Well for me the art and animation of MLP always felt like a mix of the basic with odd extra detail stacked atop or around it (if you look at the animation you can sometimes see them having the grass move beautifully or characters breathing). Granted some of the backgrounds got near top tier later too. The fact that the show usually had to go by a 26 episode per season schedule and it's already done in flash with the reusing of a lot of assets this fact shouldn't surprise us. Yet with such information for somepony such as us this could crack the code for us to do more. And..
All the way back to the early days I used to wonder why there where these very similar curly patterns used over and over again in the backgrounds of various locations throughout the show. I mean I knew they would obviously reuse it and it was a simple way to make something look less barren but I also wondered why it was this specific design? Looks to me because just a quickie detail made by a CURVE RULER!
You have answered a question of mine that has went on for years
>However,for MLP, you don't need to be all that skilled. In fact,with proper placement of the ruler,you can draw basically anything. I mean, it's all curves and a few counted lines. I'd say a lot of cartoons are that way. One of the rules of animation is breaking down something to is simplest element so it can be easily drawn over and over. MLP though is an especially simple design. I mean the bodies of the basic unicorn, pegasus and earth pony are just the same base with a few cosmetic details changed. It's one of the reasons I think we had a lot of artist get to a good or decent level over a lot of fandoms.
