Guide to painting horses?
Snebjørn Andersen
to feel I have been neglecting the lower part of my cavalry figures a bit.
You know, those brownish things they ride....
OK, what I am trying to say is: I NEED TO LEARN TO PAINT HORSES BETTER!
Has anyone got some good links to follow? I have tried several search
engines, but am getting tired of wading through reams of 'oils or acrylics'
or 'black or white undercoat' discussions.
Any good, general horse-centered painting articles out there?
/Snebjørn
P. R. Lund
I have a file of an easy 'how-to' on painting horses posted by a
professional painter by the name of Martin J. Excellent post. You
may find it by searching in the archives. If not let me know and I
will email you a copy of his post.
Patrick
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Martin J Blow
But he could also go out to my website and read about it himself. The
slightly revised painting guide is posted in the tips section.
Feel free to peruse the painting galleries.
MJB
--
Mr. Tin's Workshop: http://idt.net/~mrtinj/
"P. R. Lund" <pl...@planetc.com> wrote in message
news:930bgi$vas$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
Mike Hillsgrove
The word is INKS, INKS is the word!!!
Run, do not walk, to the nearest store that sells that Games Workshop stuff and
pick up a bottle of BROWN, CHESTNUT, BLACK, and FLESHWASH. It doesn't matter
what paints that you use, but these are the inks to use.
Layout all of your horses on the table, the more the better. Black prime 1/2
to 2/3 of the horses, white prime the rest. Let them dry overnight. I don't
care how dry they look in 2 hours, let them dry overnight. (Trust me on this, I
worked for years in a paint lab).
Lay your horses out and mix them up.
Get a few basecoat colors. A Dark Brown, a Light Brown, White, and a Buff color
are nice. My suggestions are Scorched Brown, Vomit Brown, an Asian Flesh
maybe, whatever. Open one of them (I keep mine on the slightly thin side) and
basecoat every 3rd, 4th or 5th horse randomly, with the color you've chosen.
When you hit the end, chose a different color and repeat the process till
you've used up all the colors and have hit all the horses. Be sloppy, if a
little white or black prime show through, no problem. Let them dry overnight.
I don't care what the bottle says or how dry they look, let them dry
overnight. If you don't, don't cry to me or badmouth the technique when
everything gets screwed up.
Mix up the horses again. Pull out maybe 25% of the white horses to be pure
white horses. Pick one of the inks, shake it and randomly every 3rd, 4th, or
5th horse slop the ink on all over the horse. Use fairly large wet brush (I use
a 0, 1, or 3). Be generous. When you hit the end of the horses pick a different
ink and keep going till all the horses are inked and all of the colors are
used. You might even wave a brush at one or two of the pure whites to speckle
or spot the horse.
Let them dry overnight, seriously. Ink takes longer to cure. Even if you "got
away" with it before, You won't this time. Garanteed!!!!!!!!
Now for the details. Use the inks to darken the manes and tails randomly.
Certain colors really look good together, On the darker horses, black in the
manes and tails really are sharp, on the middle shades, use a darker
brown/black/chestnut than you did your original wash with OR drybrush the manes
and tails with either white or your buff color. I take at least one dark horse
and use the buff drybrush for the mane and tail. On a few horses use a thined
black ink to hit the lower part of 1, 2, 3, or 4 legs of the horse. On a few
others do the same with the white drybrush. Mix these in with the others and
chose maybe 10-20% at random to hit the nose and forehead (between the eyes)
with a random bit of white paint.
When dry I may take a spotter and touch the eyeballs and or hoofs to some or
all with black paint. If you have horse furniture, paint now (British Crimson
on the straps and reins looks remarkably good - Someone told me this and I
scoffed - what a fool I was).
Now you have a horde of horses that look like horses, no two are the same
color, shade, or detailed the same.
Flavor as desired, for example my Huns all are black primed and are all on
fairly dark horses.
kelle...@my-deja.com
horse with brunt umber ink. different shades can be obtained by adding
orange or white. experiment. I use FW artist ink.
Mike
dell...@erols.com
> OK, what I am trying to say is: I NEED TO LEARN TO PAINT HORSES
BETTER!
>
> Has anyone got some good links to follow? I have tried several search
> engines, but am getting tired of wading through reams of 'oils or
acrylics'
> or 'black or white undercoat' discussions.
>
> Any good, general horse-centered painting articles out there?
>
> /Snebjørn
>
> Hi,
Type in "Mr. Tin's Workplace" into your search engine. Go there. Read
the appropriate three-four pages on the subject. Take it from there.
Yours,
Duane Ellison
MSiggins
>color, shade, or detailed the same.
