Assignment: Horse Calendar, Part 2

~This is part 2 in a series. Click here to go to part 1.~

One of my favorite cartoons to work on for the calendar was called “Horse Show or Bust”. The joke is about people who think they can handle the task of preparing and getting to a horse show without the need for a groom.

What's a groom?

What I imagined a horse groom looks like

A groom is someone who manages a barn's horses and stables, and accompanies you to horse shows to help make sure all goes smoothly.

Apparently, preparing for a horse show is a lot of work. There's tack (bridles, saddles, harnesses), horse feed, hay bales, show attire, lots of bug spray, AND horses.

Just one of the items on the list.

The client wanted me to draw a scene with a truck and horse trailer practically exploding from overpacking. OK! I said. Any chance I get to draw an exaggerated scenario, I'm all for it.

But before I could draw the fun stuff, I needed to set the stage.

I did a quick rough sketch of what I wanted the layout to be:

Then, I Googled trucks and trailers for drawing reference.

This truck matched the angle of my sketch,

and I swapped out the horse trailer for this one, just because I thought it was cute:

Once I settled that, I started adding the details.

This is where I really had fun.

I wanted the horse on the trailer to be the most prominent visual, because it was the craziest thing of all, so I made his eyes really big and pointed all the flying debris in his direction.

The stuff flying out the back I made sure to draw clearly, so that it was understood that valuable objects (like $500 riding boots!) were inadvertently getting tossed.

The horse inside the trailer I drew with a bewildered expression, to show that even he knew this was not normal.

And to further drive home the insanity, I contrasted it with a serene scene of horse and meadow in the background.

This one was a lot of fun. Harder ones were on the horizon!

---