Inga

*Edited this description to answer things that kept coming up in comments.

I’ve drawn Farfalla a lot over the years, I’m completely in love with the Arabian breed for it’s fineness and beauty. I do like to draw horses with other body types though, so I’ve felt the need to get out of my rut and make a character that is the opposite of the Arabian. I’ve always liked primitive horses like the Prsewalski’s Horse and been intrigued by the idea of early domestication of horses. I wanted a horse character that looked like she could have stepped from a cave painting wall, a Paleo Horse.

So here she is, this is Inga, she is a Norwegian Fjord, Przewalski's Horse cross and has many attributes of the primitive horse, including her dun coloring and upright mane.

Her tack is especially designed for her. Her saddle is carved from bone. She has no reins. Horses that hale from Edensphere don’t use them.

Bone saddles like this were made during the middle ages in Europe, bone plaques were used to create the saddle, probably from the pelvic bones of large animals such as cows, and were attached to the core with bone pins and glue, so it wasn't just one large entire bone.

Some nifty pictures of medieval bone saddles:
http://www.sigismundus.hu/guide/show.php?l=en&p=4_65
http://flickr.com/photos/elissacorsini/2451628993/

People have had questions about the lack of reins as well, Inga is a horse from Edensphere (the world my comic takes place in) and in that place the horses are sentient, any rider they would have would be an invited guest, a partner, not a master. Thus no reins. Bridles are still worn though, primarily for adornment reasons.

People always ask if I draw my own Celtic knots, to which my answer is no, not on my own, I always get considerable help from various sources with these. I made a webpage about this sometime ago here:
http://www.tapestryhounds.com/Tutorial2.html

There always seems to be opinions out there in the use of textures in digital art. I always get comments now about how much they either like the use of textures in my pieces or how they don’t. Ultimately I decide what I like best but I thought I’d share the un-textured version of this piece.

http://www.tapestryhounds.com/Art2008/IngaNoTexture.jpg

And Linework, uncolored:
http://www.tapestryhounds.com/Art2008/IngaLine.jpg