Water Horses

I set out to make an animation of two horses rearing in water and fell in love with this one frame just before they morph back into the water.

The horse models are a retopologised version of a free model from Sketchfab with a Creative Commons-Attribution license. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/basic-chunky-horse-square-46743d3ca1f64dce8faee122bdcd55fb

Still image of Water Horses from the animation.

After animating the horses rearing I put them in a fluid simulation to create a big splash.

For the second part of the animation, duplicate models of the horses morph back into the water. The manes were converted to mesh and animated with shape keys. The background water was created using the ocean modifier to create movement.