The wanderer, the dreamer, this is Kata for my very old friend elkayell! I was beyond excited when she won the YHH because I haven't made art for Katie in many years and after explaining her character, it really did fit perfectly! Basically, Kata is an illusionist who can weave any fantasy around her she desires, real or fake, and often pursues her dreams and places she could never go but longs to. So who better to have wading through this mystical sky-sea? The hope was to make it difficult to know if the horse is in an actual ocean merely reflecting the sky or somehow swimming through some form of the actual sky, and to let that be a question each viewer can answer for themselves. Between the difficult angle of the lighting, the difficult perspective/angle of the overall piece, and the deep "water" she's in, I really struggled with what everything should look like. Hopefully I got it close enough! This pushed me harder than I have been before and challenged me with aspects I've been avoiding. Anyone else notice I evaded all forms of water for a long time? Yeahh.... decided to finally face that head-on. Between the original YHH and this, I spent more time on this manip than I have on any other in a very long time. Hell, the background alone took me the time that two full manips would normally take me! I reworked it... a lot. In fact, I kept the old layers and switching between them, they're totally different images... like 8 different times. xD But I think the final result is well worth it and I certainly enjoyed it! I'm also really proud to say the horse stock is 100% painted over this time! I legitimately took a fill bucket and covered the whole dang thing and painted all of it myself, so not a scrap of stock is showing anywhere on that subject! Hair, eye, feather, entire body, markings, jewelry.... if it weren't for that background, I could call this a digital painting, eh? ;D Too bad I have 0 interest in learning how to paint backgrounds hahah.

Blood Moon 2015
Water Texture
Water Texture 
Stock - Duckie
Swimming Along: stock
Milky way, cygnus
moar stars
STOCK - Equitana 2013-443 (used as reference only)