Fluttercheekers
Squishes cheeks (Squeaky noise)
I am simple man.
I see funny/amusing frame in MLP.
I (re)draw.
I suppose drawing smooshed faces is something of an acquired skill, since I don’t see many regular artists play around with overly accentuated mouths, lips and/or cheeks that much. For me, especially after drawing the “spaghetti” pic last year, I wanted to experiment with Fluttershy’s face a little bit more, especially her lips, and situations in which her lips would look accentuated in a way (having her cheeks pinched or pressed, making a “kissy” face, sipping from a straw, etc.)… Eventually, this train of thought put me to mind of this lovely frame from the show; Just an incidental scene where Pinkie Pie grabs Fluttershy’s cheeks with her hooves, squishing her face together and puckering her lips like a lil’ fishy in the process.
It was a cute and funny frame, as well as further apropos incentive, so voilá! I redrew it!
I already feel pretty confident about my Fluttershy at this point, so I suppose drawing her with an unconventional/manually altered expression was the natural next evolution in my skill set (for this piece anyway). And since I’m riding the line between cartoonishly simplified and stylistically superficial with the detailing anyway, at least the end result looks on par for the kind of stuff I like to do.
Plus, another testament to Fluttershy always looking adorable and/or appealing, with whatever silly/strange face she’s making (or in this case, being made to make), is always a neat achievement to etch in the recordbook.
I did have to mirror the original reference image tho. Fluttershy’s hair obstruction is most often depicted on the right side of her face rather than the left (both as a pony and as an EqG), and for some reason, this particular frame had her hair on the left side. Sometimes they mirror the animation rigs in a given episode and when I try to redraw the thing, it just gets way too distracting for me, idk.
Oh yeah, the original frame is from the Season 3 FiM episode: ‘Too Many Pinkie Pies’, in case anyone’s wondering.
If you wanna see more Fluttershy fanart (or the occasional redraw of a frame/design), go ahead and drop a watch!
If you’d like to Commission me something in particular, feel free to send me a Note.