If you're going to do another, I recommend Vallejo "Silver Grey" for the shadows. It's a creamy white rather than a blue white. I did it for a Breyer Stablemate horse I will put up soon, and I think it's a great color. With the yellow hair parts I think cream would be a better shadow than blue.
Freehand is nice but I bet you found it wasn't as simple as you thought. I've done a few fan/star patterns and figuring out where to put the highlights can be tough.
Yeah I know, this was one of those late night, 'need this for a game tomorrow!' jobs (1.5-2 hrs) & was a bit of an experiment in 'wet' brushing. It's also a bit dated now & far too glossy for pics really. The 'MLP' (funny everybody says that) freehand was s'posed to be an amazon icon .....it was one of my first attempts at freehand, the idea being to keep it simple. Anyway he's MY little pony :-D