Thursdaily too soon

[ellenmillion]

It's chilly today!

On the action list today:

Work on anthology illustrations
TAXES (*%^&)
Cris' prints - almost finished!
10 emails (which doesn't really keep ahead of them, but I gotta do SOME)
Sea Monsters - got one posted, and revisions to the overview done, as well as about 50% of the northern ocean area revised. More tomorrow.
Anthology layout - finish TOC pages
Finish freelance site - waiting for content.
Image uploading at C-C booyah! Getting towards final refinement stages now!

Urgh. That's too much! I shall do it anyway!

I need help with this illustration (behind cut)! Does the size look appropriate to other snow-unicorn illustrations? Is the positioning of their heads too forced? What else looks awkward? I've got an eraser and I'm not afraid to use it! Redlines, comments, etc all welcome.





And, while I'm at it, comments on this would be welcome, too:

Comments

[redokapi.livejournal.com]

The forelegs on the foreground unicorn look like they're too far back (towards the rear of the unicorn), or else the rider and unicorn's withers are too far forward. I actually like the topline (the top of the neck and shoulders), so I'd probably move the forelegs forward a bit.

The rider on the far unicorn also looks to be sitting a bit to far forward on the unicorn's back. This one bothers me far less tho, so it might be alright.

The heads look fine to me, horses have pretty flexible necks...and camels even more so.

[kelkyag]

There aren't many pictures of saddled snow-unicorns, but the ones there are show the saddles really far forward, pretty much at the base of the neck. I think the theory is they're so huge, there's room for a whole lot of gear behind the saddle. See this picture and this picture. (In the second one, the humans are all kids, thus the scaling.)

This is just the sketch stage, but they don't have whiskers -- not that all the pictures of them do.

I like the range and perspective on the second one. You're going to color that one, I hope? I think that'd give it depth that might be hard to capture with just linework.

[redokapi.livejournal.com]

I'm far (very far) from an expert on snow unicorns, but I will say that riding directly over the shoulders just sounds...unpleasant. There's a lot of movement there, and it's the highest (and narrowest, I think) point on the spine. Most critters are ridden with the rider behind the shoulders (horses, camels, etc), with a few having the rider sit in front of the shoulders on the neck (elephants). Not saying you're wrong at all, just basing my critique on the critters I do know.

Regardless of rider position, the withers (high point of the spine/shoulder) don't quite line up with the forelegs on the foreground unicorn.

[ellenmillion.livejournal.com]

I wish I'd bounced my older sketches and ideas off you earlier! I was looking at elephant saddles, in part, because of the size issue, so that may be why I set it so far forward. One of my other thoughts was for span of legs, that it might be more comfortable to sit where you didn't have to stretch as much over the barrel, but could swing them forward slightly around where the neck narrowed. I had never even considered that narrow would be a downside, or that the shoulders would move a lot. Could we hand-wave that a little if we say the saddle floats over the shoulders a bit? Or if they had a natural fatty deposit of some kind there? (These were genetically engineered, so it's possible they could have manipulated in some fashion like this.)

I'd be curious to know what you thought of that idea. And also, I'm having a dickens of a time figuring the foreleg position out - if you had a chance to do a redline, I'd be very grateful!

[redokapi.livejournal.com]

Well, the nice thing about fantasy is that you can make up your own rules. :) In reality, most of the pictures of snow unicorns seem (to me at least) to have the saddle just behind the shoulders.

Anyways, here's some red-line type thingys. I can't figure out how to get my infrequently-used flickr account to just give me the image urls, so here's the links.

Anatomy structure (as I see it)

Anatomy plus Redline

Just redline

[xjenavivex.livejournal.com]

Is it bad that I have no suggestions? Things looked good to me. I definitely think the background unicorn's head and neck are fine. It could be getting ready to shake a bit.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

Bearing in mind I'd have to go look at other snowy illustrations to be sure of this, but: their necks seem *long* to me. More horselike than I think of the snowies as being. Moose aren't that bendy. And the heads look more horselike than usual as well, although I can kind of see the moose influence because I know what I'm looking for. So the breadth of chest on the nearest one looks disproportionately bulky, because it's supporting too long a neck and too small a head, from how I think of snowies...

[quickreaver.livejournal.com]

I LOVE this composition! I don't know enough about your critters to, um, crit them, but honestly, I think it looks good! The near-rider is my fave.