I can only say that I like Amazon Applejack; and it doesn’t feel odd to me that someone who grew up doing hard physical labor most of the year would tend to be both muscular and ‘big’. Many of my uncles and my own father grew up doing farm labor and other physical jobs. None of them were tall, but they were built broad at the shoulders.

Fluttershy is tall. Rarity wanted Fluttershy to be a model, and Photo Finish loved her. The range of heights in FashionSpot’s 11 Short Models Who Made It Big is between 5’5” and 5’8”–and mentions that 5’9” is still considered short.

@Dragonmage
 
facedesk
 
You really don’t know what you’re talking about do you?
 
Not only are you putting words in my mouth (Accusing me of thinking that masculinity and femininity go hand-in-hand? Where the hell did you get that idea? All I said was that they were not mutually exclusive.), and dismissing the points in my post with nothing more than “Nuh-uh, you’re wrong”, you’re also effectively telling me that I should try painting the color red without ever using the color red.
 
Implying that I don’t recognize AJ’s feminine side is outrageously absurd that I just can’t give you any credit anymore. I’m left almost speechless at this accusation.
 
I’m sorry that a strong tall empowered Applejack offends you–and in turn, I’m sorry that the very basis of cartooning offends you. I’m sorry that you see stereotyping. GOD FORBID ONE FARMER CHARACTER BE BIG AND TALL. And no nerd ever should be frail. THAT NEVER HAPPENS IN REAL LIFE, OF COURSE. Despite people being incredibly diverse, it’s too offensive to portray even one of them as a certain type, because some people might get offended.
 
While were at it, let’s just homogenize every character drawn so they are one generic entity. No would would be offended by that would they?
 
You’ve completely wasted both yours and my time, and past experience demonstrates that trying to respond to your “arguments” is a futile effort. I had even written out a long extended post, but and cutting most of it out, realizing that you won’t probably won’t even comprehend it.
 
Please don’t further waste either your or my time with this asinine perspective.

@Ambris  
I’m sorry that’s all you felt the comment was about.
 
With that scene in Mare Do Well the hill was slanted in AJ’s favor in addition to AJ stopping the cart smartly: using the ground and leveraging her body. There are bits of canon that the other mane 5 are stronger too: carrying boulders, knocking down several trees at once, overpowering AJ at things physical, etc. There’s a whole list to add, but I’ll take your que and won’t go into that either.
 
What I’m saying is having a personality trait or living on a farm doesn’t automatically alter one’s body or set standards in stone. And yes if you believe, for example, that someone with a brash attitude must be compensating and there for is short, that IS a stereotype. People may not like the word but that’s what it is. The belief that traits are chained to one body image is a stereotype.
 
Femininity and masculinity do NOT go hand to hand. Sadly many “creative” artists never acknowledge AJ’s feminine side, instead opting to make her a hulk-like or giant compared to the other five–despite the lack of canon. Is it really hard to believe someone of normal size or smaller could be hardworking like AJ and not do the things she does? On the other coin, why does Twilight have to be weak looking just because she reads books?
 
You say you want to communicate a strong presence? Why not let the action, motion, and expression speak for itself? Ever seen the featured photos shot during World War II? A thousand words are said in that one instance of time. Capture that moment in your character’s life. You can get “presence, calm and reserved” without falling back on stereotypes–which shows limits more than anything.
 
Being a cartoon is not an excuse. Trust your audience to be mature about the matter. They don’t need a picture book farmer to get AJ’s one. There’s a reality and a story to the people you portray in art. Exaggerating is all well and good for effect sometimes, but things can only be stretched so far before what you represent becomes a lie.
 
Again, I’m not attacking you. My conversation was directed at someone else before.
 
I understand that this place is not the format to discuss topics like these at length and as I’ve already said what I needed, I won’t clog up the comment section any longer.

@Dragonmage
 
That comment really was nothing more than an verbose “No, you really are stereotyping”, with no substantial evidence for it.
 
First off, there actually are bits of canon that DO imply she is the strongest, such as when she stops the cart in the “Mare Do Well” episode, when Rainbow clearly couldn’t.
 
But I’m not really interested in tallying up instances like that in the show, as the writers aren’t entirely consistent on that issue. Her implied strength, whatever that may be, only figured so much into her design. As I already said in my post that a lot of my design decision of her had a lot to do with her personality–and externalizing that. (Did you miss that part?)
 
You also accuse me of saying that I don’t believe that having a farming background can go hand in hand with feminine or beautiful–which is something I never once said. Thanks for putting words in my mouth.
 
