About

My Little Pony Art Fads features popular subjects found in art of the popular series My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. These subjects vary between ponies wearing a certain type of clothing, to using a certain type of object.

Humanized My Little Pony Characters

Humanized Pony fan arts are the one trend of My Little Pony fan arts that predates the 4th generation represented by Friendship Is Magic, with some gijinka fanarts of G1 ponies being posted online since at least 2009^[28]. Nonetheless, it truly became popular with the arrival of MLP:FiM, with such fanarts appearing as soon as October 24th, 2010^[29] (below, on the left), a mere 2 weeks after the first episode aired; since then, they have constantly been a popular form of art within the brony fandom.

Ponify

In a symmetrical approach, ponified characters are characters, typically humans, who are drawn as ponies from the My Little Pony franchise. This trend started shortly after the debut of MLP:FiM, with the artist CyzirVisheen, who posted ponified versions of Katawa Shoujo characters on DeviantArt, starting with a version of Emi Ibarazaki^[30] (below, on the left) on December 26th, 2010. It quickly became a popular trend among brony artists, who created many fanarts re-imagining characters and redrawing memes in such a fashion.

Ponies in Socks

Ponies in Socks was the first popular art fad to truly be associated with MLP:FiM. Such fanarts feature ponies from MLP:FiM wearing various types of socks. The original instance of a pony wearing socks was posted on DeviantArt by user Mimblex, on February 16, 2011, featuring Fluttershy.^[1]

Spread

Although Mimblex drew the original image, the fad didn't gain popularity untill July 3, 2011, when Equestria Daily posted an article featuring MLP:FiM socks merchandise.^[2] This post let to Deviant Artist egophiliac drawing a piece of fanart featuring the character Luna of the show wearing socks on the same day.^[3]

The image was well received by the fans of the show and received many positive reviews. Other artists soon followed in creating their own versions. Equestria Daily also posted a drawfriend on July 22, 2011, featuring only Ponies in Socks fanart.^[4] Equestria Daily also did a poll where people could vote which character would look best in socks.^[5]

Notable Derivative: Sock Fillies

A popular derivate of the ponies in socks are the Sock Fillies, featuring images of filly versions of the ponies from MLP:FiM put in a sock. The original instance of this was created by Deviant Artist egophiliac as a request to make a filly Luna in socks on July 21, 2011.^[13] The result gained positive reviews and intrigued other artist to make their own versions. Egophiliac also uploaded a template on July 21, 2011.^[14]

Ponies in Sweaters

Ponies in Sweaters features a series of fanart of ponies from MLP:FiM wearing sweaters or hoodies. The original instance of this was posted on Ponibooru^[15] on April 9, 2011, and was made by Deviant Artist Elosande.^[16]

More ponies in sweaters were drawn after Elosande's creation, but it didn't fully took off until September 2011, when sweaters got featured in multiple drawfriends on Equestria Daily.^[17][18] The reviews the fanart received were positive and some fans already saw sweaters as the new socks.

Ponies with Juiceboxes

Ponies with Juiceboxes features a series of fanart of ponies from MLP:FiM with juiceboxes. The original instance of this was made by Deviant Artist SorcerusHorserus on September 10, 2011, featuring Fluttershy.^[6]

Although this was the first instance of Fluttershy drinking out of a juicebox, the fad didn't fully take off until October 8, 2011, through a post on the Ask X Anything Tumblr blog Ask Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.^[7]

Although juiceboxes are most commonly combined with Fluttershy, it has spread to the other ponies as well.

Tumblr Reaction

The popularity of the juiceboxes didn't go unnoticed to the creator of the blog, as he has often been requested to make more art of Fluttershy with a juicebox, which lead to him creating more. Through the popularity of the ask pony Tumblr blogs, other pony blogs have also been requested to make fanart featuring juiceboxes. Examples of this are Ask My Little Chubbies,^[8] Ask Suprise,^[9] Ask Raindrops^[10] and Ask Octavia.^[11] A Tumblr blog called Juice Box is Magic can also be found, which specialises in collecting and creating Ponies with Juiceboxes fanart.^[12]

Ponies in Vehicles

Ponies in Vehicles features a series of flash animations using characters from MLP:FiM who have obtained a certain type of transportation. These animations are commonly made in flash format and played in loop with matching background music. The original instance of this was posted by Deviant Artist DX11 on November 3rd, 2011, in a post titled "Pinkie found a TransAm."^[19]

The animation got featured on Equestria Daily on the same day.^[20] Through the popularity of the original flash animation, other artists started creating their own versions. Multiple of these have also been featured on Equestria Daily.^{[21] [22]} A special DeviantArt group for Ponies in Vehicles can also be found.^[23]

Wet Mane Ponies

Wet Mane Ponies features the ponies from MLP:FiM with their mane being wet. Although wet manes have been around in the show since the very first episode, they didn't gain much popularity until November 5, 2011. When episode 5 of the second season, "Sisterhooves Social", aired. Near the end of the episode, there was a scene where Rarity had a wet mane.

After the episode aired, mulitple artists started making fanart featuring wet manes. The wet manes were also featured on Equestria Daily multiple times.^{[26] [27]}

A popular piece of fanart was made by Deviant Artist Equestria Previals.^[24] Equestria Prevails also released a similar version with transparent background by request.^[25] This resulted in various artists creating their own versions of it, using various ponies of the cast and OC ponies.

Fluffy Ponies

Fluffy Ponies are an art trend where ponies are drawn with comically fluffy fur. The first of such arts was posted by Mixermike622 on January 3rd, 2012^[31] (below, on the left), and depicted an original character named Fluffle Puff, who quickly became a fan-favourite and inspired many fanarts and even a webseries^[32].

External References