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cerona — Moonlight Escapade
Published: 2009-10-14 19:32:06 +0000 UTC; Views: 17459; Favourites: 575; Downloads: 0
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Description
Commission for and her husbandARTIST'S COMMENTS
The characters in the picture are Lunacorn and Onyx, a beautiful and enchanting couple, in their non-anthro forms. It was really fun and interesting to draw them, as they are both very special characters. Luna's build is based on a white tail deer, so she is not supposed to look horse-like, if anyone wondered.
Took me many days, weeks, to complete this, mainly because I got stuck several times and had to wait for my inspiration to "drive me on". Luckily, *swandog has been sooo patient with me, and really helpful, providing me with descriptive information and hundreds (literally!) of reference photos! Could you ask for a more supportive commissioner?
Anyways, it is only the second time I've drawn a night scene, so I know the colours are a bit off, and especially Luna was hard to draw as she has several different coloured markings which had to be toned down and almost disappeared completely. But I hope you all find something you like in this picture. Thank you again *swandog for all your patience and support
THE MAKING OF "Moonlight Escapade"
- Tools: Photoshop CS2, Bamboo Tablet
Time taken: A vast amount of time spent on it during several weeks
Layers: 53
Original size: 3508x2480 px
Credit:Deer pose from stock photo.
Several references for the flowers
You are not authorised to use this image without my written permission. It may not be used for blogs or sim games, reposted and claimed as your own, or altered in any way. Please respect my wishes.
- Characters © *swandog and ~sayh
Artwork © me
Detailed close up view:
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Comments: 131
this is very beautiful
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I'm so glad to hear that, thanks
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I am in in love with those flowers could you please make a tut or something on how to make them they are so beautiful
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It is so beautiful! The detail is wonderful! The black horse looks magnificent
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Wow. This is incredible. I love everything about it. I'm pretty blank on words right now. It's just beautiful.
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Wow! The sky and the flowers and...everything is just so perfect! I just love your pictures!
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beautiful work! the dew drops and flowers are gorgeous!
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Thanks, I'm glad you like them
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Beautiful!!!! I love it
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Wow, beautiful background, Cer
The details on those morning glories looks just amazing!
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Wow, weeks? 
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Haha yeah, but not constantly during those weeks! And thanks
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Wonderfully done. I think you did well with the Lunacorn character and her markings are still quite discernible even at this scale. Again, don't be afraid to push it.
The soft glow around Lunacorn is interesting, makes me wonder if she'd even cast a shadow, perhaps it'd be a patch of light?
I would consider toning down the reflections in the tack on Onyx, though I'm not sure if it is reflecting the glow from Lunacorn or not. I would consider the highlights a bit bright if they were simply reflecting the moonlight, though.
You're wonderfully attentive to detail, and you don't seem to get lost in it as some do (a good thing, to be sure!). One detail I just noticed is that there are stars shining where the moon's shadow should be, or at least rather close to it, but that's a rather small thing.
Keep up the beautiful work!
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Thank you. As the colours were much calmer than in the other night time scene, it was much easier to get them to fit in. Although white is still such an awkward colour to work with in unusual lighting. And yeah, there should probably be some glow on the ground from Luna, but I tried adding some before and it just started looking really weird and out of place - like it didn't belong there. So I decided to just give her a normal shadow instead, even though it might not be completely correct.
The hightlighting on the tack I added mainly so that you would notice the shape of it, as it sort of disappeared and just looked like some random scribbling on his coat before. The stars, well, I guess when you are close to finishing a picture, you don't really notice those minor things
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You're welcome.
I find yellow to be more troublesome than white. It's hard to shade it without making it look dirty or just bad.
I know exactly what you mean. There's been more than one image that I've looked at later and thought "what was I thinking there? ... oh wait ... I wasn't." hehe
Keep up the excellent work!
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Wow. This is so beautiful. I have wayyyy to many words for this. I could type 10 long paragraphs just about the horse and the deer! I love the pose that Luna is in, the way she is leaping down like that. Onyx is so gorgeous, galloping alongside her. 
I love this. I keep scrolling up to take peeks at it! It is so pretty. Great job! This is why you are such an incredible inspiration to me. You are such a great artist and person.
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Thank you so much, really appreciate the time you took to write all this, it means a lot to me
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You're very welcome! 
So, did you use a reference photo for the poses? I notice that you like Mark J. Barrett. He is my absolute favorite! I reference a lot of my pictures from him.
This is a gorgeous piece! I can't wait to see more!
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Thanks again! And yeah, I did use some references for the poses, but rather than just using one for each, I sort of looked at several and combined the elements I liked the most. ~swandog provided me with tonnes of references in Zip folders, which was really helpful! Unfortunately, I don't know where on the web you can find them, since they were already put into a folder. But Mark J Barrett's photos as well as Bob Langrish's are amazing as references, such wonderful photos of gorgeous horses! I've got several books which use photos from them
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You're welcome again!
I do that sometimes, and instead of just using one reference, I use a whole bunch and combine different things. Bob Langrish and Mark J. Barrett are 2 of the best equine photographers I use for my refs. I love looking at their photos and just staring. They are all so beautiful and well taken! I have many books, too, that use their photos.
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Yeah, their photos are awesome! Stock photos on here are pretty good too, but it can sometimes be hard to find a really striking pose that you would want to use.
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Yeah, I know. I use photographers on DA, but I mainly use Bob and Mark. They capture such incredible poses and great angles that I could never imagine taking! They are incredible photographers. I agree with you; it is hard to find a really striking pose here on DA. I have found a few, but not many.
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Yeah same here. I don't have any access at all to seeing horses myself, so I can't take photos of them myself. If I ever do get the chance, of course the horses are just lazying around and not doing anything interesting
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I could never be an equine photographer. They make it look so easy, when sometimes I can hardly hold a camera right!
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That's just absolutely amazing
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I love how you do background - the detail in those foreground flowers is insane 
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Thank you
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Haha yeah, they can be quite fiddly sometimes. I don't really reference my flowers on anything, as soon as I do they start to look too complicated and not "free" enough, if you know what I mean. I'd rather draw them free hand or scatter a few flower-brushes around to get that airy atmosphere. If I have to draw them close up, like in this picture, I base them on a lot of different reference pictures. But small, scattered flowers are just custom brushes made from, well, basically dots and shapes 
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Oh woah!
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Great work, love the colors and the placing of the characters, and the clouds and all are very good. Its funny, this picture totally matches the song i'm listening to right now. XD from memoirs of a geisha....random sorry XD
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