And by the sound of it, none of them real horse colours! I admire your
production line approach, but horses have set colours and a very difficult
texture/sheen which is very difficult to reproduce. Inks, IMHO, just don't
produce a horse colour or sheen.
So put up or shut up.... If you want horses looking real, I'd go for the tried
and trusted white or sand undercoat plus oils brushed on and 'pulled off' with
a sponge or cloth. It is easy to do, looks great, is quick to do (adds to
drying time) and very gratifying.
If you just want a good finish for gaming, the painting guide at
www.foundry.com is hard to beat.
But either way buy a cheap horse encyclopaedia and paint what you see.
Mike
Snebjørn Andersen
> But he could also go out to my website and read about it himself. The
> slightly revised painting guide is posted in the tips section.
>
> Feel free to peruse the painting galleries.
Thanks - this is exactly the kind of material I was looking for. Haven't
actually tried out your tips, but my horse-painting skills already feel
vastly improved!
Now I think I just have to go out and find a book with some nice colour
photos of horses...
/Snebjørn
Mike Hillsgrove
Painting 15mm is entirely different than painting 25mm. I paint armies, not
figures. And yes, they do look like the horses I've seen (boy from the suburbs).
Ink also tends to protect the figure better, I do clearcoat the figure in any case
to hold the flock on the base and protect the figures from heavy use. Krylon
Clear Coat is my recommendation. Scale makes a huge difference.
Actually, my friends have been requesting help with their own horses after seeing
mine.
So try it THEN badmouth it.
behemoth
But it's only my point of view.
Snebjørn should try both acrylics and oils painting.
Hervé-
Mike Hillsgrove a écrit dans le message <3A53C01B...@erols.com>...
Andy O'Neill
<sand...@digiquant.com> writes
>Now I think I just have to go out and find a book with some nice colour
>photos of horses...
horses. At least worth a browse.
In just about every Military modelling issue there'll be at least one
painted horse figure and often someone's description of painting the
thing ( although usually large scale ).
Particularly if you are painting larger than 15mil horsies, I would
suggest a look at the oil rubbing based techniques as well as staining.
You can get Alkyds which are kinda-oils and dry quicker if speed is your
issue with oils.
Oil rubbing can be used with oils over acrylics. Block in light, apply
darker lo-light colour all over, rub off highlights.
Once dry add socks, blazes etc.
There's also a modification of the acrylic over-stain technique using a
natural sponge to remove stain off the highlights and give a more
mottled look to smaller scale horses. ( The things sweat and stuff ).
Perhaps more appropriate for greys if you like "neat" looking horse like
many people.
Andy O'Neill
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/index.htm
Liverpool Wargames Association
www.l-25.demon.co.uk/LWA.htm
Hugh Duggan
Andy O'Neill wrote:
>
> In article <3A54288B...@digiquant.com>, Snebjørn Andersen
> <sand...@digiquant.com> writes
> >Now I think I just have to go out and find a book with some nice colour
> >photos of horses...
> "How to paint realistic military figures" (Airlife) includes info on
> horses. At least worth a browse.
> In just about every Military modelling issue there'll be at least one
> painted horse figure and often someone's description of painting the
> thing ( although usually large scale ).
Searching the net reveals a relatively large number of pieces of
advice on how to paint horses.
On the other hand, if you need a guide to painting the less common
animals used by the military or by camp followers, then you are out
of luck. I have searched in vain for hints on colouration & markings
for the following:
- camels
- donkeys & mules
- cattle
- sheep
- goats
In the end, I have always reverted to the following technique
[Note, this method works best on creatures with strong patches of
uniform colour. For dappled horses, leopard spots or similar you
are on your own]:
1) Get several copies of National Geographic with pictures of the
beast of interest. Examine these under daylight, or a good strong
white light (i.e. _not_ a regular yellow indoor light bulb).
2) Try to identify the base colour, and the range of variations
that occur. Paint each model all over in a colour from this range.
3) Identify features (e.g. leg or face markings, mane/tail/hoof/
horn colouring), and paint these.
4) If working in larger scales or if desired, add highlights,
shadows or whatever...
Hugh
-----------------------------------------------------------
Hugh Duggan | Phone : +44 1666 832118
Lucent Technologies | FAX : +44 1666 832925
Chippenham, UNITED KINGDOM | E-mail : hdu...@lucent.com
Andy O'Neill
<hdu...@lucent.com> writes
>3) Identify features (e.g. leg or face markings, mane/tail/hoof/
>horn colouring), and paint these.
Usually, extremities are a different colour.
Heat, apparently.