Christmas Kirin

Edit: Changed the shadow. Better?

Details here -- [link]

NOTE TO READER: Everything below this line was typed at 4:30am. Prepare yourself for mild to severe rambling. You have been warned.
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MERRY CHRISTMAS, EVERYONE!!

Phew, this took forever! I changed the antlers twice (which meant rearranging the birds/ornaments each time) and spent 2 hours alone on the mane/tail (which I am still not 100% happy with). Then, just as I was getting ready to do a final save and save-as-jpeg, I was looking it over, wondering why it still looked weird. Then it hit me: I hadn't blurred the background images at all. The entire picture was painfully sharp, with the softest, blurriest part of it being the horse itself. >.< So I went back and half-assed it because I was tired. And it was 4 am. What a lovely way to spend Christmas Eve! (Actually, that's not entirely sarcastic).

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Like:
--Tail....fur? (What do you even call that? Hair?)
--The antler scene. It turned out surprisingly nice after I sharpened the final image.
--The color scheme ^.^
--The mounds of snow around the hooves (the itty bitty ones. see em?)
--The little glowing flecks floating around the horse's head. (Well....kind of. They didn't turn out exactly like I wanted, but I've been dying to try that sort of thing out for a while now, so I'm happy. )

Dislike:
--The hoof prints. I have no clue how to make them look more realistic, short of scrapping what I have and drawing them by hand (which would actually make them worse since I can't draw....)....or caving and finding a stock photo of hoof prints.
--The blurring. Well, just the edges really. They're a bit sloppy, with some of the parts that should be blurred not being and some of the parts that should be sharp being way too blurry.
--The horse's face. Yeah...not my best bridle removal.
--The mane. Ew ew ew ew ew, I hate it. The tail was all soft and fine-haired and neat, and the mane is this messy, thick-haired....mess. >.<

So yeah, that's my opinion on the piece. Tell me what you think! Critiques are VERY MUCH WANTED. Post away! Even nitpicky comments. I need practice taking criticism/critiques without automatically getting defensive or bristling.
(Just for the record, I like the positive part of critiques too. I like knowing what I'm doing RIGHT so I know to not stray too far from it the next time.)

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Horse: [link] by
Antlers: [link] by
Ornaments: [link] by and [link] by
Birds: [link] [link] [link] and [link] by
Background: [link] by