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Braydan
Published: 2012-03-03 01:19:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 27884; Favourites: 2244; Downloads: 395
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Description
Oooh finally I've finished *Binary-star-stables comission! This is my most detailed painting ever, it took for ever and has abillion layers haha..
The commission is of her beautiful character Braydan, she said she liked snow/mountain BGs so I figured I'd try and make one for this picture!
It was a LOT harder than I thought (that's why it's taken me so long to finish it).. Oh and I might make a walkthrough/step-by-step for this (we'll see). Hope you enjoy it!
Character:
Tools: Photoshop CS5 & Wacom bamboo tablet
Reference: various horses from google, [link] & [link]
Time: No clue.. been working on it for weeks.
Related content
Comments: 346
First off - wonderful work! The amount of time you've put into the detailing is clearly visible even from this size.
In terms of improvement, there are three main points that I would like to see you work on: Colour, composition and lighting.
I would love to see a more varied colour pallet on the horse. The range of tones on the horse itself are very limited, and some reds/oranges would really brighten the horse up and make it pop out even more against the cool blue background. The snow in the foreground is also very flat and over-bright, I'm strugging to make out any shading apart from the black rocks - I would advise that there are more blue tones in this to add some shape and definition to the ground and to make it match the detail in the rest of the image. While I'm on the theme of white, the shading on the left foreleg is also very limited, and on my monitor I am struggling to see anything beyond white with some very vague blue shading, so I would advise adding more shading and detailing to this area as it stands out very much from the precise detail of the rest of the image.
The mane and tail could also do with some work - hair is definitely difficult to draw, but the highlights in the mane are also difficult to make out, and those in the tail are very rough looking and don't seem to follow the flow of the hair itself. For these sections I would advise taking a small, hard, round brush that changes size with pen pressure, and choosing various shades of warm browns from the coat to draw in midtones and add 'chunks' definition, then going back in with a very pale shade to pick out a small amount of detailed hairs - as you did with the body, you need to build up the colour away from the darkest shade (preferably subtly blue hinted), through rich, warm browns to pale greyish white. The main secret for this on black hair is subtlety, it's very easy to use too many of your mid tones and end up with a brown mane and tail e.deviantart.net/emoticons/s/s⦠" width="15" height="15" alt="
Also I'd advise using the background colours actually on the horse to help it appear more natural and realistic - in true lighting the white snow would be reflecting the light back up onto the horse, so areas such as the underbelly which are close to the ground would have some blue/white reflections on them. In addition, using the blue in the background sparingly in the shadowing of the horse will help to link the pieces together.
Compositionally, the image is very simplistic with the horse being dead-centre. On the plus side, the section of mountain you chose to draw is very open on the left side, so had the horse been smaller and positioned more to the right, the space would have been utilised as to draw the eye from the horse, and forwards into the rest of the image. At the moment the eye goes straight to the middle and all attention is detracted away from the time you've spent on that beautiful background.
Finally, the lighting between the components is somewhat questionable - from the background I would assume that the lighting is from the left side of the image, whilst the horse has various elements that suggest the lighting is coming from the position of the viewer. For example if the lighting were as the background suggests, I would have expected a semi-backlit effect with lighting around the edges of the horse, whilst the horse actually has shadows on the right shoulder which wouldn't be there had the lighting been consistent between the elements. Also there is a shadow on the right knee that doesn't seem to have any source, with the left-direction lighting that area has an even stronger reason to be fully lit and there is no visible reason why it is shadowed.
So overall, your time on the detailing is brilliant - but you need to spend more time planning how the elements would flow before you jump in with the shading. Do rough sketches of the background and horse as different elements and move them around, flip them over and generally just experiment to see where they would fit together best. Then before you go into shading, do a rough sketch of the colours - make sure to use complimentary colours in the horse itself, to sketch in the base colours and play around with different tones and hues, and to incorporate the background colours onto the horse's body to make them flow better.
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Wow, so much criticism for something that nearly looks like a photo.
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It's called constructive cricism - yes this is rather realistic, but there were a few little factors that were making it less so. A critique is designed to be a method of helping the artist improve their work and pay more attention to particular points in future that they might not have realised when they were drawing the piece in question, and in doing so help them create even more convincing art in future.
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Oh. My. God.
I'm so done with the world now. How is this even possible?
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wait a minuteβ¦. this sin't a photo? i'm so confused lol
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VΓ€ldigt hΓ€rlig!Gillar verkligen den korta svansen!Β
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Vish, parece foto! IncrΓvel!! O.O
Qual tablet da sΓ©rie Bamboo vocΓͺ usa?
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wow that looks amazeing ! ^^ , at first thought it was a photo o.o XD ^^
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Incredible!!! Just stunned at the beauty!
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great. as far as I remember you are... 16? omg..... just 4 more years to practice...... will take me my whole life to get this goo! D= This is lovely though. No more words.
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This is so freaking gorgose! -Can't spell...-
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Jeste li mislili: vau, cijela galerija slika je predivna. predivni radovi, svaka Δast.
hrvatski
engleski
njemaΔki
wow, the whole gallery is beautiful. beautiful works, each common.
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You drew the background as well? HOLY SHIT!!!
Amazing!!! Love the detail in both, background and horse!!! It's perfect!
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HAHA thank you!
I'm glad you like it!
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Thought it was a photo too!!! So amazzing you are blessed! I cant wait for a step by step id love to shade and draw the muscles like you do!
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Wow!! This is just so stunning! Magnificent skills! 
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I thought this was a photo from the thumbnail, so I was looking at it as a photo. I didn't realize it's not a photo after a minute or two... Nice!!
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wow!! i thought this was a very good photo until i read you painted it!! simply wow!! Very beautiful
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THAT IS AMAZING! very well done, i love it!
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As just a passerby, I must say, your work is BEAUTIFUL! I thought it was a picture using an amazing camera before I read that you painted it! You are extremely talented!
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It looks like a photgraph. That's amazing.
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my horse isn't good enough i need to try harder. u inspired me too.
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Wow! It's detailed enought to appear as a photograph! Gorgeous!
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It looks so real its like a picture! You deserve the DD, truly!
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THE MUSCLES. THE MUSCLES. HOW? I thought it was a picture before I read the description! My gosh that is AMAZING.
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YOU KNOW, I SUGGESTED THIS AS A DD WHEN SHE FIRST SUBMITTED IT AND I GOT IGNORED?????
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