Hey, so I have decided to do some of my own horse manips. I have done a few manips before years ago, so these two shown below are probably my 5th attempt. I am using Corel PaintShop Pro.

Anyways, I was hoping to get some critiques and tips on how to better my work. I did these over the last two days and I'm now officially done with them cause I can't stand to look at them anymore. So anything I could take away for my future pieces would be great!

I have learned... *cough* that maybe I should size my piece a bit before I complete them. The original full image is a scary difference from the condensed Avatar version. I could cry on the quality alone. So any help with this would be amazing!

IMAGE 1:
Basic cut out, paste on background. Was getting back into things with this one. Attempted to draw hooves, can't draw hair so I use a smudge tool and... smudge strands (lol).
Avatar Version

IMAGE 2:
Practiced a bit more with this, shading, and lighting attempts... still can't draw hair and hooves annoy me. Also removed the halter and for the first time... Like an idiot with the smudge tool, unil my sister told me to use a scratch tool which is faster and does the sane thing.
Avatar Version