The Fire Lord

Hah! Such a great title, right?

Ok, gosh. This was a commission done for Maeris, who, might I say, was absolutely superb with all her patience. Kudos to you, darling.

She wanted a horse, canter pirouette in a puddle of gasoline and ringed by fire, as if the horse started it. But, then she gave me artistic freedom and this is what happened.

This was my very first time ever working with fire. Holy cow! I used gobs and gobs of layers of it and eventually it began to click into place. I tried a regular mane, and nah, scrapped it. Did a fire tail, and nah, scrapped it, but that one was Joshs call. I drove that man nuts asking him to come look at it and tell me what he thought, what looked wrong, etc. By the end of tonight he'd sit on the couch and stare at me without moving. LOL.

Sorry Josh.

Aaah, lets see. Obviously, the mane and tail were replaced. I lifted and curved the neck and brought the head in. Replaced the ears, opened the jaw and painted in some teeth, painted over the eye. I tilted the horse back, too, and altered/drew up/in the forelegs as well to add some dramatics, and give an overall pissed feeling, since that's what Maeris wanted.

And lots of other stuff, but I'll let you guys look if you want and try to figure it out.


Special thanks to devils-horizon and Sylvanestra, because I annoyed the crap out of them too with demands for opinions and critiques along the way. Thank you too, to devils-horizon for the playlist that got me through this picture!


Time: 40+hours
Tools: Wacom Intuos3 + Adobe CS2
Active Layers: 71 - 40 alone make up the fire.



Closeups: arrsistable.deviantart.com/art…




Elemental Horse series:
Water: Elemental: Water arrsistable.deviantart.com/art…
Earth: The Earth Goddess arrsistable.deviantart.com/art…



Credits:
RikkDarkMoon - rikkdarkmoon.deviantart.com/ar… rikkdarkmoon.deviantart.com/ar… rikkdarkmoon.deviantart.com/ar… rikkdarkmoon.deviantart.com/ar…
VivaStock - vivastock.deviantart.com/art/F…
Mithgariel-stock - mithgariel-stock.deviantart.co…
jozut - jozut.deviantart.com/art/Sea-o… jozut.deviantart.com/art/Sea-o… jozut.deviantart.com/art/Sea-o…
narghaash-stock - narghaash-stock.deviantart.com…
jack-the-pumkin-king - jack-the-pumkin-king.deviantar…
Stickfishies-Stock - stickfishies-stock.deviantart.…
AthenaStock - athenastock.deviantart.com/art…
night-fate-stock - night-fate-stock.deviantart.co…
Roslend - roslend.deviantart.com/art/Tel… NOT STOCK, used with full permission. Thanks hun!
absurdus - absurdus.deviantart.com/art/13…
little-stock - little-stock.deviantart.com/ar…
SXC, C/O Costi: www.sxc.hu/browse.phtml?f=view…