writes:
I decided to paint my Amazon very simply. My goal was to get her painted quickly, but still keep her looking as nice as possible. To that end, I used drybrushing, stippling and washes wherever possible.
The first thing I did was to give the rider a basecoat of brown and the horse gray. The rider would feature lots of flesh, gold/bronze, and leather, so brown was a good choice of base color. I planned to paint the horse as a gray dapple, so gray was the obvious choice there.
A quick word about my figures - the rider was one of the best casts I've ever seen, with almost no noticeable mold lines or imperfections; she cleaned up very quickly and easily. The horse was a different story; lots of flash and some difficult-to-get-at lines under the rump and tail.
I painted the rider first. She got a thinned coat of flesh over her skin areas, and then I painted her armor copper. Next I painted the leather parts and her hair with a deep red-brown. Her helmet crest got a coat of a nice, bright red. Finally, I painted her boots with ochre.
All of the colors on the rider next got shaded with the same brown wash. I mixed brown paint, matte medium, water, and brown ink to make my wash (the ratio was approximately 1 (paint): 1 (matte): 2 (water):.5 (ink). This gave me a thickish fluid that would stain all the base colors and deepen them, and also collect nicely in recesses to give instant brown lining. I carefully applied the wash to the figure, covering it completely and ensuring there was no pooling where I didn't want it.
With the wash dry, I next highlighted the skin. I added some of the brown wash to my base flesh color for the first highlights, and then simply added progressively more white to the mix. Places that would be struck by sunlight from above are where the highlights went, and I left the recesses untouched.
Her armor was next. Over the now brownish copper base, I painted a mix of gold and copper, being sure to leave some of the darker color in the recesses. Next I painted another level of highlights with straight (but thinned) gold paint. Finally I made a 50/50 mix of gold and silver for the last highlights. I didn't need to do any lining or shading because of that handy brown wash I'd used.
I painted the leather parts of the rider and mount together. Over my washed red-brown base, I painted a thinned layer of the original color (leaving some of the darker shade showing). Next, I added yellow to my base red-brown for a highlight layer. I added tiny amounts of white to the mix for the final highlights. Again, no lining was necessary because of that handy brown wash.
The rider's hair was next, and was painted a reddish blonde using the same colors as the leather, though with some orange and more yellow added. I painted the highlights in thin lines and tiny dots to simulate the highlights of real hair. I painted her boots at the same time as her hair, because the color of the boots was the same as the middle and end highlights of the hair.
Her sword now got a coat of silver and then a black wash. A final highlight of thinned silver finished off the blade.
Lastly, for the rider, I highlighted the helmet crest. I used the base red for the initial highlights, followed by the same red with some orange and then yellow added for the final highlights. I used the same pool of paint throughout this highlighting (and all my highlighting); I started with a small dot of red, added orange to the dot, and finally added yellow (to the, now orangish, dot). Don't waste time remixing as you go!
The rider was now complete and I turned to the horse. I knew that the horse would paint up very quickly because of the techniques I intended to use on it.
First was a careful drybrush with a watered-down light gray (I needed to avoid the leather; with hindsight I realized that I should have just waited on the leather until the horse's coat was done).
Next I used watered-down white to "stipple" the horse. To do this, I used an old size 1 brush to haphazardly stab the thinned paint all over the horse in sloppy dots. When the first coat of stippled paint was dry, I repeated the process. It is very important to do this with very thin paint; you want to build the areas of color without stark edges.
The horse was largely finished at this point. I used a black wash to darken the mane, tail, fetlocks, and hooves. I applied this wash in a few layers to give some subtle shading.
Finally I painted the horse's face. I used thinned light gray for the initial highlights, followed by straight (but very thin) white. Nostrils, brows, muzzle, and ear tips were highlighted up to almost white. The last detail was the eyes. I simply filled the (very nicely detailed) eyes with brown ink, allowed it to dry, and painted in a couple tiny white dots in each eye to represent reflected light - my horse is not scared (look at the ears!) so there is no visible white in its eyes.
With that, the painting was finished! To complete the figure, I coated the base with Liquitex stucco gel, inked it brown, highlighted with tan, and glued down flock, grass, and shrubs.
From beginning to end, the figure took about four hours to paint, and I think she was well worth the effort!
