The 1002-nd nightfall

Edit: Uploaded a quick, slightly edited remake, with better colors and, hopefully, atmosphere. Enjoy.

This is a desert unicorn - very rare and very gracious (as all unicorns) creature, one of the few species that live in environments completely bereft of woods. I guess they enjoy their home nevertheless, especially in twilight when the desert is truly wondrously beautiful. 

Enough about mythology, I had an idea of drawing some creature concept, just to see how it will turn out. I picked a unicorn because they are relatively easy to draw (no scales, no fantastic anatomy, no fur, no hesitations about what they actually look like), AND they are amongst my favourite. As a matter of fact when I don't know what to draw (and I do feel like drawing), I either start a unicorn, or a dragon. But dragons have scales
And the desert was about the easiest environment I could think of - although I had some minor hardships till I got mechanics of dune formation. Still, times and times easier than woods or mountains or anything. I wanted to start with something simple and easy. We'll see what's next

Now the initial concept was an Arabian-like unicorn standing on a windswept sand dune at sunset. Then when the moon appeared (yes, it IS blue), it casted some very nifty blue lights over the unicorn's body, and finally when I did the entire sky, the overall look started to really remind me of Scheherezade's tales.... My brother said the same. But calling the picture simply "Arabian nights" or "Tales of the 1001 nights" was soooooo plain and straightforward.... And hence the title. After all in the original 1001 nights there was nothing about unicorns - perhaps one appears in the 1002-nd

That's it, I'll stop writing cause I already said too much.
Hope you like it, I know I do like it very much


___________________

Done entirely in Ps CS4 with Genius Tablet.
Original size: 1600 x 1000. No references, no textures.


Animated tutorial: