How to draw a vaulting horse?

Today I am going to draw another vaulting horse I know: Himalaya. I have made a needle felt work of her before but have never drawn her, but this time I will.

I decided to draw a picture of her carrying two vaulters wearing beautifully contrasting blue and red suits covered in hundreds of glitters.

I began sketching the horse, starting with circles and slowly building the shape into that of a real walking horse. When I was satisfied with the impression of motion provided by the legs I began to draw the harness of the horse.

Finally, when the harness of the horse was drawn too, I could finally start to draw the vaulters on top. Again my first step was drawing some circles indication legs, knees, heads etc., which I later connected and changed to turn those circles into two real people performing a vaulting act.

Now that the sketch is finished I could start coloring the horse and it’s riders. I started with the horse, giving him a ground layer of yellowish brown. After this I added darker colors to indicate motion and shade. Then, I moved on to the harness of the horse coloring it grey, and brown.

Finally I moved onto the vaulters, coloring them beautifully red, and blue.

The final drawing can be seen down here.