gala meets their goals. Plus, it has the word Gala in the name! That has to be worth something, right? Right?! Right.

Go do the right thing, guys, and give freely!

A Wild Humble Indie Bundle Has Appeared!

Pinkie Pi is best number

 The next Humble Indie Bundle has reared its lovable head, and this time it's The Humble Bundle for Android 2!

Don't get confused: all of these games are playable on Windows, Mac, Linux, AND Android!

The two charities this time around are the ever-popular duo of Child's Play (provides toys and video games to sick children in hospitals) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (advocates for free and equal rights on the Internet).

You can add to the Humble Brony Bundle contribution fund by clicking on the Donate link on the right side of this page; any excess donations will be saved up for the next major numbered Humble Indie Bundle (the ones that tend to go into the thousands of dollars), which will probably be coming up pretty soon!

Elements of Charity a Huge Success!

The Elements of Charity gaming & charity mareathon was a big, big success, even more than the guys over at Ponies Live Now realized!

Between the Chip-In drive they used and direct donations to the Humble Brony Bundle since the weekend I'm attributing a total of $3043 to the Elements of Charity mareathon, with enormous thanks to Edock, Traxus, and all of those at Ponies Live Now that made this possible; thank you, guys!! So much money raised for charity and indie developers in just 24 hours!

And what's even better is that this isn't the last Elements of Charity mareathon. They're going to put on more of these in the future, with lots of wonderful charitable organizations to support! I'll be sure to report about each and every one I hear about.

Elements of Charity Mareathon!

 

EDIT: Stream is now over!

You can still donate directly to the drive for one more day here: http://widget.chipin.com/widget/id/b41e04bdaad5c489

- - -

We're less than a day away from the Ponies Live Now! 24-hour gaming mareathon "Elements of Charity," starting at 12PM PST tomorrow. They'll be playing NES/SNES games and giving away lots and LOTS of prizes, all while collecting donations to benefit the Humble Brony Bundle; an incredibly big THANK YOU goes out to Ponies Live Now! and their marethon hosts Edock and TraxusV for making this happen!

So, besides gaming AND charity, why else should you show up? Special guests, of course! I've been invited to swing by, but they have SPECIAL guests lined up: musician RainbowCrash88 of Fighting is Magic and 8-Bit ponies fame, talented comedic flash animator MrPoniator, renowned comic artist Veggie55, and fandom Derpy voice artist BaldDumboRat will all be making appearances, plus more!

You can click here to see what they'll be playing and a partial list of what they'll be giving away.

And how do you get to the mareathon? Right here!!

Over $2200 Contributed to Humble Bundle Mojam

We contributed $2222.22 to the Humble Bundle Mojam over the weekend, all of which went to charity; good job, everypony! Not that I expected anything less of you. <3

As some of you noticed, the Mojang blog mentioned that the top 10 contributors to this bundle would be receiving some prizes. I haven't been contacted about it yet, but you can all rest assured that if I receive anything for this I'll be auctioning stuff off to add more money to our donation pool.

More news as this develops. Also, more on the upcoming Seeds of Kindness campaign over on Bronies for Good, as well as the Elements of Charity livestream, coming soon.

Humble Mojam Bundle - ALL $ Goes to Charity!

Soooo, the next Humble Bundle is already up! It's a special one though...

Notch--world famous for trying to out-generous bronies on the Humble Indie Bundle #4 (and creating some "Minecraft" thing)--is leading his development company Mojang in creating a new game live in 60 hours. You can get a copy of the game by just donating whatever amount you want...

... and ALL the proceeds go to charity this time!

This "Humble Bundle Mojam" supports long-time favorite charities Child's Play, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and the American Red Cross, and now also supports charity:water, an organization dedicated to providing clean, safe drinking water to the people of developing nations.

You can watch Mojang develop the game in real-time by going to the Humble Bundle site and watching the stream at the top of the screen. They're making a "real-time strategy shoot 'em up with a steampunk ancient Egypt theme!" And I just saw in the stream that it's going to have multiplayer? Sweeeet.

"Elements of Charity" to Sponsor Humble Brony Bundle!

Ponys Live Now has an upcoming gaming event called "Elements of Charity" where they will be livestreaming NES and SNES gaming for 24 straight hours. They will be collecting donations, and I'm thrilled to announced that they've selected the Humble Brony Bundle as their donation of choice! Here's a copy-paste:

"Hello everypony, this is Edock from Ponys Live Now (http://www.twitch.tv/ponyslivenow)!  We have an event coming up called the "Elements of Charity" that will be hosted at our channel. Elements of Charity is a NES/SNES 24 hour Gaming Marathon for Humble Brony Bundle on our channel on March 11th-12th. There will be a freewill donation link that you will be able to donate to Humble Brony Bundle, our goal is $2000! There is going to be plenty of viewer interaction and currently over $135 worth of giveaway prizes with more coming! 100% of the proceeds will go directly to Humble Brony Bundle! If you would like to see the schedule and giveaway prizes, click here - http://derpy.me/H6-C1 . We hope that you will be able to join us in supporting this amazing cause! Also, if you are interested in donating an item for the giveaway, please contact me at ponyslivenow@gmail.com "

Don't worry, I'll be sure to remind everypony about this as the date approaches. I'm really looking forward to it!

