In the middle of a river, two boa constrictors meet and one has a suspicious horse (and rider) shape in one section of its body.

People of sometimes heard to say they are so hungry that they could eat a horse. Others, amusingly enough, say they are ‘literally’ so hungry they could eat a horse, when they really mean figuratively.

Some large carnivores such as crocodiles, lions and sharks would be contenders for literally eating a horse, given the opportunity. Boa constrictors have been known to devour humans and large animals such as deer. When they do, they have large resultant bulges in their body. I don’t know that they could eat a horse, but this was the premise for my drawing.

To make it a little more bizarre, there was a hapless rider on the unfortunate horse at the time it was swallowed, so the rider was included in the meal. Still, the rider’s body language doesn’t look out of the ordinary. They remain in situ and seem to be leaning back (as per normal horse riding technique) as the horse makes its way down the hill (…within the snake).

In one iteration of this drawing, I had drawn multiple snake markings / patterns over the horse and rider. I found it looked too busy and also a bit ridiculous (more so than a horse and rider inside a snake) because the snake skin is supposedly stretched, yet the larger area comprised of more spots of similar size to the rest of the snake’s body. This was amended by replacing the numerous spots with a couple large and stretched ones. This also had the benefit of making the rider outline and features easier to see.

It just occurred to me that the pictured vine leaves could be misconstrued as fairy lights, given that it’s almost Christmas. This was not intentional.

I haven’t had a chance to colour this one yet, and because of the numerous lines that make up the background trees, vines, hills, etc., it can be a bit confusing trying to distinguish one feature from another. This won’t be a problem once coloured.