Guess what 2026 is the year of the horse you know what that means
Carousels have always been very neat to me and I've wanted to draw ponies inspired by them for a while. So Saber is a carousel pony now.
I'm so happy with how this turned out, I tried some new things shading and lighting wise (also trying to draw Saber's bangs in a way I like better and change how I draw eyes perhaps) and I feel good about it. Detailing the carousel background was also kind of relaxing too.
A carousel is fitting for him, in a way. Round and round he goes, endlessly repeating the same cycle and seeing the same tragedies...
Here's some alts below
B/W alt, lineart cause it was good lineart, and unfiltered.
I finally got around to drawing Saber in nirik form.
I'll probably post that other piece I was working on soon, since I've finished it now!
For fun, there's some notes below the cut. Since one of his parents was a Kirin and the other a pony, his traits are a little unique.
His horn has some stripes that glow when he uses magic and though an aura appears like most unicorns, his is a little flame-like and whispy.
Kirins don't get cutie marks, so Saber didn't really grow up expecting one. If his mother had still been in his life when one appeared, he probably would have had a cuteceañera or something similar like ponies usually celebrate, but with just his father, there wasn't much of a fuss.
He probably missed out on a lot of regular pony culture stuff, but he still grew up in places with mostly ponies, so it wasn't like he had exposure to kirin culture either... After being outcast from his village, Steel basically lost contact with other kirins, and rarely brings these things up. Saber didn't even know what a nirik transformation was until the first time it happened to him.
Saber's nirik form is somewhat... Volatile. This is in part because he is part pony, but mainly because he bottles everything so much and despises the fact that he's capable of transforming that way at all. Even if he didn't repress his emotions so much and accepted the whole nirik thing too, he'd probably still have some issues with it a full kirin wouldn't.
Because he represses so much, his nirik form can present suddenly and explosively, and his flames can end up really hot with a lot of sparks. He also is at risk of burning himself occasionally. Though he's gotten quite good at preventing himself from transforming in general by a variety of methods, sometimes the heat of his hooves or sparks can give that away.
Most of the time after he simmers down, he's exhausted and at the least ends up with some serious headaches. In more extreme cases, he could end up with a fever/falling ill. However, if he didn't repress so much and was a bit healthier about this, he probably wouldn't have as volatile of a transformation and these negative effects would probably lessen or disappear.
It's funny because this was the first one I had a sketch of and yet it took three other ponies to get to. But here he is! Tsurugi Kinjo gets the pony treatment too.
Saber Frost is a member of the royal guard (basically MLP military/police/security/body guards for the princesses btw) He's a unicorn, but also part kirin, which is why he has a few kirin traits. His emotions don't seem to affect his physical state as much as the typical kirin, but he does have something of a partial nirik form that comes out rarely. (only if things get really, really out of hand)
Also, when he's experiencing intense emotions, he might start giving off sparks as his hooves start to burn. Wearing horseshoes helps with not setting fires, but he can still be caught leaving singed hoof prints behind sometimes. This can make whatever is going on behind his stony expressions a lot more in the open.
Saber participated in the changeling invasion while serving on the Canterlot royal guard. Like most of his compatriots, he still has a lot of animosity towards the changelings, who are obviously not on good terms with the ponies due to the whole invasion thing and their queen being a bit of a megalomaniac.
He used to really only focus on his work, but meeting Clover, Thrift, and Radiant after being reassigned away from Canterlot has slowly gotten him to open up and relax a bit. Though he does miss his best friend back home, being away from Canterlot, where a lot of bad memories have happened, and his dad lives, has been pretty good for him so far.
Out of the group, he's the closest with Clover, but Radiant and Thrift have managed to worm their way into his heart too. As a group, they're pretty close and work together well. Well, mostly. He and Radiant can get into some pretty big fights at times. Thankfully, Thrift and Clover can be pretty pacifying when they need to be and nothing too serious has ever gone down.
Also, Radiant constantly calls him "Frosty" and other frost-related nicknames. Thrift and Clover usually just call him Saber.
