Valiant

Some of the horses who find their way into my story are cameo appearances by real ones, others are imagined characters made up just like the human stars then given a name and set free into the world they'll inhabit. But this one was based entirely upon one word! I happened to read 'valiant' in a book a while ago and thought instantly 'That would be a brilliant name for a brave hunter!', and so, I set about creating Valiant the horse. He just seemed to want to be black, but as that's one of the most difficult colours to, well, colour I gave him a hint of brown round the edges, and some white markings. Then, he needed a rider. He couldn't be for Amyas, who would sulk at me for several days if I suggested he ride anything but Horatio to a meet, and Peter clearly isn't cut out for the equestrian life. Ambrose only rides the farm horses, Laurence hasn't hunted since he was a little boy on a pony. And a really good hunter would be wasted on Aubrey, who ends up dismounted and hiding behind barns - or in pubs - very soon into each hunt. So I had a little think, and what we see here is a sort of flashback illustration : Amyas's father Samson when he was young! As keen a horseman as his son will turn out to be, Samson loves a good fast ride over rough country, and Valiant is the perfect mount to negotiate ditches and banks without a moment's hesistation or dispute : he'll jump over, onto, or into, anything he is pointed at! His only down side is his lack of friendliness, he will be reluctantly sociable and come over for a handful of oats or a carrot, but hates to be patted and pulls faces at any who try it - he'd rather just avoid people's attention and keep himself to himself when he's not being ridden. 

Coloured between two programmes again, cos I fancied trying the two-styles-in-one look of animated cartoons, where the characters are sharp, inklined and bright (GIMP), while the backgrounds are watercolours (MyPaint). I think it works quite nicely, the horse and rider stand out much better than if I'd tried to watercolour them too, and the background being looser doesn't look too fussy, and wasn't too time-consuming to fill in!
(You might have to click twice for the full size view, depending on your screen resolution, I drew this one quite big )

Samson grows a long beard in his later years, in this one it's quite short-trimmed and neat. He also gets rather more round as the years go by, so this is a glimpse of when he looked his best Can you see the family resemblance?