"Which horse colour do you prefer?" Topic

Sorry, tried to show a comparison of the brown and black horse painted for 1st Life Guard for Waterloo, but didn't come out right. Will try again. I initially painted the horse brown, but changed to black since I believe the heavies usually rode black horses.

link

In general I prefer brown horses as they take an inkwash better and I like the look of the white flashes on them.

Mostly brown different shades, but add in good percentage of black.

I prefer the brown – for whatever reason, the black colour looked too.. solid, compared to the browns. The figure looked less life-like because of it. Could have been the way black shows in pics tho, and (probably) it's nicer irl.

I like brown too.

Both, like Vosper said though the black looked a little less life like. A way to fix that, add some highlights to the tack. Add some highlights to the horse also. Very nice work Condotta!

Ceterman, thanks for the suggestion. The tack does disappear into the horse colour, so hightlights are needed. The horse has some highlights where I rubbed the black ink away to allow some sheen from the brown to come through, but my poor attempt at photography didn't pick up the highlights.

The horse looks too "solid" still as mentioned, so more highlighting needed. Lesson learned, paint lighter than normal!

Brown, especially that reddish cavalry brown.

I agree with Archduc Charles, reddish brown.

I prefer brown and white or grey ones for important types

For black horses I use a very dark red brown, a mix of black and red paint.

This is after observing some NYPD horses at close range – they sometimes patrol my neighborhood. The dark horses seem to have a red undertone.

Another vote for reddish brown horses. That seems to be the color that I do best. Black are harder because you need to find just the right highlight so that they don't look like a blob of black en masse.

truthfully though a black horse is usually a dark bown, called a seal brown. I have several horses just 50 yards away that are black but they're actually seal brown. When the light strike them correctly the brown highlights appear.

True black horses have dark brown eyes, black skin, and wholly-black hair coats without any areas of permanently reddish or brownish hair. They may have pink skin beneath any white markings under the areas of white hair, and if such white markings include one or both eyes, the eyes may be blue. Furthermore, most black horses "sun bleach" with exposure to the elements and sweat, and therefore their coats may lose some of their rich black character. Black horses that do not sun bleach are called "non-fading" or "sheer" blacks.

tabletopwarrior, intriguing point about the eyes…I may have to paint blue eyes on my next black horse with white markings that include both eyes.

The black horse in the photo was painted brown initially, so in real life, even though the photo doesn't show the colour well, the horse has seal brown qualilties. I just need to lighten it up some with highlights on the tack and a few spots on the horse to bring out the contrast.

Brahnn…..acrylic tan base coat then Burnt umber oils splodged on, then lightly wipe off some of the oil. then a bit of highlighting Looks brilliant, unified but varied if you get my meaning..and deadquick.

I wish my laptop had not crashed. I have about a dozen links to Horse colours and links to model horse painters sites. Brown is the predominant colour overall and I agree with those above about painting them. There is so much more you can do in 15mm to 40mm scale with brown shades and washing, highlighting.

VR
James Mattes

For my 15 mm horses I find using a coat of gloss medium over the horse color makes them seem more real on the table, gives them the sheen without the bother of oils, using acrylics as the base. Simple trick, nice touch.