I finally got serious about giving the HWHorse a fuzzy winter coat like my Fjords have, and this is the result!
I’d never used the Hair Room before, but after creating over 68 hair groups and figuring out how best to texture them, I’m getting the hang of it. The mane worked out better than anything I could’ve modeled, and I was delighted (and a bit surprised) to find that the hair growth props adapted to the morphs I dialed in (including a bit of Shetland and of Draft) as well as to various poses I tried. Only if the neck is bent or arched considerably can you see the separate hair growth props along the mane.
Getting the coat color right was a bit of a challenge, as Fjord horse dun isn’t quite the same as what a dun color looks like on most other breeds. So I had to apply a lot of adjustments to the HWHorse dun texture, lightening the base coat to more of a golden buff, lightening the face considerably, changing the muzzle skin to a light grey, and changing how the primitive markings were applied to the legs. Once I finally got the coat color right and did a test render, I found it a little unsettling just how much the horse looks like one of my Fjord mares, Ivy, right down to the short forelock, falling-over mane, and sleepy expression!
Rendered in March 2020 in Poser Pro 11 Firefly at 4000 x 2250 pixels.
SCENE CREDITS: Barnyard by ArtCollab; Wheelbarrow and muck forks by P3DA; TerraDome2.
CHARACTER CREDITS: HWHorse with custom strand hair and coat modified from the dun texture in CWRW Grullas for the HiveWire Horse; DAZ Squirrel; SongbirdRemix2 by Ken Gilliland.
PS: Here’s a photo of Ivy, to show the similarities. Her coat looks more golden here than it does in person, I think b/c of he afternoon light.