Meanwhile, the latest Humble Indie Bundle has ended, but another one looms VERY close on the horizon. A very Notch-flavored Bundle... More on that soon!

Spotlight: Equestria Gaming

The Humble Brony Bundle supports both charity AND gaming, and one of the best places in bronydom to get news on games made for and by bronies is Equestria Gaming!

These are the guys who will go out on a limb and test out every pony-related game released, risking viruses, shock videos, and terrible gameplay to provide useful reviews. They keep their eyes peeled, offering progress reports on up and coming titles like Fighting is Magic and PonyKart.

Equestria Gaming also compiles updated listings of:

• pony mods and models for mainstream games (Minecraft, Team Fortress 2, etc.), 
• pony servers of more games (Garry's Mod, Terraria, etc.), and
• pony guilds for MMOs and the like (WoW, City of Heroes/Villains, etc.).

So, take a peek at Equestria Gaming and follow their blog to stay up to date with what's what with pony gaming!

Humble Brony Bundle Breaks $20,000 Raised

 I've finally had a chance to settle down and send in the next contribution to the Humble Indie bundle, update the blog, and crunch some numbers. It seems we've hit a climactic achievement...

Between $1250 on the Humble Introversion Bundle, $16,005 on the Humble Indie Bundle #4, $1700 on the Humble Bundle for Android, and just under $1,100 saved up for the next bundle, the Humble Brony Bundle has raised over $20,000 in total!! That's over $6,000 contributed to Child's Play ALONE, let alone the American Red Cross and EFF!

There are a lot of people to be thanked for all this. Sethisto and the Equestria Daily staff for helping to spread the word so far and wide, all the artists that contributed to the Ponies at Play contest, Notch for his friendly rivalry, kits for making his vectors into a banner within minutes without even asking for a thank you, the Bronyville Podcast guys for recently having myself and Bronies for Good on together... I'm already forgetting people to thank!

But the most important folks in all of this were YOU, every last one of you who donated even just a dollar, or told just one friend. Seeing all the little nooks and crannies of the Internet the HBB has reached is very gratifying, and is all thanks to you just taking a few moments to mention the Bundle on your local haunts. And each and every donation is vital to make the HBB a success.

So... thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!

The Next Humble Indie Bundle has Launched!

The next Humble Indie Bundle has launched! As you can see above, the Humble Brony Bundle has made its first installment of our contribution, and as more is donated this number will increase.

This bundle is the Humble Bundle for Android, but don't be confused: every game in this bundle is available for Android, Linux, Mac, AND Windows! You're in for some good titles here: World of Goo is already a modern classic, Osmos is practically the definition of "chill," and Anomaly is a fun reversal on tower defense where you're the offense taking out the towers! I look forward to trying out Edge soon.

As usual all donations made to the Humble Brony Bundle will be split 60% to charity, 30% to the indie developers, and 10% as a tip to the Humble Bundle Inc that makes it all possible. This time the charities are Child's Play (toys and games for sick children in hospitals) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (protecting our rights on the Internet; e.g. fighting SOPA!).

So please, do what you can: donate by clicking on the button on the right, spread the word about the Humble Brony Bundle, or be super excellent and do both... Either way, thank you so much!!

PS: Even before announcing that the Humble Brony Bundle is back in business there have already been hundreds of dollars in donations... I'm so proud to be a brony. :D

Charity Auctions to Benefit Toys for Tots

The posters below are all on eBay, and all of the money raised goes right to Toys for Tots. Even though we're past Christmas organizations like Toys for Tots still need revenue, so don't hold back... bid away!

Especially since there's only one day left to bid!

• An official BroNYCon January 2012 poster featuring Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack plus Princess Celestia, Cheerilee, and a few well-known OCs, designed by John Joseco (logo by Wendy E.) and signed by Ms. Ashleigh Ball and Ms. Andrea Libman: Here

• An official BroNYCon January 2012 poster featuring Rainbow Dash and Applejack, designed by John Joseco (logo by Wendy E.) and signed by Ms. Ashleigh Ball: Here

• An official BroNYCon January 2012 poster featuring Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy, designed by SpeccySY and signed by Ms. Libman: Here

SOPA: Don't Black Out the Internet!

I'll let Sethisto's excellent collection of links on SOPA speak for the Humble Brony Bundle: http://www.equestriadaily.com/2012/01/sopapipatrixie-is-best-pony.html

Please, do what you can to make sure that SOPA, PIPA, or any monstrous amalgam thereof, does not censor the Internet!