Painting Tips: Thank You and Summary
David Howard
request. I did respond to several of them individually, but the flood of
messages overwhelmed my attempt. I received about 20 responses, several
by e-mail in addition to the posts made here. This encouraged me to get
off by haunches and start painting; I'm working on a battalion of the
British 23rd (look for the related post if interested.)
I received, in general, two types of responses. I originally was planning
to mount the figures on a popcicle stick or equivelent, but ended up with
a different plan.
General Category Number 1: Sticks
I received several suggestions for mounting on sticks, my original idea.
Adhesives recommended buying new Crazy Glue (since my old stuff didn't
work), double sided tape, epoxy cement, and rubber cement.
General Category Number 2: Nails
Several suggestions included mounting the figures on indidual nails using
any of the adhesives above. Nails can then be stuck in foam for holding
or held in hand for detail work.
General Category Number 3: Mounts
This included mounting onto coins, woodblocks, playing stands, etc., and
then painting them. Included was one suggestion to drill a hole in the
base of the figure, which later facilitated permanent mounting.
My Selection (no audio for the drum roll, sorry.):
I used a combination of 1 and 2. I used rubber cement to mount the
figures onto 3-inch (76mm) nails. I then drilled holes into an 15-inch
(380mm) piece of scrap wood. I can place the nails in the holes to use
for a stand and while priming, and I can hold the figures from any angle
for detail painting. An additional, and unexpected, benefit is that the
spare holes serve as paint brush holders.
I haven't yet removed any of the figures, so we will have to hope that it
works. :)
--
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* http://www.west.net/~howie *
* David Howard ho...@west.net *
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RMCaras
I use tongue depressors as they are wider than the standard craft stick
(popsicle stick). I use 5 figures to a stick. One is dead center, and
two each to starboard and port of the center figure. Then the stick gets
mounted to 3/4in or 1in. diameter dowl that is approximately 3-4in long.
By holding the dowl in left hand, I can turn it to any position while
painting. The dowl being round, is easier on the wrist and hand than a
square piece of wood. The dowls are available at any craft store, usually
in 36in lengths. Cut to size for your hand with your favorite hack or jig
saw. The dowls do stand up on their own PROVIDED THE FIGURES ARE BALANCED
ON THE STICK (thats why 5 figures, symetrically attached).
The Outlaw
competent with human figures now, but I feel my cavalry horses lack
'something'.
Paul
Shuvalov
The best horses that I have ever seen, have been done using oils. I saw a
friend of mine do a black horse that looked fantatsic and the painting of
just the horse, no equipment went extremly fast. He used a white
undercoat, let that dry and than he used a black oil paint that he let put
on and than wipped off the highpoints letting the some of the white shine
through.
I have tried this technic, but haven't been to succesful. If anybody has
any tips on the oil base process, how about them
Clay Smith
Oil painting is the best way to paint horses. Not only do they look
GREAT, but it's extremely fast (you can paint 60 an hour!).
There are two methods. The GLOBBO and the THINNER methods....both require you to prime the horse flat white. Not glossy, and certa=
inly not light grey. Krylon or RustOLeum will work fine. Get these five
colors of paint: Paine's Grey, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna,
and Raw Sienna.
The Globbo technique is messy. You'll need to save some of the spongy
packing material in miniature bubbly packs (or from some other source).
Squeeze a clump of oil paint on the horse and rub it around with the foam. A cheap, large brush for getting between the legs and un=
der the
belly will help. You should use the 'foam marks' to provide texture to the horse. The color can be altered by removing more or les=
s of the
paint. A white horse should be painted with Paine's Grey and rub most
of the paint off....
A faster and MUCH cleaner way is to get a pallet of some sort - Tupperware lid or other smooth item you can wipe off - best with edg=
es to keep the paint from sliding off.... Buy a thinner - Turpenoid is
odorless - and dip the brush in it before picking up the paint. Spread
the thinned paint on the horse in the same way as the foam method.
Add thinner to the horse if necessay. A flat brush gives the best
results.
These techniques require some practice, and due to the cleanup work I
always wait until I have 50-100 horses to paint before starting.
Clay
Dan Dionne
Paul,
I've been pretty happy with a dry-brushing approach with horses. Start
off with a darker undercoat than you want for the final figure, then
dry-brush over extensively with a lighter overcoat. The result will
be about halfway between both colors. For black horses, the overcoat
can be a very dark grey. For bays, use a black undercoat and a reddish-
brown overcoat.
