Look again.

I'm usually awful at making WIP shots in any sort of step by step process. Usually its just a "oh hey, someone should see this here, *WIP*" so heres a rare look at the start of a picture, where I'm still playing around with a couple things before committing to the long haul. My horse anatomy is a little rusty, plus throwing a rider on top of it is making me a little cautious. I ended up doing some research on "equestrian portraits" and it gave me a pretty good idea of what I wanted. (turns out, equestrian portraits are really static because the painter is doing it from life so the horse is just standing there, or its super crazy and probably made up and ref'd. just my guess. But I still like them horses!)

from left to right:
1: First go at what I think I want, liked the horse, don't like the rider.
2: Same horse, tweaked rider, like it better but still not what I'm lookin for in my head. The horse seems like it should be in something with a more interesting composition, but it just isn't working for what I am actually going to do. (saving this version for something later then!)
3: Tried something different with horse, super boring, total snooze, worst tangent ever. i kinda like the rider in this, its kinda what i need. The horse could have been saved if it had been in a larger picture with legs though, but it just wasn't working here.

So I ended up with this one, the horse has enough movement, have enough space for some kind of background, and the rider is will be perfect once I lay down some real drawing.