I think I got the idea because violin bow strings are made from horse hair, which is why the violin horse has white hair. Then while thinking of the violin's design I thought just doing an all brown horse with just an F-hole (yes, that's really what it's called) on its back would be kind of boring. I got inspired to mix it with natural markings because the violin was pretty close to a natural horse color. The violin horse is based of a buckskin with white socks and a star&strip
That pps there is an appaloosa and sheet music blend. You'll notice I used a bass clef rather than the more commonly used treble clef. I played bass clef in Jr. High so I have a slight bias towards it, lol.
The grey dapple is based off a flute, specifically a black and silver flute. I have the keys going down the back to look a bit like a spine. I had never done a dapple texture before now, that was a steep learning curve.
Lastly the black piabald piano. This one ended up being the most organic of the bunch. I didn't want to add unedited piano keys as they're very geometric and would look great on such an organic pattern. It was tricky getting the keys to distort into natural makings without making it too busy or the transition too jarring. By the way, the black marking the keys are in curved like a grand piano and along the neck are tuning pins.
I was thinking of doing a saxophone and french horn, but then I looked at the instruments and decided against tendonitis.