Sultans of Swing

TOTALLY required to listen to while watching: Dire Straits - Sultans of Swing. The main purpose of this whole thing, totally xD

The Trotting Horse YHH all finished!
It was won by Moeso, showing her beautiful pair Amelie and Fantastic Leon I really really hope that you like it! I can change almost anything, if there's anything you want me to change. Also, the speed - I think it's absolutely fine like that, but if you want me to slow it down, I'll do it! (:
I opened the downloadable content for you, where you can pay and find a) the original file, b) the full sized gif and c) something.
hope that is all fine for you ^^ again, thanks for purchasing!

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First thing I finished with my new laptop, and the thing really gave me a hard time xD once I almost thought I'd lost the whole file and 3 days of progress, but it was just being nasty and pouted for a whole day before it returned to its usual state of working x'D
I must say, I really like the end result! I'm especially satisfied with the horse's front legs, the rider's movement (and hair) and the tail (actually, yes!) - and maybe the background xD of course there are things that didn't work out well, the body movement isn't 100% right and I was too lazy to redraw the saddle 16 times (I redrew so much, this was too much xD) but I'm not less happy because of that.
but yesss I'm talking too much again xD

Good news - I finally know how to animate horses with gradients in their coats xDDD or simply blurry things, or whatever. Pangare horses. For the soft colour at Leons belly and chest I just painted a hard edged spot, like I did with the markings and then when nothing looked too wobbly, I blurred everything with the Gaußian blur 8D YAY! the next thing I'll try is actual shading with the same technique. xperiments are funnnn

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Amelie and Leon (c) by Moeso
Art (b) by me, used this stock photo as a help for the position of the rider's leg, but really, only for that. the movement was done without a ref.
Photoshop CS5, 16 frames, 20fps
Many hours. I haven't counted. 30?
DON'T copy, claim as your own, redistribute, edit, you name it, please! Only Moeso can do anything she wants with this
ah yeah, and as always, some WIPs are on tumblr 8D