Introduction to Part I
Many of us love the arting aspect of equine collectibles. We love collecting it, admiring it, promoting it, exploring it, showing it, and perhaps most of all, creating it. Truly, art constitutes the very foundation of everything we do within the genre, doesn't it? Everything about model horses is art-centric! And diving into our arts is so satisfying, too, on so many levels. To bring your own visions to life, to make real your imaginations just pings so many good things in your personal experience! Truly, art and horses just go together, don’t they?
Yet while sculpting realistic equines is hard enough…painting them? Uffdah. Now there’s a job and a half! Why is that? Why is painting realistic horses so darned challenging? Well, for starters there’s a kaleidoscope of coat colors and patterns to tackle. Indeed, one could spend a lifetime trying to paint them all and still pull up short. We also have to wrestle with artistic style and keep it in balance with realism, a delicate enough tightrope. Then there’s the whole array of coat, hair, and horn effects that need special attention to nail down in pigment, demanding a deep skillset with an uncommonly perceptive Eye. As if that weren't enough, there's actually mastering the media and techniques, which is a whole can of worms all by itself. There’s this, too, unlike realistically sculpting our subject, which is just duplicating what’s there, painting entails a great deal of interpretive judgment calls, of creating illusions when literal translations fail.
But perhaps the most pesky aspect is this: Get one thing wrong in pigment, and the entire illusion can bust apart. Really, even if everything else is amazing, one stumble in a paintjob can compromise the entire illusion and the bubble is popped. Because that’s what painting realistic equines is about — the suspension of disbelief so that for a moment, no matter how fleeting, our brain is tricked into perceiving an actual horse. That’s the grail, right? That hyper-degree of realism that stuns our senses?
All this adds up to one thing: Our artform is pretty tough on beginners. They literally have to hit the ground running just to keep up. Even worse, our showing paradigm isn’t so conducive to their skill set either, mostly lacking novice and non-pro classes. For the most part then, they’re thrown in with the pros right out of the gate, something that isn’t the most fair or viable means to sustain all this in the long run. In short, our showing system disenfranchises the very people it should be serving most. But the good news is that this art form is all learnable with some know-how, tricks, and a whole lotta practice. Now to that, there are some little aspects of painting that can be especially tricky to reproduce in pigment, so let’s talk about some of them in the hopes of giving beginners a leg up that tall, fidgety horse. Plus, there’s lots of little tricks we can implement to more easily push realism pretty far in our pigment or heighten the novelty of our interpretation, so we’ll look at some of those as well.
So wrap it all up and let’s explore all this at the beginner level in this six-part series, especially those aspects of horse color that can be particularly difficult to reproduce. Then after you get a handle on these effects, you can adopt more advanced methods to achieve even better results. But we all have to start somewhere, right? We all need a springboard to just dive in! So 3...2...1...let's go!...
Hoof Striping
Striped hooves can be a bit touchy to reproduce. If we study painted striped hooves, we find that a few run the gamut of either looking too simplified, too ”powdery,” too dark, too literal, or too fake looking or “painted on” rather than looking like grown, pigmented horn. See, hoof stripes are streaks of pigmentation within the hoof tubules that run lengthwise down the hoof. As such, they have a transparent, embedded quality like a bruise under the skin. And they don't necessarily have to run completely down to the ground but can stop, often about 3/4 down the hoof as is sometimes caused by wear and tear, or by the farrier rasping the hoof during a trim. And hoof stripes vary in intensities, even within the same stripe, and in width, even on the same hoof. So gather yourself some good reference photos to work from and study them closely. Look for their very specific qualities and how they’re rather transparent in a sense that you can see a lot of detail in them, just as much as on the pale areas of the hoof. We want to mimic that effect best we can. (It should be noted that hoof striping is dependent on the color and pattern present so make sure all that matches if you choose to paint them on.)
