Intermission 9
Howdy, all! Since I'm on a "horses of the cast" kick, here's Agent Ne'Anya's lovely beast, Bella! She's a proud member of an old, durable and elegant breed from Tanoba's eastern grasslands, and was bred in the shadow of Everspring as one of several mares meant to be gifted to one of the ruling trade lords' eldest sons. Despite her elegance and agreeable temperament, said son took issue with slight deviations in Bella's coat pattern and sent her away, declaring in his perfectionism that she was unfit even to be bred. Fortunately, Commander Andrasmenos is constantly on the lookout for sturdy horses for his agents, and always keeps half an eye on the stock pens at Everspring's meat market for animals with potential. These days, when she's not working, Bella spends most of her time eating well, being fancy, and looking for opportunities to bully Agent Muranelli's little roan gelding Brioche away from his food. Might have to start feeding them separately, those two.
I tried for a bit more realism with the style on this one than I did with Xanthos, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. In fact, I'm almost as proud of this one as I am of the first horse I ever drew. (At one and a half years old. On the bathroom wall. In pen. He had eleven legs, looked like a broken hair comb, and was beautiful. Some masterpieces you just can't ever top, alas.)
It's funny - despite having been drawing equines ever since that first grand triumph of art, horse anatomy is still never as simple as I think it's going to be. You try for a nice, smooth, elegant line, and then you step back and realize you've failed to account for roughly 60% of all their weird leg muscles and your equine creation is walking around on wooden stilts. Don't ever look too hard at a horse's legs, guys. You'll go insane.
Have a lovely week as always,
~ Bri