Royal Guard's Despair

A series of preliminary attempts to reconcile the abstract artistic style of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic with a pony's true skull and neck structure. Criticism is very welcome!

Where to begin?  The anatomy is terrible, the shading needs work, the perspective is non-existent...And this is merely a practice sketch.  However, the artist is unjustifiably proud of this piece, and insisted uploading against his better judgement.  However, over time, the artist hopes to refine this in to a finished work.

The image was made with a HB pencil on printer paper.