Description from Steve Beaumont's blog

Back in 1997/8, Hasbro asked if I would be interested in having a look at revamping their My Little Pony toys, well, not just the toys but to redevelop the look of the ponies.At the time , Japanese animation was already influencing the style western animation, so I went off in that direction. This was flat out rejected as it was considered too much of a departure at the time, so I decided to just simply modify the look of the ponies from their current style at time. The feedback from Hasbro was that they needed to have more “edge” I then produced a series of sketches, one of which is shown above, Majesty. Hasbro were not sure but one of the marketing team asked me to look at developing some ideas for one off collectors pieces. I threw in some iconic film suggestions, such as, Edward Scissorhands (shown above). They couldn’t do these due to the cost implications of buying the rights to the characters, but the sketches were well received, so they asked me to look at similar thems that had no copyright
This is what got me in to trouble with Hasbro. For the limited edition collectors pieces they wanted something a little edgy. I was asked to take it as far as I can (“just run with it!”). My 80’s throwback, My Little Goth Pony, raise a few eyebrows but it was my little fetish pony that closed the door at Hasbro.
I did get paid though, so not a complete tragedy.