Painting Horses

Growing up, I was fortunate enough to have spent a lot of time around horses. My sister was a keen equestrian, and at one point we kept horses of our own in a paddock adjacent to our house.

Now, in my adult life, I live once again in a rural country setting, where a number of properties near me provide homes for a number of horses and ponies.

Holly, my wife, has also recently gotten back to riding regularly, so horses are once again part of my day to day life!

My wife Holly, and Lady, our friend Clare's horse

Keeping it real

I would like to think that, given my relatively frequent exposure to real life equines, I have a fair idea of what they actually look like.

They come in a myriad range of colours, shapes and sizes, and boast a whole host of different personalities and purposes for which they have been bred.

Only somewhat recently has the MESBG range begun to represent the different 'styles' of horse in their miniature design. The War of the Rohirrim sculpts, in particular, showcase a few differing breeds, allowing the range to move beyond the copy/paste same three generic Perry sculpts we've been stuck with for some 20 years.

Just a small showcase of the many breeds of horses!

It's not brown, it's bay

If you ask anyone who calls them selves 'horsey' what colour their horse is, they may give you an answer that doesn't make much sense to you. Unless, ofcourse, you are 'horsey' as well!

If like me, you aim to paint horses with an element of realism, and to avoid falling into a trap of making your steeds 'cartoonish', it's worth learning the proper lingo!

This colour chart does a better job summing up some equine colour terms faster than I can!

More complicated than you expected?

Painting my own horses

So how have I begun to paint my own horses?

Well, I've gone for a bit of a mix, without trying to tick every available box. This is in part to make my life easier while painting, by keeping a restricted colour pallet. But also, wanting to convey a limited stock of horses. When watching the Lord of the Rings, the vast majority of horses of the Rohirrim were 'Bays' (Brown, as you'll know if you've been laying attention!)

I have also thrown in a grey, and a dun for a bit of variety. I plan to save the more unusual colours and patterns for my heroes steeds, which I'll be painting later on!

WIP steeds for my mounted royal guards!

Are horses hard to paint?

In short, no, atleast I don't think so. But really it depends on what your style of painting is, and what methods you're comfortable with.

Horse flesh suits bold and even base coating, with even and smooth layering to build up tones best.

Given that horse flesh is often made up of large smooth surfaces on miniatures, it's best to avoid the temptation to dry brush or 'slap-chop' horses!

That's not to say that you can't make things easier for yourself if you wish. Horses are great to try out airbrushing, or to have a go getting clever with zenithal spray painting and a careful application of contrast paint.

If you're unsure, just experiment and see what works best for you!

The smaller details

A WIP steed, for one of my royal guard

While it may be tempting to leave your horses all one colour, it goes a long way to pick out the nose, eyes and teeth (when possible!)

A really easy technique for the soft fleshy muzzle of a horse is to paint it dark grey, then wash with a black wash, helping blend the dark skin to the coloured fur.

Do have a go at painting the eyes, too. They will usually be somewhat larger than the human(oid) eyes of your riders, so are great to practice on.

I always just paint the whole eyeball black, before adding a white dot to give an intelligent shine!

I hope that his has been helpful to some of you! I'll be painting many horses over the next couple of months, so watch this space if you're an equine enthusiast like myself!

Thanks again for reading,

Jack