Happy Chinese New Year! For CNY, I decided to do a new design for my Myth Anthro series based off the Chinese Zodiac for this year! This pretty lad here is based off a Tianma (天馬) or "heavenly horse", basically the Chinese version of a Pegasus haha. Instead of putting huge wings on him though, I wanted to be a bit more subtle and just incorporate the imagery in his armor instead. These horses were also thought to "sweat blood", which is what the red ribbons on him represent. :>

Also, if he kinda looks like a manhua/danmei character to you, that was totally not on purpose lol.

I also saved some WIPs of my design process! (on my DA post here: https://www.deviantart.com/seyumei/.....rse-1299025553 ) You can see that he originally had a sword, but I thought a cavalry based weapon like a halberd would fit his species better instead (was planning to give the sword to another character).

Eventually I'll be designing more characters based off the rest of the Chinese zodiac. I kinda want to do a 50/50 split of male/female characters for the 12 animals based on their yin/yang alignment. Obviously won't do just one every year xD but I'll probably release them in batches. This guy just gets his own special illustration this time since its currently his year haha.

More from this series: https://www.furaffinity.net/gallery.....-working-title