Horses Anyone? How About Some Minis Too?

Modeling Subjects Figures and Misc.
1

Okay, it was suggested to me that I stop by and post a couple pics.

Don’t worry, I won’t post a novel like I did in my intro. [:D]

![|290x427](http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/kathrynloch/Model Horses/2008_0525lady0018.jpg)

1:32 Scale Resin - Blue Roan Tennessee Walking Horse.

Body: Pan Pastels - Gray Set and Dull Coat Sealer. Colored Pencils for Hair Detail. Eyes, Markings, Hooves, acrylics and mixed media.

![|524x390](http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/kathrynloch/Model Horses Completed/Elnathan/20101027_1.jpg)

1:9 Scale - Arabian Stallion with Snow Effects Base.

Body: Dry Pigments layered under Dull Coat sealer - but he still went a bit shiny on me. Acrylics and mixed media for details. Base painted and modeling snow effects applied.

!(http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/kathrynloch/Miniatures/Minis From Website/Arwenfinal2.jpg)

Games Workshop LOTR: Arwen. Wet blended acrylics - nonmetallic metal technique used on all “metal” objects.

!(http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/kathrynloch/Miniatures/Minis From Website/Arwenmounted1.jpg)

Games Workshop - LOTR: Arwen Mounted. Wet-blended acrylics and non mentallic metal technique.

Only flat paints were used on this and the previous miniature.

hehe…I think I’ve done enough damage for one day and two threads, so I’ll leave ya with this.

Cheers!

2

Hi Crazy Horse Lady!

I love your horses–I have quite a few that I’ve done over the years, and I’d like to share them with you! I like your larger sized horses; I tend to do 1/32 ones from…oh, crap, I can’t remember–maybe Andreas Miniatures? I build them for my fiancee as gifts. Here’s a few of my her collection!

I built this to commemorate our falling-in-love, and as a hypothetical meeting between “Wildfire” and “Epona”. It was conceived of an answer to the riddle in the song “WIldfire” by Michael Martin Murphy, where Wildfire runs off in a blizzard. Why? Well, wouldn’t YOU too if you were in love? [;)]

Also built for Christmas one year…

Not a “horse” exactly, but a donkey!This is from a scene in a Pooh movie, where Eeyore has to carry a clock into the forbidden forest because none of the group has a watch!

This one’s in 1/72 scale–really tiny!

And some individual ones:

And a war scene–this was in the magazine Finescale Modeler special issue;

Another really small one with my fiancee in the turret of the tank!

I hope you enjoyed them! Keep posting your horses if you have any more! [:)]

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Now those are really nice! [Y]

I love Eeyore! He was always my favorite character in the Pooh series. I think my absolute favorite of the ones you posted is the jousting scene. I’d love to see some close-ups of that. The medieval age is another hobby of mine.

I really like Andrea minis too! And Pegaso. I’ve got a bunch of them, why I went out and bought them when I can’t paint 'em, I have no clue, but I love them!

I like the twist on Wildfire and Epona, medieval, anything historical really, and various mythos are something I really enjoy.

I think you might really enjoy the world of customizing. Basically take a plastic model horse you buy at the store, then whack it apart, resculpt and repaint. Or…just clean it up a little, mold lines and whatnot, and repaint. Some might freak over the copyright thing, but companies like Breyer and Peter Stone Horses, etc. consider it “fan art” and encourage it. They even have competitions for customs at the model horse shows they sponsor.

Really well done! I enjoyed the pictures!

I’m packing up right now to go to a model horse show this weekend. Hopefully, I’ll definitely have more pics soon. [:D] I wish I wasn’t in such a rush right now.

Thanks again for posting!

Cheers!

4

Hi Crazy Horse Lady,

I’ve never tried customizing–actually, as I said, most of these horses were done for my fiancee, but I do have another military cart/ambulance that is horse-drawn that I’ll be doing in the future.

I paint my brown horses in a method that you might find useful. I paint them in an acrylic base of like a goldenrod color–a dark yellow, like ragweed weeds, or even a rusty-orange color. Then, apply a diluted coat of raw umber oil paint over the whole thing–slightly thinned, but not enough so that it runs. More like the consistency of thick creme. Let it sit for 10 minutes. Then, carefully wipe off with a soft facial tissue, being careful not to get “fuzzies” left behind. The oil paint will sit in the recesses and give you great shadows and tone. Let dry fully. The dried oil paint even gives you a nice semi-gloss sheen that looks like a real horse’s coat.

You can experiment with variations on the acrylic base coat and the top oil coat (for instance, mixing in more orange or yellow ochre) to tint the result of the horse’s coat.

Here’s some more pics of my medieval tournament! Glad you liked it!

