Author notes

Old Friends

PaulEberhardt

on Oct. 14, 2013

This is more or less the final page of the horse story, although I think I'll add one more drawing later. After that we'll get back to something more "classic" - after all, this is "Master the Tiger", not "Master the Horse". ;)
I'd have finished the story arc earlier, but I desperately wanted to draw Fríða. It was a matter of pride.
I read somewhere (can't really remember where) that an average illustrator will hardly ever need to draw more than the walk, the trot/canter and the gallop. This is of course nothing but the honest truth, but to me it's also a challenge: I am NOT an average illustrator!
This is why Fríða displays a rare gait called the "flying pace" in the last panel. If you imagine a plunkety-plunkety-zoom! sound as in the old cartoons, you'll pretty much get the picture of the way the real thing looks like. It takes an Icelandic horse to do this.*
There have always been a lot of them around in my area, and I'm as fond of them as I am of horses in general. And don't call them ponies, because you'll get in trouble with the Icelanders - they're a matter of national pride up there.