ESS 2009: White Christmas

Merry Christmas, *XxLifeIsOursxX!

As you can see, for *Equinus's ESS this year I have drawn the wonderful stallion Blackberry Bramble for *XxLifeIsOursxX. I had so much fun drawing him, and it was great to draw so much snow, especially since there isn't much real snow outside this year. There aren't any beautiful stallions outside either.

I did the image a little differently that I usually do, so it was a bit of an experiment (again ). I speed-painted the whole thing without any references and then when over it all, slowly adding detail and fixing up incorrect proportions. The result is a little different, but it was a really nice way to work. Because of that I had no reference for Blackberry's pose, but since I'm so out of practice drawing draft horses I used a few of my own photos to get his anatomy and shading right. The finally touches on his body were based on this photo: [link] by =SalsolaStock. I haven't drawn anything other than bays and chestnuts for so long, I had a really hard time with his colour! Plus the cloudy sky up there robbed me of my favourite extreme highlights...but I think he turned out nicely in the end. I just hope I did him justice! His beautiful mane and tail were so much fun to draw.

Have a very merry Christmas, *XxLifeIsOursxX!

Artwork (c) to me, Copperdragon
Sweetbriar's Blackberry Bramble (c) to