Flametouched

This is my part of an art trade with *DancesWithHorses. It is her beautiful mustang character, Flametouched.
I know it took me a while (and I think it is kind of funny that we each finished at about the same time!) but I am especially proud of it. I discovered a new little trick in photoshop to render fur/skin and do shadowing, and am looking forward to trying it out more. It may not look like much, but it actually took up about 40 layers at varying opacities- the eye alone was about 10.
I didn't know what position I should put her in, and after looking at some horse magazines, noticed that people tend to take photos of their horses in this position, so I made it like an equine beauty shot. Haha- I'm a dork. I made a desert-like background because I like deserts, and some areas in the western US where some wild herds are tend to be somewhat drier in some areas.
Also, as far as the markings on her face, I tried to make it a combination of all the different reference shots, since they all were a little different. I just tried to combine them all and this is what I got.
Overall, I hope you like it, *DancesWithHorses I worked very hard on it and had a lot of fun.