Furthermore, if you can’t believe that a woman can’t be both masculine and beautiful at the same time, that makes you sound a tad bigoted. Maybe that’s not what you mean, but it sure is a bit of an implication of your statement there.
 
And in the end, like all headcanons, I never posit that mine is one and only valid headcanon. I have no issues with a shorter AJ and have no interest in telling others how to interpret her. Trying to tell others how their headcanons are bad is a waste of time and honestly kind of rude.
 
And finally, you kinda missed my point on the fact that this is fiction and cartooning. This is not real life. In real life, you have all kinds of people in all kinds of walks of life–everyone knows that, or should know that.
 
On the other hand, in fiction, and in cartooning especially, the primary goal is quick and easy conveyance of ideas to audience. And I believe that is what my decision of her body type effectively does. It communicates AJ’s powerful presence, while her posture and expression subverts that and demonstrates that while powerful, she’s also calm and reserved. That’s Character Design theory–and unless you have some background in art and character design, I don’t believe you have a strong leg to stand on here.
 
Did you even actually read my post? I appreciate your ability to remain civil, but I find your lack of comprehension of my posts, and subsequent baseless accusations, to be frankly offensive. I’m simply trying to create a diverse line up of characters, and because one interpretation offends you, you feel the need to bring some kind of political agenda about stereotyping against me, when such things have absolutely nothing to do with it.
 
If you can’t comprehend that, much like you didn’t comprehend my previous post, please don’t bother responding and wasting both of our time. Thank you.

@Lawful Girly  
I wouldn’t worry about Rainbow’s physical might. If you use G.S’s point, Pegasuses have been the more military race for hundreds and hundreds of years, homing their battle skills and traditions. Actually, if you look at the royal guard there’s bare any earth ponies in it but plenty of Pegasus.
 
Also, remember that Rainbow was able to go toe to toe with AJ at a ground level in Fall Weather Friends. Dash has a physical laboring job and is the she’s the sport’s maniac of the group.
 
 
@Ambris  
Actually this becomes about sterotypes. Nothing in canon hints at AJ being larger or more buffed out. At best we know that AJ has more of an identical built to a younger Granny Smith rather than her brother. Yet many mlp human artist delegate AJ a larger body built sololy on that she lives on a farm–Rainbow has it just has bad but in another sense. They believe it’s all in the name of creativity and diversity but how can it when this body image for AJ is quickly becoming the default vision with no alternates considered? More extreme art has AJ look more like a man or a human Hulk while ignoring her feminine features altogether. The fact that you think she’s not masculine enough here troubles me.  
It feels like people are saying that anyone who came from a farming background or that environment is incapable of being beautiful or having any feminine qualities.
 
I’m not trying to attack you or your work, Ambris, more challenge an idea in general. Can people enjoy making characters bigger if they want? Yes. Is using some commonly thought of aspects to shape a character a little, bad? No. But closing off all visions of what a character can be and saying a she can only be this way because of a notion about farmers is bad. It hurts the people they’re about too. This is becoming more and more common in human mlp art and ideas like these are reflected in the conversations about body structure. There are people who have actually gotten upset when Rainbow Dash was drawn bigger than Applejack. Their ideas had suddenly become some unshakable fact; and that should never happen for something done in the name of creativity and diversity.
 
AJ could be on the shorter end; a more innocent country gal who has to project herself more to face all the responsible she has to take on. Heck, AJ could have a slight disability on something and has to work much harder as a result to compensate. All I hope is that people keep an open mind about things and avoid stereotyping, or classifying, base on notions about a group of people.

@Ambris  
I kinda like AJ being taller, I don’t see why some have an issue with that.

This isn’t about stereotypes, and I’m kind of offended that some of you seem to think it is. This is about artistic conveyance. Aj is known to be strong, as well as stubborn–earth ponies in general seems to be durable.
 
Any amount of art lessons in cartooning will tell you right off the bat, that tall and broad frames is the most concise and direct way of conveying these traits. I actually think I didn’t do them enough here–I should have added more square shapes into her design.
 
Also, as a character line-up, everyone needs to be unique. And this is simply the way I chose to make AJ stand out from the rest. In a group line-up, someone should be “the big one” for visual variety, and AJ has the best reasons for it, based on her personality.
 
Yes, I know that not all farmers are huge big people. Duh. In the same way that not all nerds are scrawny twigs. And hundred other stereotypes. Again, duh.
 
But for the sake of immediate conveyance of an idea–which is the fundamental basis of cartooning, this is how she is drawn.
 