At 15mm scale, I just tend to be a little lighter or heavier on the
overcoat for manes and tails. For 25mm, I use a different overcoat
to get a bay or chestnut effect on manes and tails.
If you want to get really fancy (for 25mm "special" horses), you
can use three coats, with the last coat being very light, and get
a good roan.
Don't forget to add in socks, stars, blazes, and the like--very few
horses don't have some white or black on them. I find it's the white
accents that really make the look of the horses--livens them up
tremendously.
--
Dan Dionne, ddi...@vnet.ibm.com
Standard Disclaimer: I do not speak for IBM, nor IBM for me.
Reginald Rutherford
: Does anyone have any tips for painting horses? I think I'm pretty
: 'something'.
The thing I keep in mind when painting horses is that they have only
two possible colors of hair: red (chestnut) and black. Techically, white
is the absence of color -- this is important because the horse's skin
is black underneath red and black hair, while it's pinkish white
underneath white hair.
One thing that makes it easy is that when you're painting the points
(mane, tail, and socks), they're always either the same color as the rest
of the horse or they're black. Socks are easy because there's no "right"
way to paint them -- they can be any length between a few inches above
the hoof to halfway up the leg.
--
Rick Rutherford rthr...@sirius.umd.edu The above opinions are mine.
"It seems to me that the nearer painting approaches sculpture the better
it is, and that sculpture is the worse the nearer it approaches painting."
-- Michelangelo
Wardb4
I also add a little more yellow when doing the mane and tail. The effect
is very good. I also think that using a black prime coat would enhance
this method. I intend to try it next week on some Ulhans. If it works
I'll pass it on.
Clay Smith
> One thing that makes it easy is that when you're painting the points
>(mane, tail, and socks), they're always either the same color as the rest
>of the horse or they're black.
That is not true. Some manes and tails are lighter than the rest of the horse. A good rule of thumb is to paint black horses with =
black manes and brownish horses with a very dark brown. Dry brush the mane and tail with lt. grey.
You can shade some grey on the nose and put white on the nose and forehead, as well as paint white socks...blended with grey.
Clay
CHUCKVADUN
white with bright colored acrylics, like red, orange or yellow. When dry,
mix oil paint out of a tube (burnt umber, for example) with Windsor &
Newton Liquin (to make it dry faster). Apply all over the horses. Wait a
half hour and rub off the oils. Paint manes, tails and lower legs black
immediately with acrylics. Let dry and finish up details.
If you dont want to take all that time and trouble, prime black. Drybrush
white. Then pick your favorite horse color and apply thinned. This will
give you a pretty good looking shaded horse without doing any shading at
all.
Edward J. Lizak
For those with little patience:
1) Paint the horse orange
2) After dry, use brown ink and water mixture. (I vary my horse
colors by using anything from straight ink to lots of water).
Gives a good chestnut color IMHO.
-EJL
Kennedy How
In a previous article, ccs...@bath.ac.uk (The Outlaw) says:
>Does anyone have any tips for painting horses? I think I'm pretty
>competent with human figures now, but I feel my cavalry horses lack
>'something'.
>
> Paul
>
On one of the miniatures web pages (I think), there is a painting guide on how
to paint horses. I have a copy of it somewhere at home on a disk, so I know it
exists.
Like you, I've had trouble painting horses. Most of mine are 15s, for DBA/M.
Kennedy
--
Mark Boladurant
: shuv...@aol.com (Shuvalov) wrote:
: >The best horses that I have ever seen, have been done using oils. I saw a
: >friend of mine do a black horse that looked fantatsic and the painting of
: >just the horse, no equipment went extremly fast. He used a white
: >undercoat, let that dry and than he used a black oil paint that he let put
: >on and than wipped off the highpoints letting the some of the white shine
: >through.
: >
: >I have tried this technic, but haven't been to succesful. If anybody has
: >any tips on the oil base process, how about them
: Oil painting is the best way to paint horses. Not only do they look
: GREAT, but it's extremely fast (you can paint 60 an hour!).
(snip)
: Clay
Acrylic makes a great base for oil paint. You can use oil to brighten up
the duller polly S/acrylic colors. When mixed properly, oil is also easier
to control and can be used to great effect on details. Because oil paint is
transparent, it relies on light reflecting through the paint off the base
coat. This gives oil a deeper color than the "surfacy" colors provided by
acrylics. Details in the base coat can also be allowed to show through. I
think Polly S black has a kind of dusty color, but add a second coat of
oil...
Mark