Training Kadar in the Snow

Entry for the Royal Dauphin Ranch 2011-2012 Winter Show and Ball.

Class entering: Mountain Endurance race

Since I somehow forgot to send a note to the person holding the show and the deadline passed without my entry making it in (despite it being finished and posted), I'm just going to declare it a conditioning image.

Horse's name: KhS Kadar
Rider/ handler name: Dante Ashfield
Horse's breed: Arabian

I don't think I've ever used a mostly unmodified photo for a bg before. It was an interesting experience. Contrary to what many people in the HARPG seem to think, it's not as simple as 'slap a photo behind your drawing', at least not if you're trying to do it well. I planned the piece around the photo: composition, horse placement and size, etc.

More interestingly, I had to change my palette to accomodate the actual colours in the photo. It's very blue, without bright white, and the shading and colours I chose had to reflect that in order not to look out of place. Even so, I don't think I did a great job. Anyway, as I said — it was interesting.

I used this stock photo: [link]
No ref or stock for anything else.