Did a painting experiment! I'm so fuckin' relieved to have space to work in!
I've been wanting to do more explicitly cervine unicorns for a good while now. I've been collecting reference photos of deer and goats for a long while to try and feel out the shape I'm trying to fine. This illustration is thoroughly based on the reference I found of a deer playing with some fawns in the water.
I really liked the mood and lighting of the photo, so when I plopped it into my canvas I decided to reference the background as well as the deer subject I wanted to draw.
For the foal/fawn/kid, I referenced a photo of a goat, because I seriously love how the little dude just perfectly arranged themself in a typical heraldic rampant pose! Such a little cutie! Fuck, I love goats.
So, for the structure of these guys, I did my best to just draw the subjects from the reference, and once that was done, plonked horns, manes, and long unicorn tails on them. And...I kinda like it. I've been wanting to draw unicorns with coats drawn from colors of the sky, so I tried to gesture at that while still staying in the mood of the deer reference. I didn't quite get the rendering where I could've, but I took a very different approach to how I structured it, and was getting a bit overwhelmed.
^_^;; I should probably do more studies like this.
