Kindness of Night

And with this, that basically covers this girl's start in life - design, reference and birth picture



Oceana, otherwise known as Kairi, has been aged up a bit and given some history to cover the intervening time, but this would be her in her very early days. I like to think she was born at night, out in the field (probably a small shock for her poor mum, glowing like that).

On that note, Mum is #745 Sonnet owned by Sashafras I guess you could count this as gift art - I really don't know how it works in the point system, but I just like drawing pictures of foals that Lakewood breeds alongside their mothers

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Night air is kind to trembling, tiny, newborn lungs. You can inhale the moonlight and the stardust until their silvery songs wake you to the world. Night time pastures are kind to unsteady, spindly newborn legs. You stagger upright to four tiny hooves and get your first taste of gravity in the way you sway in the spongy long grasses. Gravity is a fundamental rule of the world, but it doesn't last long on you. Night skies are kind to wondrous, shining eyes that light up in the gloom as though you were born full of your own stars. You don't need the ones in the heavens. Ocean stars glitter in your coat, throwing off their own, ethereal light. You have your own, but you think you may want to touch those stars anyway, one day. And mothers that stand quietly, pride shining in their eyes and moonlight weaving into their copper coats are kind to foals not two hours old, who never learned to walk, but still try to fly.

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Don't even ask me about that wacky handful of words. Just felt like throwing some at the page and that happened

There is also a version of this without that faint ring of blue in the grass, but I went with this one in the end. I kind of like it, but I also felt it was better fitting, given that bio luminescence is in effect, emitting your own light - surely that would reflect off of surroundings?

(There's so many freaking ideas in my head for this gene. I need to learn how to animate, really).

Regarding the art...I'm not even sure how long it took, but I'll guess no more than 6 hours, likely less. I started with some rather odd sketches, painted both horses first, then did the background last. It all came together fairly well, really. Both horses are greyscale shaded, and I loved how they came out, even if for half the painting I didn't know if it was going to be day or night. So the shadows are maybe a little strong. When I decided on night, I threw in another shading layer to make it a little 'colder'. The background was actually pretty quick; a few texture brushes worked nicely for the foliage and grass but the rest is done manually with a lot of airbrush. Favourite tool. And to finish off, a couple of filters to tie the colours together and generate a bit more of a night-time look.

Did I go overboard? Yes, yes I did.

Do I care? No, not really. I will in the morning, considering I'm not asleep yet, though.

Time - a bit under 6 hours?
These photographs used loosely as references just in the sketch stage (discarded before lining): upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia… www.solaris-sport-horses.co.uk…
Art, weird ass story and Oceana copyright to Tattered-Dreams
Sonnet belongs to Sashafras
Faime breed copyright to :devemmy 1320:
Do not take, copy, edit, redistribute or manipulate.