It’s ultimately my interpretation. If you’re not fond of it, that’s up to you–and you’re welcome to draw your own. You’re even welcome to critique mine, so long as you have a good critique. And “That is stereotyping” is not an example of a good critique.

@Dragonmage  
This is true. And I’ve seen plenty of women with strong legs who don’t have gigantic, horrifying “Chun-Li” legs. I might suggest that Rainbow might have a sleek runner’s physique from her workout routine–except that she mostly flies, which might cause some muscles to deteriorate from disuse.

@G.S.  
Lawful Girly is right. It frustrates me how many mlp artists makes this assumption about AJ and farmers in general with no understanding about the work.
 
All my grandparents came from farming backgrounds and I work on a farm myself now. My height is only 5.6 and no one in my family has gone beyond 5.9. At best my work keeps me lean and trim so long as I don’t munch down on junk food too much. I’ve got nothing on the sport maniacs, scholarship athletes, and the bodybuilders of my school. They constantly pushing themselves to the next level, and modifying their body chemistry with protein shakes, supplements and restrictive diets. My work amount is constant and there are ways to do farming work more effectively and easier if you use your tools right.
 
Also, there are plenty of jobs just as tough as farmwork not thought so traditional. Ever try to be a dishwasher at a steakhouse on Friday and Saturday night? It’s murder. Working at a large chain general store can be tough as you’re on your feet all the time with someone looking over your shoulder.
 
My point is-especially to human mlp artist- DON’T sterotype AJ’s appearances base on her line of work. Keep an open mind about her design and how she can appear. Remember: Trixie called AJ “little hayseed” once, the poison joke made AJ small, she did pull off a dress, flashback Granny was never strong, and Pinkie’s pretty bad at farm work despite her family history.
 
 
@Lawful Girly  
AJ has strength in her legs for applebucking. A human AJ won’t be kicking a tree. Rainbow has also been shown to be strong too but she doesn’t get stereotyped like AJ.

@G.S.  
You’re getting into Lamarckian territory there. The tendency to become muscular is influenced by genetics, true, but the idea that traits gained during life can be passed down to one’s descendants is risible. I myself come from a family of farmers, horse trainers and mule drivers, yet I’m quite short.
 
That said, Applejack has shown herself to have unusual strength (” Years o’ applebuckin’”).

I think it makes a lot of sense for Applejack to be larger and have a more powerful physique than her friends.
 
SHE WORKS ON A FARM.
 
People who come from farming families typically are large and have powerful physiques. Why? People who have big forms and big muscles are more likely to work on farms than people who do not. Thus, they will pass on their bigness to their children, and their childrens’ children, so on and so forth. If you still don’t get it, google “How did giraffes evolve?”.
 
Applejack came from that. She comes from a long line of farmers whose genetics say they should be big. Therefore, she is a big mare. Just because the show (originally) gave the Mane 6 identical body shapes doesn’t mean we can’t be more creative and realistic. (Yes, Twilight is taller than her friends now, but personally I find that obnoxious, so I am actually glad to see it reversed.)

I’m taller than Applejack by 2 inches.

I’m 5’10”. o.O

>Be 6’4  
Dashie, I hope you like tall, men

Also forgot to note that I’m as tall as best pone Rarity. Unf.

@Ambris  
“As for the rest of those, well that’s just your opinion man. Draw your own chart if it upsets you so much.”  
This. What you see is Ambris’ artistic interpretation of the heights of all the characters according to his head-canon. Yours may be different, if it is, don’t go being a cunt just because others don’t match yours.
 
All I want to say on the matter is that your art is fucking hot and I hope you keep drawing for the foreseeable future.

@Dragonmage  
I actually did address Twilight’s height. And justified her current height. The discussion on that may have taken place somewhere else I uploaded this though.
 
As for the rest of those, well that’s just your opinion man. Draw your own chart if it upsets you so much.

@Psychopomf  
I’m getting tired of it: AJ always being made into some behemoth compared to her friends.
 
RD escapes this somehow and is made into a midget because fast people must be tiny for some unknown reason–despite her track record in multiple sports.
 
Twilight’s new height is never acknowledged either.
 
These inconsistencies are enough to drive anyone up a wall!

So… Why did they agree to pose in their underwear?  
Some of them are blushing, even.

I’m as tall as AJ (best pone).  
My wife’s as tall as RD.
 
Coincidence?!
 

 

 
I think not.

Very, very, VERY nice.

I still need to redraw this and make some tweaks.

still short

@Background Pony #0D33  
5 feet, 5 inches is actually considered kinda short. That’s my IRL height, I must add, and many people tower over me. lol