"Painting horse colors" Topic

I have mounted/unmounted Banditos, vaqueros, and Cowgirls! Cowboys to follow…hopefully soon.

But, despite (trying to) paint since 1970's I still feel that I can't catch horse colors correctly, especially colors other then black and brown. What colors do you use for horses? What colors/kinds of horse were used in the 19th Century? Which were most common? Brown seems like the safe way to go but if I am going to embarrass myself painting horses I think I should set the bar high.

Gracias,

Glenn

Found this:

link

The question still remians – how do I translate that to paint?

Gracias,

Glenn

I have in the last year gotten into Old West wargaming and I have yet to do a good horse. Hope you can some good posts.

Jon

The only thing I can say is air-brush! With a little practice you can most of the colors seen on the site noted abouve.

I have gotten good results on 28mm horses by painting them in a base coat of burnt umber then drybrushing with a mixture of burnt umber and apple barrel nutmeg brown. Add a final highlight of nutmeg brown to taste.

-Joe

WarBeads,
Just found a great source book for horse coloration, breeds and a little history on them at Barnes and Noble this weekend on their discount, hardback, rack.($9.99 USD)
The title is the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Horse Breeds.
Amazon listing:
link
Very good, yet cheap source material for painting horses.

Wingnut

Wingy -- That looks like a VERY nice reference book. Thanks for the link.

Warbeads: Wish I could give you some pointers, but the truth is I'm not that great a painter. I usually go with a brown primer and highlight it with lighter browns, or use gray primer and lighten/darken accordingly. I only do a few black horses, and that's mostly because they tend to photograph too dark.

Good luck!

If you want to set the bar high, you should try for an Appaloosa. They have very nice coloring. link
I've done two, a Black and a Chestnut. I'll be getting some more horses soon and I might do two matched sets of Red Roans and Buckskin for putting in harness.

Try using the "horse tones" colours from Coat D'Arms. Works for me.

Mike Mcvey did a painting tutorial for horses for GW years ago in WD.

PDF link

Warbeads,

Love painting horses. I have also experimented with different spray undercoatings of white, biege and grey. All three work well.

If using acrylics, try thinning your primary horse colour and let it flow around the leg and chest muscles. Don't be alarmed if you dont cover the entire horse as the dry brush step will cover that. I would use an ivory white for socks and blaze markings sparingly as coal grey around the muzzle and socks. The hoof is a light shade of beige if the general horse colour is light, conversely, if the horse colour is dark, then paint the hooves dark grey; use black for the eyes only.

I generally dry brush with a light biege or linnen colour and work from the bottom to the top. This gives the belly a lighter tint and highlights the muscles nicely.

Experiment with thinned inks if painting 15s or smaller.
Cheers,

I also love painting horses. I tend to undercoat in white and use a wet blending technique. I use artists' acrylics and GW paints.

My article on painting piebald & skewbald (pintos) horses is here link

And the one on dapple greys is here link

The model horse hobby uses pastel sticks to 'paint' their horses. There is an article on that here. link Nice results bit it looks awfully time consuming.

I use a wash-heavy technique. Simplest version: start with the highlight cover, basecoating the entire horse with it. Then apply a shading wash. Then reapply the highlight colour, but as a broad highlight this time. Then wash again. Then highlight again, more narrowly. Repeat until happy. Then add details. I don't dry-brush (except for manes and tails): that gives a dusty look, and I want the horse to have a sheen.

Don't worry too much about matching exact colours. Horses are coloured by nature, which doesn't have access to a Pantone chart. But something like the link above is useful for choosing which blazes, socks etc go well with which coat.

Incidentally, as reference, I find the Dorling Kindersley "Eyewitness Guide" Horse invaluable.

Try using the "horse tones" colours from Coat D'Arms. Works for me.

I second this range of paints. They have 6 that are specifically named "Horse Tone":
#221 Dun
#222 Roan
#223 Chestnut
#224 Bay
#235 Brown
#236 Grey

They make great base coats. Sold here in the states by Scale Creep.

Yikers Stronty Girl! Those are way cool painted ponies! When I get around to painting my horses (and I can find plenty of excuses why I should not) I'm going to try my hand at some "balds" and dapples.

I especially appreciate you including a few educational bits in your write-up (the difference between a "Skew" and a "Pie", and what the pattern names are and what the heck they mean).

My eldest sister loves horses, has owned them since she was 13 or so (still has one or two), and tried to educate me back in the day. I was an apt student, as in, apt to get it all wrong:

Scene: brother and sister, at the stables, watching a large group of horses in a corral

Sister: Which is your favorite?
Me: (pointing to one in a cluster) That one.
Sister: The Palomino?
Me: Er … that one.
Sister: Oh, the Buckskin.
Me: Er …
Sister: The Chestnut?
Me: Huh?
Sister: The Pinto?
Me: Those are beans!
Sister: You mean the Roan?
Me: (frustrated) What the hell color is that?
Sister: I'm going to tell mom you used that word!
Me: THAT ONE!
Sister: That's called a Bay.
Me: Now I KNOW you are making this all up. Anything called a Bay would surely be blue, like water.
Sister: You are so stupid.
Me: I'm going to tell mom you called me names!

Ah, good times. Turns out, by the way, that the one I liked the best was a Buckskin, assuming that means a light tan sort of color for the body, and dark mane and tail. But there were no Pintos or Dapples in the mix, so now I'm not so sure which I like best.

Steve

Well, shoot, I was going on about this; and instead this Wiki page link says it all. Wiki has good articles on all horsey coloration; just insert the coloring you are interested in in Google browser and voila! Wiki comes up on the first page. With good pictures to illustrate too.

I drybrush a mixture of the two colors where they meet, or the lazy way, I drybrush the darker color over the lighter color at the edges; or if using paint that hasn't fully dried yet, you can blend them with your brush where they meet.

I basically paint two colors of horses: Chestnut and Not Chestnut. Everything else can be a pain in the neck.

Check this link.

TMP link

SeattleGamer – thanks for the kind words.

I wouldn't worry about not getting your head round horse colour terminology. After all, the horsey set call most white horses 'grey' and I discovered after years that a book I adored as a kid, which was called The Silver Brumby, was not about a white or grey horse, but a palomino one! The UK publisher apparently also didn't know, as all the covers have white horses on them…