"Paint colour for chestnut horses?" Topic

Can anyone recommend a good red/brown acrylic paint (Cote Arms, Vallego etc) for chestnut horses. I have tried the Foundry chestnut but it doesn't appear red enough.

Thankyou for your recommendations.

Vallejo cavaly brown is a good mid chestnut, but then chestnut coloured horses vary in colour from the very light to very dark liver brown, so take your pick really you won't be wrong.

Ink, chestnut ink is the answer. I use it over Bestial Brown from GW, but it works over any light brown and transforms it. Very glossy finish though so needs matt varnish

I use the Chestnut Brown paint from Ral Partha Europe link I much prefer their paints to Vallejo, they are really cheap and the mail order service is excellent.

I use Stone Mountain's "Chestnut".

Funny you type in Chestnut Horse in Google and get 20 different colors of horse.

I would say whatever looks good to you.
I use medium brown.

Howard Hues paints have Chestnut and Roan in their Equine range of paints: rlbps.com/howard%20hues.htm

If you're looking for reddish-brown then the standard artist's color "burnt sienna" look good

Use Foundry Conker brown palette for a deeper red colour.

Thanks everyone, I love the colour of chestnut horses on the table. I'll buy some more and give it another go.

Funny you type in Chestnut Horse in Google and get 20 different colors of horse.

How very true…

Chestnut
A horse having a body colour of any shade of reddish brown with mane, tail, of the same or a lighter shade and points can be either white or the same colour as the body of the horse.

Sorrel
A light, bright, chestnut horse often with white mane and tail

Bay
A horse with a bay-coloured body and black mane, tail, and points

The Points are the lower legs or "socks", the area of a horse from the knee down, it may not cover the whole of that part of the leg. On a Bay, the black can shade into the brown colour up to the height of the top of the knee and would be all four legs.

On a chestnut, the socks can be white, and not all legs always have white socks.

rabbit

Do Coat D'Arms still do their horse colour set ? I bought one years ago and am still using it for all my chestnuts, bays, roans, etc., etc

"Ink, chestnut ink is the answer. I use it over Bestial Brown from GW"

That is exactly what I do, Bestial Brown and a brown inkwash.

Raw sienna with maybe a bit burnt sienna mixed in. Burnt sienna is too red for my taste.

Horses is the first area where I started to use artists colours and mixing paints. I now do that for everything.

Matthew

Chestnut (for horses) is not a color; It is a pattern.

Cannot recall the site but I have notes

Light chestnut, Ochre (Humbrol 83) for body, Cream (H103) for mane and tail.

Liver Chestnut, German camouflage red-brown (H 160) Ochre (H 83) for mane and tail

Chestnut is a hair colour pattern…..it is both a colour and a pattern there fore! The pattern is the mane and tail never darker than the coat….the colour is the reddish brown but in many varieties and no true black anywhere. That makes you a bay horse.

Wiki summarise it well;

link

Be sure to have many variants of color, even if all are chestnut. Nothing looks sillier than a unit of horses all the same identical color.

You are so right. Just made that mistake with my lancers in cloaks. Just about to post photos when I thought…bays and chestnuts, fine…..but all exactly the same base colour. Job for this weekend. They are conversions from the new Perry Russian dragoons in overcoats with lancer heads/hands etc…….but all the same colour horses, even if manes and points differ!

As a fix, you can dry brush some horses a lighter color, and wash others in a darker or "redder" color.

Nice idea! Thanks…will indeed do just that. I had thought of using darker wash but not the dry brushing lighter on others