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Elafacwen
Lindon
Jan 21 2010, 3:46am
Post #1 of 5
(654 views)
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Pencil Drawings
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On my deviant art page you can find:
After the Battle (LOTR inspired horses)
Aragorn &
Ithilien Elf
http://elafacwen09.deviantart.com/
Thanks!
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swordwhale
Dor-Lomin
Jan 21 2010, 4:42am
Post #2 of 5
(475 views)
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lovely spirit,
I grew up on horseback, drawing them from the time I could hold a crayon (I can, in fact, draw a recognizeable one with my eyes shut), so I am the Horse Art Critic From Mordor. (fire, foe flee!)
Keep drawing: you have a nice touch with the pencil. Study horses, study their movement, their anatomy (that's the only thing I can see in this illo: the anatomy needs tweaking: understand where the underlying bones are, and how the muscles lay over them) especially Stubbs (the demigod of horse artists: he was drawing around the time the Thoroughbred breed was being developed in the 1700s. Dover Books did a nice reprint of his elaborate study of horse anatomy: finely detailed pen and ink drawings of a horse in layers from the skin down to the bones, from three angles. He spent a lot of time in a studio with dead horses, taking them apart (and risking various infectious diseases) so we don't have to. I saw his original paintings a few years ago at a museum show in Washington DC. Awesome.
I can watch a horse move and tell, several strides before, that he's going to "break" into another gait (me to newbie rider: poot him, poot him NOW.....too late)...and I still refer mightily to Edweard Muybridge's Animals in Motion. He invented the motion picture, and his book, of film sequences of animals of all sorts in motion, is a very cool reference.
Of course, if you get your camera software up and running, you can shoot your own photo sequences as reference.
There are some awesome sites online on horse color. One of my beefs with the Beowulf film was that they got absolutely everything wrong about the horses; anatomy, tack, colors, attitude (they acted like robots). It's easy to find reference on real horse colors and patterns (the pinto or maybe it was Paint Horse Association used to have good reference on the various pinto patterns: tobiano, overo, tovero, splash, sabino, frame etc. If you want to get really techinical, you can find sites on genetics (what kind of black horse is your black horse and is it really a black horse????).
The answer to the age-old cliche: what color was George Washington's white horse is: maybe grey, maybe creamello, maybe champagne, maybe albino, maybe extreme overo...
One of my favorite researches was horse evolution (some artists had chosen very cool, and logical, colors for horse ancestors). Another was several sites on zebra hybrids: generally bay or dun with shadow stripes. One lovely Tobiano pinto (base color, grulla) named Eclyse had the grulla (mouse grey made up of individual grey hairs: unlike grey, which is white hairs and color hairs, grulla does not get whiter as the horse ages) patches with dark stripes within them. A Leopard Appaloosa/Zebra cross had the stripes within the large egg-shaped spots. A roan Appy/Zebra cross had stripes fore and spots aft. There is also a site for brindle horses. Until a few years ago I didn't know horses even came in brindle!
Keep drawing.
Teanna
www.swordwhale.com
Go outside and play...
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Elafacwen
Lindon
Jan 21 2010, 5:40am
Post #3 of 5
(551 views)
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Thanks so much for the great tips!
The first thing I did notice about the original drawing that I used was the anatomy as well, but I decided not to change it for whatever reason.
I do hope to eventually start working on another horse drawing (with anatomy in mind this time  )
Horse color genetics has always been an interesting subject to me, and I am glad you brought it up (my baby boy is a Grullo). And I am definitely going to have to look up Stubbs!
Thank you so much for the awesome critique!
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swordwhale
Dor-Lomin
Jan 21 2010, 7:59pm
Post #4 of 5
(463 views)
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 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...-zebra-crossing.html
I had to put this here: she looks like she might have come out of Middle Earth. And no, it's not Photoshop.
Grulla, cool! Not a common color at all! I've seen pics of them in various shades from blue steel to a sort of warm metallic color. I love the long nose shot in your avatar! What breed/type is he?
My mustang (adopted in 1985, after 8 years of running wild in southeastern Oregon) was a black mare I named Olori Eldalie (Lor) (nah, no fan of Elvish or anything). Her 14 yr old daughter is a bay half-Arabian named Svaha (after a completely unrelated-to-Middle-Earth fantasy book of the same name by Charles deLint; it's a Native American word for the space between thunder and lightning).
The bits in Two Towers where Legolas,Gimli and Aragorn are runing across the plains of Rohan, then interacting with the Rohirrim are perhaps my favorite bits in all of LOTR. And the scene where Legolas aquires Arod, and leaps aboard without saddle or rein. I shanghaied my old Arab/Thoroughbred gelding into working sans bridle. He was, at least, smart and patient; more so than me. We did a couple of demos for the local SCA (living history) group and had fun with it. We were nowhere near as cool as the awesome stunt rider who worked with "Shadowfax" in the films. He had to gallop out across open country with only a little teenty neckline, and the horse didn't always stop or slow down...
I think there's a reference in Two Towers to the effect that the Dark Forces are stealing horses from Rohan; always the black ones. So yes, I always thought of them as the ultimate abuse cases, hopefully rescued at the end of the war.
For me the Black Horse has always been a symbol of the Dark Hero, like Batman or Zorro. I grew up on the likes of Zorro, Fury of Broken Wheel Ranch, Black Beauty, Black Stallion. The coolest heroes rode black horses.
George Stubbs has a large existence online! One site showing his art also mentions a rare breed called the Caspian (from Iran, highly endangered, looks like a tiny little Arabian, is truly ancient). http://www.horseartcollection.com/artistgeorgestubbs.php
http://www.caspianhorse.com/index.htm
Go outside and play...
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Elafacwen
Lindon
Jan 22 2010, 12:01am
Post #5 of 5
(515 views)
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That is one crazy zorse! I used to ride at a stable that owned a zorse, but he wasn't anything special to look at. Kind of crazy in the head too...
My grullo is a Quarter Horse. Benjamin is his name. On top of that we also have two grey Paso Finos (Montero and Anita) as well as a palomino pinto Shetland.
I have a lot of respect for the brave people who do the stunt riding in movies, especially in the LOTR when they are racing across the plains in the fashion you mentioned.
Going back to the book where Legolas leaps upon Arod without bridle or saddle, this is what actually influenced me to take up bareback riding. My old paint mare, Tess, would actually let me ride her bit and bridless around the arena, but I was never brave enough to try it outdoors. I do a lot of bareback trail rides with my horse Benjamin. This summer I would like to work with him on the bitless approach and maybe someday the bridless approach. You gotta love Pat Parelli!
I myself have always been a sucker for black horses, especially after I fell in love with my first Paint mare who was a black breeding stock with a stripe and snip. (Funny how a solid color can be a registered paint.)
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