Don’t know if you noticed, but all the standards are motorcycle company logos, lol. (We both ride dirt bikes and have dual-sport motorcycles!)

Hope you did well at your show! Looking forward to seeing some more of your horses!

5

I have a question for each of you: How do you tackle the non furry areas such as teh nose, eyes, hooves and mouth? Also do you texture the main coat or just go with the base platic texture?

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Simply oil paint them in. I suggest getting a good reference book–you can get them off the internet in any number of titles. “Horse Breeds” or something similar. The eyes are just black pools with white highlights and white crescents in the one corner, basically. The noses depend on the horse breed. Again, reference is your best friend here.

Hooves also depend on the breed, but normally as they are hidden in the grass or ground work, I just paint them simply flat black.

I don’t texture the coat in 1/32 scale.

7

Sorry for the delay, I made it back from the show but was pretty wiped out and work just about finished me off.

I have a different technique, for the non-furry areas, I use acrylics but extremely thinned and several layers. My coat colors are done in dry pigments and each layer is sealed in dull coat. So the horse has layers of coloring on his face but no real detail. I used thinned acrylics for that and yes, doog is right, getting a reference of a real horse helps a lot.

For the eyes, I also use acrylics and retarder so I can get some blending. I start with off-white over the entire eye, then I paint a black cornea, then brown with retarder, but I just leave a tiny bit of the black showing so I have it outlining the brown. A horse’s pupil is horizontal, so I get black again and paint the pupil but do a very slight mix, so it’s not really super stark.

Then I take a touch of brown ink and lightly hit the corners where the off white is, the streaking from the ink gives the illusion of blood vessels (and yes, I even do this on my tiny horses). After that’s dry, I brush on some acrylic high-gloss and I’m done. It takes practice and helps if you have a close-up of an eye to look at.

Hooves can be either gray or shell colored, many times, if a leg is white or has a white sock, the hoof will be shell - this doesn’t happen 100% of the time, but often. Horses can also have ermine (black) spots in those white areas and they can have stripes, black, brown or shell on the actual hoof. I paint my hooves again with acrylics and use colored pencils to make the stripes. Then I take a pointed Q-tip cotton swab thingy, (Tamiya has some really nice ones or you can get the pointed Q-tips at a local store usually where they sell make-up, but those fall apart really easily) and blur the lines with the Q-tip. After that, I also hit the hooves with the gloss coat.

Hair texture depends, on a solid colored horse like the black Arabian above or the one in my avatar, no. But the blue roan above I used colored pencils and tiny, tiny strokes to get the roaning. Sometimes I’ll also use a 4/0 paint brush and acrylic paints. That takes a long time and I feel like I’m going to go blind, but it works and gives a great effect.

There’s one model I have that the hair texture was sculpted on to begin with…so it really depends on how much detail you want to put into it and how much patience you have. [:D]

8

haha doog! I didn’t even notice DOH! Yeah, I’m observant! That’s cool tho!

The horse show went very well. One of the horses I painted won Grand Champion for the show in her division! That’s a personal best for me! I was absolutely stunned!

!(http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/kathrynloch/Gypsy Scarlet/20110109_8.jpg)

And yes, she has blue eyes. She’s a Gypsy Vanner and I used photos of a real one as her reference. I was absolutely thrilled she did so well!

I just wanted post this one for stikpusher here’s a close-up of an eye I painted, the white markings are done in acrylic paint with a little pinking on the nose.

!(http://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg78/kathrynloch/Model Horses Completed/Stormwatch/face.jpg)

Anyways, hope this helps!

Cheers!

9

Congratulations on the win, CHL! I have to say that it is surely well-deserved!

That horse is a stunner! Gorgeously-painted. The coat actually looks like fur or hair with the way you graded the black into the white. WOW, really superb painting technique there!

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Thank you very much, doog! I’m so glad you like her!

Now, if I can start getting that quality into model kits…lol! I’m working on it though, I really need to get my Wells Fargo Stage Coach back out.

Thanks again for the wonderful compliments! They are much appreciated!

Do you by chance have pics of other kits or models that you’ve done?

Cheers!

11

Crazy Horse, your work is very impressive! Thanks to you and Doog for the tips. I hope that I can get half a good a result as you have shown here. My critters are all 1/32 and 1/35 so texturing the coat is out.

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You’d be surprised. lol! But probably not a good idea to START right out of the gate with hair texture.

If you run into any specific problems or need anything, just drop a note - happy to help however I can! [:D]

13

Outstanding work, Crazy Horse! Congrats with the awards. The picture of horse’s face looks way too real… [Y]

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Thank you very much! I’m so glad you like them. I really appreciate it!

Cheers!