Horse and Unicorn critique/help, please :)

I would be very appreciative for honest feedback on how to improve my horses and unicorns. The first one I did was for a little boy who wanted to match his stuffed animal and I just flew by the seat of my pants...the next one was a unicorn copied from a pic I found on the web. I feel like the heads are too wide and not defined enough but am not sure how to get them more realistic/pretty. I was using a small flat brush, applying head and ear color first then outlining and defining.... please help! lol

I posted a Unicorn step-by-step on my blog last week... http://shannonfennell.wordpress.com/2011/05/29/unicorns/

All I can say about making the horse more realistic or cartoonish is to look at images of them and break them down to parts - circles, triangles, squares... then connect them.

Oh that looks SO much better and amazingly easier, too! I signed up for your blog newsletter/updates. Thank you so much!

Shannon,
love the blog... I will have to look at some of your previous ones.

I was doing my horses as one big chunk of color... Am totally loving the idea of breaking it down... Hadn't thought about that...

thanks.

Glad I could help.

I should do a horse/unicorn breakdown by geometric shapes...

I just did a SBS on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/facesbygina#!/photo.php?fbid=191234387594467&set=a.191234307594475.79866.136231506428089&type=1

Here's a video from Silly Farm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7gCKp5l7tw

Thank you so much, your work is GORGEOUS! I liked you on fb and just enjoyed half an hour or so browsing some of your beautiful faces.

Great unicorns. I like to make mine a 1/2 face incorporating the mouth & eye of the model.
I sponge around the mouth & up the nose. Then across the eye & down the side of the face. I make sure to define the horses jawline. I also sponge on the ears by squeezing the sponge into an earshape. Then I add the mane with a 3/4" filbert brush & use a filbert for the horn(flat for the base of the horn & then twist to make the tip). I then add the linework/details w/ a round brush.

This was a request for Spirit(from the movie)

Here is one of my most popular designs:

I think I'm going to have to practice my unicorns :p

Psalmbook that is so clever! I want to try something like that.