IT MUST BE DONE

Okay so you know how much I love painting portrait horses, right? I did one of Dakota:






I have one WIP of Irish:



and I plan to redo them in Traditional scale once I get my hands on another Cleveland Bay model and find one that fits Dakota - and my next horse will get one, too.
I miss Irish

WELL I've decided that I HAVE to make portraits of every horse in RDR - regular and Undead alike - ESPECIALLY THE GAY UNICORN

 

AAAAAAANNNNDD NOT ONLY THAT But EVERY horse the main characters in Hostage ride, as well as any horse my OCs own (Thunder, Shadowmere <no relation to another horse of the same name> etc)

Why?

Well, it'll be good practice for one. And two - I'm obsessed with creation. I love to see my concepts made into a reality. Finally, it's a challenge. Obviously I didn't create the horses in RDR. In that sense, it'll just be colour practice, and just as challenging.

If you've played the game, you may have noticed that each horse colour is a specific breed. The palomino is the Kentucky Saddler - otherwise known as the American Saddlebred. The black horse is the Standardbred, and the white horse is the Hungarian Half-Bred.

Apart from these, they have other breeds (sorry they're so small; they're stills from the RDR Wiki, but you can go to that page and click on the images to embiggen!)

American Standardbred




Ardennais




Cleveland Bay


"Dark Horse" (It doesn't specify a breed)






Dutch Warmblood

Highland "Chestnut" [It's definitely not chestnut]






Hungarian Half-Bred

Lusitano

"Painted" Quarter Horse





Quarter Horse

Kentucky Saddler





"Painted" Standardbred





Pinto ("Standardbred Pinto") (My favourite of the paints.)





Tersk





Tobiano Pinto





Turkomen (Turkmen)

"War Horse"

Welsh Mountain (Pony)

Part of the challenge is finding a model that matches the breed, or closely resembles the breed depicted. For instance, I might choose the Lonesome Glory mold for the Tersk, or the Adios mold for the Quarter horse. Peter Stones aren't out of the question, it's just about finding bodies cheap enough.

For my own characters - Thunder, Heaven, Crow, etc, I might even make resins specific to them if I can't find any models fitting enough (Or customize resins depending on if I can find an unpainted/body cheap enough haha)

AND WE CAN'T FORGET THE DONKEYS

El Señor



El Hedor

El Picor

And then there are the four horses of the apocalypse:



and then all of the undead horses (MORE ZOMBIES)

And if I can get my hands on some of the breyer wildlife, I'll make the undead animals (bear, bull, etc) but for now I'm just gonna focus on equines.

Now this isn't to say it hasn't been done before.

Here are some LOVELY customs I've seen of

Death (I'm seriously drooling)



Death by xXKincadesVanityXx on deviantART




and the Dark Horse by Vulpes-Corsac on deviantART




and I know there have been others, but they're not showing up in my searches! (If you've done one or know of any others, let me know so I can add them!)

Anyway, I plan to do all of my customs in traditional scale, though I might test on stablemates first! I plan to do ALL of the horses EVER which will help me try out different horse colours and sort of test myself and put myself out there as far as my comfort zone goes, since if I had my own way I'd probably paint bays for the rest of my career :P (Technically I can, but what's the fun in that?!)

This is just going to be one of those "Work at my own pace" projects. Basically, I'll work on it when I feel like it, but if commissions arise or another custom nags me to be made, then I'll work on them. Since there are so many different horses in the games (And a second Red Dead Redemption rumoured to release in 2015!) I'll quickly get burnt out if I freight train it like I do with most of my projects to ensure they get done.

The models might be for sale eventually, but I'm not entirely sure if it's legal considering it's fan art. Are you allowed to sell fan art? I think so, but I'm not sure. Either way, I kinda wanna keep them all and then do a mass-shoot with all of them together once they're completed. We'll see, though. It'll depend on how many new horses I get to counter my boredom, since I tend to get bored of staring at my art very quickly.

Heck, the reason I don't take many model horse pictures anymore is because I haven't had a new horse in a year and I'm getting bored of taking pictures of the same horses over and over again but I'm too poor to afford new models.
So yup! I don't plan to do any of the horses until after this zombie and resin are finished, but I'm definitely going to start looking for bodies.

I'm Not Dead! + What's Up in the Studio

I realize I haven't posted much. NaNoWriMo was my main focus during November and toward the end I had fallen behind in my wordcount. I literally stayed up for two days straight just writing to get my wordcount up - but I made it!

Before Wrimo passed, I celebrated my birthday, got my first tattoo, and enjoyed the day with my sister!

 I also got a new camera, and have taken multiple photos over the span of my absence! 

[Clickety-Click images to Embiggety-Biggen]

This is my English Mastweiler, Maverick!

(She's covered in horsehair. Shhhhh)

And just because, here's more Maverick!

ALRIGHT! On to new business!

A little while ago, I started an original sculpture. He's a Przewalski horse, and a feisty one at that! Once finished, I plan to send him off to be casted and will sell resin copies, so keep a lookout for those! 

Here's the pose:

And here's what I've got so far!

He's headless right now, because I've sculpted a skull to use as the armature for the head (it will be mounted on the wire protruding from the neck) and plan to get it cast, not only to use on future customs, but also to sell! They will be available on my etsy once I get it all set up! (There will be an announcement once it's opened!) 

Some alterations will need to be made for it to fit correctly into the sculpt, but it works!

The jaw also dislocates, so it is a two-piece item. The jaw fits snugly, though. Literally nothing was holding any of this together. I just set the skull onto the wire and took the pictures! I also plan to make breed-specific skulls in Traditional and Classic scales!

This is the big thing right now, but I'm also working on an entry for a contest on deviantART and will post those when I'm done as well (and I'll continue that painting of Colin!)

I Need You, Cas

I decided to start finishing up some paintings I had half-finished on my laptop, and of those paintings was one of two fanarts.

I absolutely love Jensen Ackle's face from both an artistic and humanistic point of view. (Yep, we artists aren't human! ;) )
It's literally been proven to follow Da Vinci's idea of perfection.

Seriously, though, can this please happen?

With that, I found a reference (I think it was a gif, but I saved it while it was frozen so it saved as a still image) of Jensen (Dean) when he was looking up at Misha (Cas) in Goodbye, Stranger after or while being beaten. The lighting was perfect, and I knew I had to replicate it.

So. here's my version of Dean in that scene!
Painted by hand using a Wacom Bamboo tablet and Photoshop CS5 - approximately 10 hours due to procrastination.

[Clickety-Click to Embiggety-Big]