Before you can start the main part of customizing, you need a blank canvas to work on. Prepping the "bait," the pony you've chosen to remake into something new, is what needs to happen first.

Materials needed:

• Bait pony
• Twist tie (optional)
• Scissors
• Butter knife or X-acto knife (optional)
• Tape (optional)
• Needle-nosed pliers
• Paint remover
• Disposable gloves
• Cotton balls or q-tips
• A well-ventilated area
• 97% isopropyl alcohol

To begin, cut off the pony's mane as close to the scalp as you can. If you plan on saving the hair, it's useful to leave the plastic binder in on G3s. Otherwise, you will need to use a twist tie to secure the hair together. You may use a rubber band, but they grow brittle and break after a few months, so I don't recommend them.

The next step is to remove the pony's head. If you have a G1 or a G3 made from 2006 on, this step is generally very easy. The newer G3s do not have their heads glued down and so the head can be removed by a bit of twisting and pulling. The glue on most G1s is brittle and can be broken with a bit of pressure on the head. A caution for both of these, however. Sometimes the plastic on part of the neck ring is damaged or thin. In the process of removing the head, the plastic may give in to the pull and separate the head from the ring that secures it inside the body. This will make it so the head has to be glued on (and is incredibly embarrassing when you're demonstrating to a friend how easy it is to remove a G1 head and end up by messing up a beloved childhood pony).

Unfortunately, there are some G1s with excessive glue and nearly all pre-2006 G3s have this problem. You may try to remove the heads with pressure on G3s, but I have only had this work successfully on one pony, Trogdor, whose glue was strangely brittle. Be very careful, as in the process of trying this, it is possible to tear the plastic of the pony as I did with my very first custom, Apama. Usually more force is needed. To prepare the pony, it's best to heat up the plastic. I put them in the sink and run hot water over them for a little while. If you do this and want to use the already painted eyes as a template, you need to put tape over the eyes to mask them from the hot running water. While it is not common, on occasion, the paint will run, requiring patching the paint and possibly causing stains that can't be removed. I discovered this the hard way while prepping Pompilius.

Once the pony has been softened, it's time to work on cutting the head off. Many people swear by using a butter knife to gradually lever the head and body apart. I personally have never had any success doing this. I just take an exacto knife and begin to chop away. If you use this method, be careful not to dig in too deep. If you damage the inner ring of the neck, you might rip it off when you remove the head, making another case where you might have to glue the head back on. Unfortunately, some ponies do have way too much glue inside and there is no way the bottom ring will come out. In these cases, you do have to cut the head away fully and just be prepared to glue it once you're finished with the custom.

There are some ponies such as Brush and Grows, Dance 'n' Prance, Star Catcher, and others that have mechanics or other odd ways of being put together. I have no specific suggestions on how to prep these ponies except using extreme violence involving pliers, hammers, and other tools of destruction. Obviously, if you wish the mechanisms to still work afterwards, this is not the tactic to take.

Once the head has been removed, it's time to take out the hair. Except in the cases of mechanical type ponies, it's usually extremely easy to get the tail out. Just reach in with the needle-nosed pliers, poke around until you feel the tail, grab it, and pull. Some G3s have their tail glued in, but usually these ones just take a bit more force than usual. If you're using a G1 that has extremely frizzy hair, just cut the tail off short and then pull it out. Given the availability of pony-quality nylon hair, I don't think the effort to save hair that is very frizzy is worth it on a pony you're just going to customize anyway. Next, move on to the mane. This is generally one of the most frustrating parts of customizing, particularly if you're using a G3. G1 hair was put in with a sort of weave without a lot of glue, so is usually fairly easy to remove. G3s were given hair using a different method involving huge globs of glue. Usually, I start out by using the handle end of my pliers to push down along the hairline in an attempt to help break up any large glue areas. Pay special mind to between the ears as this is a common problem spot. After that, it's mostly a lot of hard work and persistance, coupled with the occasional appropriate curse. Reach in with your pliers, attempt to grab the roots of the hair, pull, rinse and repeat. Running the head under hot water again to make the plastic more flexible can help. Boiling is another possibility. With some of the toughest ponies you may have to put a bit of your paint remover in the head where the problem spot is. Be very careful when doing this! If you want the eyes saved, be sure to mask them, and do not leave the pony for very long. Some ponies, particularly white ones, may have their plastic stained or otherwise affected strangely by long exposure to the chemicals.

