Horsin' Around Vol. 15

Jan 15, 201225 min read

Deviation Actions

Ashzoi

Published: Jan 15, 2012

1.7K Views

Friends - Behance.Network - Twitter - Donate me.

_{Hello everyone, and welcome to "Horsin' Around", a monthly article that brings you the latest news in and around the dA Equine Community! Horsin' Around began with MichelleWalker, who passed it into my hands. As Michelle always said: I'd be grateful if you could give me feedback on what you think of it, and if you have any suggestions for future issues, I'd love to hear them. If you think that someone you devWatch deserves a feature, let me know and I'll try and feature them here! I hope you enjoy this issue, and thanks for reading!

Ashzoi

Issue 1/Issue 2/Issue 3/Issue 4/Issue 5/Issue 6/Issue 7/Issue 8/Issue 9/Issue 10/Issue 11/Issue 12/Issue 13/Issue 14

Love for the Underappreciated

_{A selection of artists and some of their works that I feel deserve more faves and views! Please spare a minute, go check out their wonderful galleries and show them your support.}

An amazing artist talented in photography, traditional and digital mediums, Outly has a lovely gallery filled with majestic portraits and beautiful full-body paintings!

Quirky and imaginative, this artist has a very interesting gallery all drawn in her unique and varied style! It was a pleasure to browse her amazing work - stop by yourself and take a look!

_{Suggested by irrie}

Another talented artist excelling in both traditional and digital mediums, her gallery is well worth a look! Her pencil drawings are amazing; almost photo-realistic in some instances. Be sure to stop by!

Featured Digital Equine Artist

Plaguedog's style is quite unique. She paints digitally in a way that almost looks like traditional watercolors! Her eye for detail is incredible.

Featured Traditional Equine Artist

:thumb102646814::thumb117779802::thumb70471007:

This artist's gallery is full of gorgeous realism. She works in a number of different mediums, and is also a very nice person! Visiting her gallery is definitely worth it!

Featured Equine Photographer

I spent a long time browsing through this incredible gallery… I was spoiled for choice picking just three images to feature! This photographer has an absolutely incredible gallery; one that any horse fan shouldn't miss. Be sure to stop by!

Featured Equine Photomanipulator

A brilliant gallery with some incredibly realistic manips, this talented artist has done an amazing job merging fantasy and reality together!

An Interview With…

_{Every issue of H.A, I will be interviewing one of your favourite equine artists! This issue, it is Steph is widely known throughout dA for her infamous avatars of trotting/galloping horses as well as her other incredible animations. She has even earned herself an amazing FIVE prestigious Daily Deviations! Her 2D digital art is also well worth a look too, so be sure to have a good browse through her gallery if you haven't already done so.

:thumb194199658::thumb185871108::thumb184070982:

Hello and thank you for joining us! Could you tell us a little about yourself?
My name's Steph, I'm 18, living in England and a college student, hoping to become either an illustrator or work in the video game industry.

Cool. How long have you been drawing horses for?
Since I was 7. I still have a shire horse picture from then. Of course it looks like a pile of tripe now, but back then I'm sure it was really epic. It actually had an eye and everything!

Wow, really? And how long have you been making animations?
*looks way back in gallery* ... early 2008, so about 3 years? Though until quite recently it was just simple little icons drawn in MS Paint, not very exciting.

How did you learn to make pixel art/animations? Were you self-taught, or did you learn through a course at school?
Self-taught, I've never met anyone else with an interest in it. At school I remember spending ICT lessons mucking around in MS Paint drawing pixel horsies, and the teachers were always p*ssed off and trying to get me to work like everyone else.

Interesting. Can you share with us what your very favourite piece in your gallery is?
I can't really decide, so I'll just go with this:

It's maybe the most fiddly animation I've done. The sky, the snow, the 2 sets of trees, the ground, the horse, her shadow and the snow she's kicking up as she runs... aaah! D: But when it was finally finished and all turned out to flow and move seamlessly, it was worth the effort.

