Cowboy Sunset

Full view please!
Its finally done! My first contest entry! It is for contest you can learn more about here - [link]

It feels like I toyed with this picture forever, but I am extremely pleased with the over-all result. The contest was about using stock supplied for us which I thought was fantastic, and I had allot of fun with it. Since it was a selective stock contest I did try to use only the stock and a few brushes here and there of my own, I hope I succeeded. The most dramatic thing I did to the piece however, was remove the chain and tilt the dogs head upward to face that gorgeous cowboy. I worked really hard on the horse because I was planning on having it closer to the front at first, but to my dismay realized it would look rather crowded with a dog, a horse and a cowboy sitting around the fire. So even though you can't see the horse I can promise she is very pretty and will likely use her in a future project. You will see behind the cowboy and his dog it is rather blurry, I wanted to try my hand at DoF(Depth of Field) to really showcase and accentuate the fact that they are on top of a hill.
Anyways...what else.... as for what the manipulation, I think it may say something different to each person. To me it pretty much represents the calm serene life this cowboy has at the end of his day. His horse grazing on the evening grasses and his dog right by his side.

Credits: - Thank you all so much for allowing your stock to be in this contest.
Cowboy - [link] -
Dog - [link] -
Horse - [link] -
Fire pit - [link] -
Mountain - [link] -
Lake with sunset - [link] -
Smoke Brushes - [link] -