If you've removed all the hair, it's time for the last step in prepping the bait, removing the paint. There are several products on the market people use for this:

• Nail polish remover-This used to be the most commonly used paint remover, but many customizers, including myself, have moved away from it. Most varieties contain acetone, but not full strength, so it is not very effective. Many times rather than removing the paint, it simply smears it around. It does particularly badly with reds, pinks, and oranges which are notorious for staining the surface beneath them in the first place. This gets two thumbs down from me. Don't use it as there are better, easily obtainable alternatives.
• 100% acetone-This is the full strength version of the active ingredient in nail polish remover. It works much, much better than nail polish remover. Be careful though as it sucks all moisture out of the skin. My dad refers to it as "hang-nail in a can." This gets a thumbs up from me and can usually be found in the hardware department at places like Walmart and hardware stores. I believe I've heard of it being found in some pharmicies (chemists), particularly outside of the U.S.
• Goof-off-This is a product that is particularly made for removing things like paint from objects. It's very strong, works very well, and is what I primarily use. It usually removes even glitter fairly quickly and paint often wipes away in one swipe. It is extremely smelly and toxic, however. Try with all your might to keep it off your skin and if you can use it outside, all the better! This is another product that can be found in the hardware section at Walmart or possibly at hardware stores. It gets a thumbs up from me.
• Brake fluid-Believe it or not, automobile brake fluid is a decent paint remover. I used it as an alternative to nail polish remover before I started using Goof-off. It definitely worked better than the nail polish remover, particularly on G1s. It is not as effective as Goof-off, however, so I only recommend this if you cannot find Goof-off or 100% acetone anywhere. Likely this will only be an issue if you're outside of the U.S., Canada, or Europe.

As an additional warning, once you've picked one of these chemicals, do not switch which one you're using while you're prepping a bait. It's possible for the chemicals to interact with each other strangely and cause strange staining on the pony, ruining it if you planned on using the original color of the base.

Once you've chosen your paint remover, put on your disposable gloves and take your bait, cotton balls/q-tips, paint remover, and alcohol into your well-ventilated area. For most people, outside is the best choice if you have anywhere outside you can do this. Unless you have something like a laboratory hood or a spray booth, there simply isn't enough air being pulled out of a room indoors to be truly safe. Once you're ready, dab some paint remover on your cotton balls and start rubbing at the paint you want to have removed. Areas that have glitter tend to require more work and perhaps a bit of scraping with a fingernail through the glove, particularly on areas with grooves like horns and wings. Q-tips can be useful for removing paint from small areas. Be careful when using Goof-off, as more than a few minutes exposure will eat through non-latex gloves. I'm not sure of the effects on latex gloves, as I am allergic. Once you're done removing all the paint you want gone, put some alcohol on a cotton ball and clean the pony. It's preferable to wipe off the whole pony, but at the very least go over any area that was touched by the paint thinner. Alcohol cleans things very well and evaporates without leaving any residue, whereas the paint thinners can leave a residue behind. This can interfere with the curing of paint once you've started painting the pony. It's never any fun to start painting a pony, get the symbol exactly as you want it, only to have the paint never dry (this happened to me with Dofleini). This is definitely a case of better to be safe than sorry. Be careful on areas where you have purposefully left paint behind as rubbing alcohol is a weak paint remover. I've found it generally does no damage to Hasbro's factory paint, but if you're trying to fix a mistake while leaving part of a symbol intact, this is very important to keep in mind, as it does take off the acrylic paints we consumers have available to us.

Once the paint has been removed, it's time to move on to the next step:

• If you want to add parts, go to the sculpting tutorial.
• If you are not adding parts, go to the painting tutorial.

If anyone has any tips for prepping G2s or knows the effects of Goof-off on latex gloves, please email me this information so I can make this tutorial more complete.