Horse Noses...

Although this sounds like some sort of Balderdash (Horse Noses, Bull-Puckey, etc..) I assure you that it is not.

From looking at the pictures of my Carthaginians, I realized.. I have been being REALLY lazy in my painting (well, technically I know about some of the laziness... Like I have not painted an ee on a mini in a long time. I guess that i should do that on some of these now). One of the things that I need to spend a little more time on is blending the colors on my horses; specifically the nose.

I know that horse noses are a variety of colors; from the color of the horse itself, to a black, white, and pink color.

One thing that I need to do is to go back and blend the socks on the horses a little. That is just a simple dry brush. The nose could be cleaned up with just a little lining around the bridle...

What do people do to get a good looking horse nose?

And, Aside from the horse noses... Anthing else that might "perk" these up?... I spend just a little too little time actually thinking about that these days (impatience from trying to replace everything that was lost in the divorce).

Matthew, my advice is to get what my wife got for me: Simon & Schuster's Guide to Horses and Ponies, by Maurizio Bongianni (ISBN 0-671-66068-3). Roughly $16 USD.

The pictures and detail therein will give you lotsa great ideas to use in your painting on horses. It has pages on head markings, leg markings, and varieties of coats. And, then lotsa good info and pics on various breeds, including many of the historic breeds that we as ancients gamers would be interested in, e.g. Mongolian steppe ponies.

Beth Ann was kind and subtle about it, but I think she probably thought my skills in painting horses needed a bit of help. Since she grew up on a farm in Iowa (and I in a Maryland suburb), she was obviously spot on. [img]smile.gif[/img] I use this book often and really recommend it for painting horses, but I'm sure there are similar books equally as good. --Hopefully, my painting of horsies has gotten a little better as a result.

[ March 23, 2005, 20:35: Message edited by: Paul A. Hannah ]

I have an old horse calendar and a couple of horse photo books on hand that I use for painting horses, and try to use a wide range of natural coloration.

You can also try what I did a little while ago for making an elephant painting guide: I did a bunch of websurfing, and dragged an assortment of elephant photos into a Word document, and then printed it out -- instant colour guide to have in hand at the workbench.

Matthew,

Under the Fanaticus Resource page you will find Tips and Guides. The following information about painting horses can be useful.

http://fanaticus.org/DBA/guides/pain...inghorses.html

Having owned a horse, I found there is a relationship between the colour of hooves, socks and underside of a horse. The nose coloration is also dependent on the body colour. Personally, I use inks and dry brush from the bottom upwards with GW bleached bone instead of white. Muscle and harnesses are better distinquished.

cheers,

Originally posted by Redwilde:
I have an old horse calendar and a couple of horse photo books on hand that I use for painting horses, and try to use a wide range of natural coloration.

You can also try what I did a little while ago for making an elephant painting guide: I did a bunch of websurfing, and dragged an assortment of elephant photos into a Word document, and then printed it out -- instant colour guide to have in hand at the workbench.

That seems to have helped. I have gone to Google and just entered "Painting horses" and it came up with thousands of links to sites that have pictures of painted horses and pictures of live horses.

Aside from just slowing down and spending a little more time layering and blending the paints; this is what I needed. I have some memories of Horses from when I was younger (I grew up a Cowboy after all, and my gradfather used to be one of the owners of the East Texas Rodeo in Jacksonville, TX), so I can do SOME parts of the Horse OK. I do Dunns and Roans pretty well, and your basic Black, White and Apollousa.

Then there is the problems that I have had with Corvus Belli horses. Their horses are a little clumsier than their Anthropomorphic figures; Xyston does a better looking horse than CB. Strangely, Chariot does a REALLY good looking horse these days.

So, print out the pictures, Spend a little more time blending and shading, put a little more depth/contrast around the "Bridle/Harness/Tack", and work on doing the noses a little more diversely.

Originally posted by Timurilank:
Matthew,

Under the Fanaticus Resource page you will find Tips and Guides. The following information about painting horses can be useful.

http://fanaticus.org/DBA/guides/pain...inghorses.html

Having owned a horse, I found there is a relationship between the colour of hooves, socks and underside of a horse. The nose coloration is also dependent on the body colour. Personally, I use inks and dry brush from the bottom upwards with GW bleached bone instead of white. Muscle and harnesses are better distinquished.

cheers,

Quite a surprise. I discovered that the Romans had their own breed of horses that came from the Andalusian And Ardennes stock, and the Barb from Africa (Seems that MY Carthaginian Horses should be lightened a little, which is good, because I excell at lighter horses)

I also discovered that I have been taking almost the exact opposite tac with the socks that I should be. I have been trying to blend the white-socks on the horses, but I discovered that the faded white-sock is a modern developement in horses. Ancient horses have white socks that terminate suddenly. It is the black sock that blends in with the body color of the horse (So I have been doing that correctly). Also. The Barb is the only horse in my collection that will have a pink nose (from the skin color of the horse). Most of my horses will have dark brown to black noses, with a white spray over the bridge of the nose or brow...

So, As I said before... A little more patience, not as much blending as I thought(But some tidying up as I remove the faded white-socks from my horses), and a few noses later...

Mike Mcvey had a very nice article on painting horses in White Dwarf magazine for Games Workshop. Must have been ten years ago now. It may be on the web by now.

Light hooves if the horse has white socks. Looking at lots of pictures of real horses is a great way to go. The colours do have patterns.

One tip, most greys start out black and lighten with age. Whites can be very faded greys, or born albino. Greys will have black skin, whites will have pink skin.

For those interested I found the following site in my favorites file.

http://www.basecamp-one.freeserve.co...dge_horse.html

Good stuff with two pages of illustrations of horses with detail of hooves and noses.

cheers,

I picked up a copy of "The Ultimate Horse Book" a few years ago in the UK. I think it's an Usborne book. The point is it has colour photos of all the major horse breeds, details of what the possible colour ranges are, and also how recent some of the horse breeds are. I would strongly recommend it to anyone for painting horses. I found it a really great resource.

Here's two links that I find really useful. The first one is Ian Marsh's guide to painting horse specifically in 15mm:

http://www.wargamesjournal.com/painters/nap_cavalry.asp

Included in there are the kinds of thoughts that you've come to, such as blended black socks and ankles etc. If you want to see some results like that have a look at the eye candies of myself and Adrian Crawford, where there are some Xyston Greeks painted by Ian...

The second is a weblink to a colour (color) resource of horse types that I find really useful for hints (although again, as you've discovered, a lot of horse variations are modern and not totally appropriate for ancients):

http://www.foresthorse.com/color.html

Hope those help

Simon

[ March 25, 2005, 04:49: Message edited by: Simon Davey ]