In G4 Why do the girls have bird beaks and the boys have equine muzzles?

[Leave a Whisper]

I'm just genuinely curious. I'd so buy G4 if the girls had faces like the boys. Why the design change between the genders? Does anyone know? I'd love to have Lyra Heartstrings, Trixie Lulamoon, Princess Luna, Diamond Mint,Sunset Shimmer and quite a few others if they had more normal faces like the boys got.

[Dreamer]

You know, big eyes = cute, eyes look bigger if the rest of the face is smaller.

[Mirnyj]

Small noses are generally considered cute and girly and feminine. Why they decided to make the gender difference so significant, that I don't know.

[otocolobus_manul]

Small noses are generally considered cute and girly and feminine. Why they decided to make the gender difference so significant, that I don't know.

Yeah, it's almost like they were going for a more ~*anime desu*~ look.
I personally like the girls faces better, the boys look super bulky and awkward to me. Their muzzles look like bricks xD But yeah, the huge difference is kind of weird, especially considering that the princesses are in between for some reason.

[Leave a Whisper]

Small noses are generally considered cute and girly and feminine. Why they decided to make the gender difference so significant, that I don't know.

Yeah, it's almost like they were going for a more ~*anime desu*~ look.
I personally like the girls faces better, the boys look super bulky and awkward to me. Their muzzles look like bricks xD But yeah, the huge difference is kind of weird, especially considering that the princesses are in between for some reason.

why? they don't even look like actual ponies. they look sorry, I know a lot of people like them but the girls look totally deformed

[Bergamot]

The G4 toyline is a little backwards, I believe. Instead of having a show that is based on the toys, the toys were made to resemble the show. To my knowledge, this isn't par for the course for MLP.

"My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic" was pitched with the kind of stylization you're seeing here, but it didn't start there! The Generation 3.5 toy line featured ponies with similar faces, with their enormous eyes and little beak-like snouts positioned on large, round heads!

G4 ponies really made me think of mice at first, with those big ears, big eyes, and little snouts! They definitely bring a challenge to the concept of a pony, and the illustrator in me thinks that's all kinds of fun.

[Elisto]

I know I saw Faust's character redesigns (of female G1 characters) on deviantArt before she took them down while she was in talks with Hasbro for the show, so it seems to me that the female characters were designed first, and then the male character designs were created later. I assumed they were going off the fact that the G1 boys had different features than the G1 girls, and just made the differences more prominent. So I guess I would ask the reverse: why the boys aren't more like the girls.

[otocolobus_manul]

Small noses are generally considered cute and girly and feminine. Why they decided to make the gender difference so significant, that I don't know.

Yeah, it's almost like they were going for a more ~*anime desu*~ look.
I personally like the girls faces better, the boys look super bulky and awkward to me. Their muzzles look like bricks xD But yeah, the huge difference is kind of weird, especially considering that the princesses are in between for some reason.

why? they don't even look like actual ponies. they look sorry, I know a lot of people like them but the girls look totally deformed

Yeah, but the boy ponies look like they have boxes on their face, imo. While I love G4, the designs aren't as good or as pony-like as previous gens.

[CupidStrikes]

Yeah, it's almost like they were going for a more ~*anime desu*~ look.
I personally like the girls faces better, the boys look super bulky and awkward to me. Their muzzles look like bricks xD But yeah, the huge difference is kind of weird, especially considering that the princesses are in between for some reason.

I think the preferred style has shifted a lot in the last couple of decades - compare animated Disney characters! They shift from having very realistic features to slowly getting larger eyes and softer faces and appearing more and more doll- and child-like, and anthropomorphised creatures are no different. I personally prefer the female designs over the males ones, the latter is too block-y If anything, I think maybe they look more like deer than horses but...eh, they're rainbow-coloured fantasy horses, I don't think they have to look like the real animal.

As for why the huge difference...well, "Boys must look like boys and girls must look like girls". It's amazing how obsessed people are with keeping children's things so clearly gendered.

[banditpony]

As mentioned, smaller noses are more feminine. Big ol' flat noses are masculine. There is an exaggeration to show the difference between the two, especially in the original concept pitches.

http://fyre-flye.deviantart.com/art/Cloudsdale-residents-260225001

This sort of stereotype has been around forever where men have been depicted with huge boxy noses, and women little petite noses...

why "bird nose"-- Hasbro needed to change it up after a long (but getting stale) G3 run. They needed a style that was very different and fresh... Faust had a great pitch, and that the design is based off of her sketches. *shrug*

[Pheasant]

I posted this over on the MLPTP, but I'm going to post it here as well.

Realistically, men typically have more blunt facial features - the jawline, for example - than women. (Now, these ponies don't relate to realism at all, but that's beside the point.) Like (another member) stated, it's sexual dimorphism and I personally like the style. That isn't to say that there won't be ponies who break the mold, for lack of a better term. While I do have a few feminine male OCs, I prefer the guys to look like guys and vice-versa.

[Leave a Whisper]

Yes and I know that we had an easy way to tell between our guys and gals in G1 with the Draft-Feathering, but these aren't humans, these are animals, ponies, to be exact and ponies have cute muzzles. Not deformed bird beaks

[Sunset]

*shrugs*  Horses also have actual joints and hooves and longer necks.  Even G1 did not look exactly like a real horse or pony.  MLP has always been a stylized version of a pony.  Sometimes it is more stylized than others such as the current generation.  G4 is also more anthropomorphised (sp?) than some other generations which means that we as humans make them look more like us than like real horses.  In this case it translates to smaller muzzles that look more like human noses.

To be honest, my least favorite gen is G2 and it is the gen that looks most like real horses in my opinion.

[Mirnyj]

Well Whisper, that is your opinion. In my point of view calling their small muzzles "deformed bird beaks" might be exaggerating a bit. The G4 muzzle design isn't actually that far from G2 design, although in G2 the boys and girls were all off the same mold.

[Leave a Whisper]

*shrugs*  Horses also have actual joints and hooves and longer necks.  Even G1 did not look exactly like a real horse or pony.  MLP has always been a stylized version of a pony.  Sometimes it is more stylized than others such as the current generation.  G4 is also more anthropomorphised (sp?) than some other generations which means that we as humans make them look more like us than like real horses.  In this case it translates to smaller muzzles that look more like human noses.

To be honest, my least favorite gen is G2 and it is the gen that looks most like real horses in my opinion.

Actually the dream beauties had more of a horsey look and you are correct that G1 is stylized. Personally I think G4 has more in common with G3.5  G2 and to a lesser extent Sweet Heart Sisters.

Post Merge: February 08, 2015, 12:19:54 PM

Well Whisper, that is your opinion. In my point of view calling their small muzzles "deformed bird beaks" might be exaggerating a bit. The G4 muzzle design isn't actually that far from G2 design, although in G2 the boys and girls were all off the same mold.

*shrugs* They still have bird beaks. I'm glad the boys don't have them though. Makes 'em look a little more normal. like the animal that they are supposed to be.