It's Horsey McHorseface

What started out as a throwaway joke I made on Twitter has taken real, 3-dimensional form. It just took a couple months. I think I once said that crocheting was like an old-school version of 3-D printing, it just takes way longer. But it's also cheaper - all you need is a hook, which can run anywhere from $2-$7 and a skein or two of yarn (and Red Heart or its clones, which is preferred for amigurumi for numerous reasons, is cheap and widely available) and some stuffing and then felt or whatever you need for features. And it's low tech - I could have made this sitting by a campfire if it was bright enough.

Anyway. There is a real, honest-to-goodness racehorse named Horsey McHorseface, which was itself a joke on the Boaty McBoatface affair.

And for me, it started out with ordering a G1 MLP "Salty" (Which I have, and I guess I never photographed? Some time I need to put my whole little G1 herd together and take a picture). I said I was going to rename him Boaty McBoatface because his cutie mark is a ship. (I had wanted a boy pony anyway for my little herd, and so when I saw the Salty available....I decided he would be it).

Then I thought, after seeing the Horsey story: why not make a G4 style amigurumi pony and name it Horsey McHorseface. And it went from there:





I wound up doing his hair more like a "real" horse's hair, just sort of plain and running along the back of his neck; I figured a boy pony would be less likely to go in for an elaborate manestyle (unless he's a hipster like Fluttershy's brother)

Horsey is a boy pony, like the "real" Horsey is. He's made off of the standard pattern I use for mares because he's a sprinter, and is smaller and lighter than the typical stallion. (Ponyville, for those unfamiliar - heck, pretty much all of Equestria we've seen - skews heavily female. There were a lot of fan theories on why that is "in universe," the real reason probably being that pretty ponies are intended as "girl toys," so "of course," most of them will be girls themselves).

Anyway. I speculated on Twitter what Horsey's cutie mark could be, and someone (I think it was Aven) suggested a horse's face. That amused me greatly: a horse named Horsey McHorseface with a horse's face on his horse's butt. Of course, doing the standard applique-and-embroidery cutie mark of that would be a giant pain, but on a trip to the JoAnn Fabrics I found a ready made applique:






It's a little disproportionately big, and that would have been TOTALLY in keeping with my original imagining of Horsey's personality: that he KNEW he was a great runner and a famous track-and-field star, he was totally proud of that fact to the point of being a little obnoxious, and he was also the kind of pony who figured all the "ladies" would totally go for him.

But funny things happen when you put faces on toys. I made his mouth first - sort of a crooked, half-smirking smile. But then the eyes came out a little softer, and I wound up unpicking the first set of eyebrows because they looked too mean and grumpy, so instead....



You get a slightly shy and embarrassed Horsey instead, somepony not totally comfortable with his fame, who just runs because he enjoys running. Oh, he's happy that he's good at it (and maybe he's more of a marathoner than a sprinter), but he's definitely not the boastful Horsey I first had in mind.

So I was originally going to do a gag photo of Horsey "checking out" several of the female ponies I have, with the caption "Lllllladies?" but instead I got something more like



"That feel when you're at a party with a lot of cuties but you're too shy to talk to ANY of them." (Notice the crossed front legs.)

(Then again, it kinda looks like Treehugger is digging him; he should go up and talk to her.)

And since it seems to be typical now that I take a webcam shot of me with whatever New Pony I have obtained by any means (purchase, gift, making), here's one with Horsey:

(My chin is alllll broken out right now from a combination of stupid perimenopause and high humidity, so Horsey can camouflage that)