Looks amazing!  Do you have an OC (original character)? Can you tell us a little about him/her?
I can't say too much about them all now, or the upcoming comic would be spoiler'd to bits, but anyway... the main antagonist is Em, who's often involved in some pretty nasty stuff, and takes the form of a cute little flaming pony to try and hide his true disturbing self.

:thumb196588622:

Awesome! Your animations always look so amazing... do you have any tutorials or tips to share with budding pixel artists?
No proper tutorials yet, I'm afraid... but this bronzehalo.deviantart.com/art/… might be useful for anyone wondering how to transfer-to and finish drawing frames of an animation in MS Paint.

As for tips, I can really only say: be patient and don't give up! It can be so frustrating when your animation doesn't look right, and you're not sure if you wanna carry on - but seriously, at least have a try at fixing it, and you never know, it could turn out finished as the best work you've ever done! A LOT of my pieces were nearly given up on, I'm so glad I didn't.

  And how long (on average) does it take you to make an animation?
Hmm. Little icons with a couple of frames can be an hour or less, while something like this: bronzehalo.deviantart.com/art/… can take so many hours and hours, I lose count!
Sometimes I do an animated sketch and then forget about it for weeks before picking it up and carrying on with it. It's quite random and all-over-the-place, I really need to be more organised. xD

Where do you get your inspiration from?
For pixel art, a fascination with old Game Boy/NES games. I love their ancient graphics so much (yeah, I'm sad like that). It's amazing how they can make character sprites and environments so simple yet familiar, even in tiny chunks of just 4 colours and 16 pixels.

For animation, probably the same; old PS1 video games with their blocky polygon graphics. You could peer closely at Spyro's textured bum, and notice... it's made of moving pixels! In fact, the game's entire fantasy world is made up of pixels! Pixels everywhere! I just find these inner workings so interesting, it feels great to be able to create my own pixel work and animations like those developers could, even if mine's only 2D.

That's interesting. Is there any particular medium you would like to try?
I would do more traditional work, like painting, but I don't have a camera so there'd be no way of sharing it with the world. D: Also I'd love to try 3D modelling and animation, but that requires fancy software and a powerful computer, which I can't afford. Oh well.

  Thank you for your time. Any last pieces of advice you can give to your fellow equine artists?
Erm... like I said before, don't give up! If you think your art's not good enough in some way, just keep practicing and trying new things. In the 3 years I've been here, I think I've improved so much, my old work is unrecogniseable. I know it couldn't have happened without the support of the wonderful equine community... so a huge thank you to everyone!}

Themed Features

_{January's Theme: Unicorns

January's Colour: Red
:thumb164307791:

January's Breed: Lipizzaner}

:thumb174431747::thumb175460663:

Photography Corner

_{Showcasing some of the finest and most majestic images of equines from talented photographers around the world.}

:thumb276281156:

Contests

_{There's always a contest or two going on within the equine community! I've listed a few current ones going on at the moment, and also ones running out before the next issue is released. Are you hosting a contest and want to advertise it here? No problem! Just drop me a note with a link to your contest journal, a brief description and a date for the deadline and I'll feature it in the next issue!}

Theme: Draw Bek's character, "Lucky Charm."
Deadline: January 24th, 2012
Read full contest details here: bek-piratehorse.deviantart.com…

Help Desk

_{Helpful Resources}

Having trouble with a difficult pose? Stuck on how to draw certain horse parts? Feel like you'll never get the hang of drawing horses? Don't fear! There are a number of wonderful stock accounts, Groups and tutorials that will help you on your way. When using stock, always abide by the stock photographer's rules, and always remember to link back and credit the photo you used.

_{Featured Tutorials}

_{Featured Stock Account}

A fantastic stock account full of gorgeous photos of equines, all of which have dynamic poses!

_{Featured Group
Want your Group featured here? Just drop me a note!}

Equine-Resource has been around for a number of years, and has a large collection of equine stock images for your artistic needs! Featuring a wide variety of poses, angles, cand close ups, this group is a wonderful resource.

^{CSS Journal Coded by FleX177}}