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Murasaki99 β Dream Spirit - Expressions
Published: 2008-05-18 03:20:59 +0000 UTC; Views: 2036; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 17
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Description
An Essential Expressions exercise, using the template adjusted by . This is my manga character, Dream Spirit, who has opinions and expresses them quite clearly, both verbally and with body language. Dream Spirit appears in the manga "A Visit to the Iron Kingdoms", posted in my gallery at fairly regular intervals. 50-odd pages and growing.Dream Spirit is my own original character. She is based on my old Half-Arabian Half-Saddlebred mare, Key to My Dreams.
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Comments: 41
Hey, this is wonderful! What a challenge, to capture so many expressions on a horse! Hard to pick a favorite...bored cracked me up, and silly is a joy. I think laughing is my favorite, though -- just because you know how often horses are secretly laughing at us. Good to see one having an open guffaw!
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Thank you much! Horses definitely do laugh at us -- some not so secretly.
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Really cool! The shocked one is great!
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Thank you, the shocked expression came in a moment of inspiration. Feel free to give it a try, I'm just building on all the different stuff I have seen over the years from other animal cartoons, and my own horses.
There was a wonderful British cartoonist called Norman Thelwell, who drew the most incredible horse and rider cartoons mostly featuring little fat evil ponies and their bemused child riders. Some of his stuff is out there on the Web and may still be available in collected books. I highly recommend looking at those cartoons, since he could get expression on a horse's face like nobody else.
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His stuff looks like some of the comics in Horse Illustrated I think XD One of the bigger Horse magazines a least. I have a giant stack of old horse magazines I got off some woman who had an antique/thrift shop that was going out of business, she gave me 4-5 stacks of atleast 20 mags in each stack XD
HI is my fav though, and I'm pretty sure that one has the comics, if not its Horse & Rider. X3
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Never heard of him, though I'll try lookin' 'm up if I find the time
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Those fat ponies really are funny
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Aren't they cool? His eebil ponies are the best!
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Bookmarkedβthanks! "Thelwell's Riding Academy" was the book I had.
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I'm missing all the Penelope ones. Gotta see if they are still available.
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Thelwell's a great resource. I had his books as a kid and I love his fat, evil ponies.
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The ponies are the best! And I have known a few of them in real life.
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Even as a kid with full grown horses, I recognized a few.
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Some ponies are just Evil. Chaotic evil, too. 
And some are Neutral Lazy.
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Nice ^^ great job on getting those expressions rigth : )Im having trouble getting it right on humans, but Im guessing it isnt excactly easier with a horse ?
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Thank you! Human expressions are relatively easy since they have such mobile faces. Horses have long faces and while they do have a full range of expression some of them can be rather subtle. Other expressions -- such as anger -- are not subtle at all.
My old horse was very expressive and so I have built up a mental library of her moods and the expressions on her face. She had a "total warfare frown" that was most impressive.
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Haha, Id like to see that.. Or perhaps not.. at least from a safe distance..?
But yeah, I once tried drawing a horse, and it went awkward and I gave up and since have never drawn an animal for riding
So kudos to you for managing to draw those horses : P
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The angry horse-stuff is best viewed from a distance. 
They've got good horse-tutorials here on DA if you want to try your hand at horses again.
Do give it a try, you already know how to correctly create shape and form, the horse is just a variation of the basic structures you already know.
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Yeh,I think my mother once tried to teach me to draw horses and such
Might try it out sometime.. : P
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Try it, you'll like it!
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Migth be a good idea, you could then post it so its just not me benefitting from it ; P
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Got one done for ye! Got it posted here: [link]
Hope it is helpful to you.
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Ill check it out
Though I will take no responsibility for the consequences
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I know you'll do better than Jack Kirby, the famous comic artist -- he loved horses, but he always gave them extra joints in his drawings.
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Really? : P Never noticed
Always thought he was to awesome to do anything wrong xP
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Master Kirby was so awesome, I didn't much care how he drew his horses... but I did notice the funky joints, heh-heh.
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Ill try looking for that ^^ funny thing I never noticed
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Thankies! It was fun.
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Very nice! I love the last three, "silly" through "tired." And "bored" is hilariousβis she licking the page border?
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Thanks! Took me forever to do, but a worthy exercise.
In "bored" she's running her tongue out and could indeed be licking the border. Horses play with their tongues when really bored - the equivalent of drumming your fingers. She's probably listening to a lecture on "care of your warjack".
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That I didn't know, having never been exposed to bored horses (regrettably, my experience has been limited to hiring them out and/or trying not to get bitten by my aunt's "pets").
I could see a sequence where she's contemplating her tongue while the latest instructor drones on. Too silly!
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I've met a few horses that were bored quite a bit -- those who race or show a lot and are confined to stalls tend to really suffer from it.
My instructor's Irish sport horse got lots of stimulation at her place, but his boredom threshold was really low and as a consequence he would think of all sorts of things to keep himself "entertained" -- these involved hanging his head over the top bar of his stall (which made him look as if he were in danger of strangling), strumming his teeth on the stall bars, and standing in his water trough. 
I could definitely see Spirit doing all sorts of subtly annoying things if she was forced to attend a boring lecture.
Horses are really good at pretending to cooperate while making you pay for it.
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I can see how strumming teeth on stall bars could get really unnerving. Didn't he have any toys?
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Oh, I bet he was fun to watch, grating teeth notwithstanding.
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He was a one-horse improv comedy show, I kid you not. He loved laughter and attention, and so he would just try things and look for people's reactions. He adored little kids, too, which was good, because he is 17 hands and about 1400 pounds of sport horse. His sire is a famous Irish Draught stallion named Grey Mara and even though his dam is a Thoroughbred, Dublin was huge.
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Oh too funny. He sounds like a sweetie.
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He became one. When our friend first got him he was a handful. Like a spoiled kid, only BIG.
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