Okay, so first complete the pale colors on your intended hoof as they should be done when you start striping…so now let’s apply striping:
- Use a black such as Mars Black (a warm brown-toned black that’s very opaque) or Ivory Black (a cool blue-toned black that’s transparent) or Carbon Black (a true neutral black that’s opaque), whichever your reference requires or which you prefer.
- Try not to use pure black but cut it with a bit of grey or taupe to create a charcoal. Then thin that paint down to the consistency of fat free milk so it’s more of a wash.
- Now take a small round brush with a good tip and longish bristles to hold a good well of paint, dip into the paint and dab out the excess, then run the brush carefully down the hoof following the dorsal wall of the hoof, following the hoof tubules. Go with a steady hand so you create a straight edge then let that dry.
- Go over certain areas to darken some portions of the stripe or to darken other stripes to contrast each other. Practice at it and refer back to your references often.
- Do some clean up if need be.
- Extra points: Go back in after it’s all dry to add in little details like tiny striations or streaking.
There are four things you want to avoid with hoof striping. First, don’t make the stripes too dark as to appear painted on rather than “grown” and embedded. Now they can be variegated dark in areas, just not over the whole thing evenly or it’ll look a bit fake. They need to look organic and "embedded." Also don’t make them too grey as, again, that’ll appear painted-on rather than looking like real horn. Keep that tone in the charcoal zone. You want the striping transparent so the details of the pale hoof still show, and too much white — of turning that charcoal too light grey — will obliterate that effect. Second, and this is incredibly important, don’t create crooked stripes. Absolutely, be sure to keep the stripes parallel to the dorsal wall of the hoof and the heel and to each other. Any deviation or crookedness indicates a problem with the hoof tubules, and that’s a big problem in a real hoof. Then third, avoid opacity in the striping. Now granted, some grooms actually paint the hoof stripes with black or brown hoof polish, but that’s relatively rare. In most cases, what we want to do is recreate that “bruised” look, that embedded look of pigment within the horn rather than pigment sitting on top, and that requires transparency and lots of adjustment layering. And fourth, avoid regimentation. The striping has to look like an organic “luck of the draw.” Also be mindful of any ermine spots on the coronet that would birth a stripe, for instance, so pay close attention to your references in that regard, too. Just keep in mind that certain patterns and Appaloosas have sorta their own rules with hoof striping and you can learn more about that here and here and here. (In fact, The Equine Tapestry blog and archive blog are tremendous resources for you!)
Beauty Marks
Beauty Marks are those spots of dark pigment on a pink muzzle. They often occur with pintos and some appaloosas, but can happen with many white facial patterns really. Yet beauty marks can be difficult to reproduce because of the muzzle's velvety texture and soft, fleshy look. So again, we want to avoid a painted-on, fake look or one that’s too harsh that would obliterate the velvety effect of the real thing. To paint beauty marks then, try this progression:
- Choose your black based on what your reference is telling you—warm black (Mars Black), cool black (Ivory Black), or neutral black (Carbon Black).
- Soften that black with a grey or taupe to dampen its harshness.
- Take a dab of this smokey grey color and lighten it more with Titanium White or Soft White until it's a light grey that matches the mapping color in your reference. Add in some Raw Umber or Burnt Umber to warm if it if needed. Then thin this lightened mixture down a bit, to a whole milk consistency.
- With a small round brush dip in and dab out the excess then boop beauty marks onto the muzzle where you wish, careful not to create runs, brushmarks, or “braille spots” (elevated blobs of paint). Be sure to use a good reference photo to stay on track.
- Once dry, repeat the process but with a slightly darker version of that charcoal color, booping this color into the middle of the light grey area, leaving a rim of that light grey which becomes the mapping of the beauty spot. And be sure to make this dark spot opaque with no bald spots or it won’t read right.
- Extra points: Include “shadow” beauty spots for kicks (beauty spots without a blackened center).
You want to avoid five things with beauty spots. First, don’t have the paint too thick as this will create those unwanted “braille spots” of raised paint. You want your pigment flush and smooth with the surface. Yet you also don’t want your paint too transparent as to be see-through and patchy. There’s a Goldilocks Zone of consistency which you’ll find simply by painting a lot of beauty marks so practice on a junker model first. Second, avoid regimentation or a cookie-cutter look to your beauty marks. They need to look organic, randomized, and “grown,” not artificial and fake looking by being too evenly sized and spaced. So work from good reference photos to stay on target and try not to apply too much artistic license. Third, be careful not to paint over your mapping with the dark color since so many beauty marks are mapped. Now, yes, some aren’t, so follow your references, but overall, try to maintain that mapping’s integrity. Fourth, don’t create a randomly shaped beauty mark within that mapping. In other words, you want your darker pigment to mirror the shape of the lighter perimeter so it actually looks like real mapping, not like a spot painted within another spot. And fifth, avoid a painted-on and fake look by keeping your tones soft and muted so your beauty spot will appear velvety and fleshy.
Mapping
Mapping around pinto markings, any facial or leg markings or even appaloosa spotting is a little bit tedious but it’s not too difficult. Now to start, your paint job and markings and spots intended for mapping should all be done. In other words, this mapping technique is among the last steps to finishing up a paint job.
To create mapping, try this approach:
- Use Titanium White or Soft White and thin it down to Fat Free Milk consistency.
- Then using a small round brush with a good point (with longish bristles so it holds a goodly well of pigment), dip it into the paint and dab out the excess, and trace along the rim of your pattern, marking, or spot, going onto the solid color a bit to “stain” it with the thinned white paint. Bam—you have your mapping.
- Be sure to follow your references to guide you because mapping often varies in width and intensity over different parts of the body so be sensitive to those variations.
- Extra points: Play with different types of brushwork or directional dabbing to mimic the hair growth patterns or mottling often found in mapping so play around with it a bit to get a feel for the method.
You want to achieve three prime directives with your mapping. First, keep the quality of the transparency consistent. You don’t want your paint to become too opaque to just become like normal white paint but you don’t want to too washy as to not be potent enough or cause dripping or pooling. Mapping’s painting consistency has a Goldilocks Zone you have to learn, so again, practice on a junker to learn the feel of it. Second, keep your hand steady! You don’t want a messy line of mapping so take your time. Third, pay attention to areas of eccentricity in the mapping as those are nice touches of realism and novelty for your paintjob. Like notice areas where it’s more smudged, ticked, or mottled and try to mimic that in your paintjob. And fourth, keep the mapping white within the colored areas when dealing with pinked-in areas such as the groin, elbow, flank, etc. because a little white halo around your colored areas will be an error. Here’s a tip: When there are lots of spots in the pinked areas in the groin and up to the tail, say with an appaloosa, try the beauty mark technique instead. That way you don't have to worry about the white halo effect on those spots.
Conclusion to Part I
And so we kick off this six-part series with a wad of good stuff to chew on! There’s a lot more to come so hold on and enjoy the ride! Indeedy, we have a lot to get through and here’s to hoping you find some of it helpful to kick start a new developmental stage for you. Because sometimes all it takes is a little random insight to burst open a new artistic breakthrough and…bam!…off you go!
Because here’s the thing: Beginners really don’t have a fair shake in our genre with how our shows are structured, for the most part. Novice and non-pro divisions are too far and few between. Perhaps someday that’ll change, but until then, anything we can all do to help our beginners along is our obligation to the community. We owe it to ourselves to give the next generation of artists a hefty leg up! (Recommended reading: Beginner's Top Ten)
In that spirit then, we’ll dive into Part II next time around, so until then…remember, all you need to excel is practice, a game plan, curiosity, some insights, and lots of love! Mix that all up, and you’re well on your way to vast improvements and developmental leaps! So jump! Ka-boing!
"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
— Thomas Merton
