Introduction to Part VI
We’re back, but this time with the final part of this six-part painting series for beginners. We’ve discussed a lot of topics, haven’t we? Phew! There’s a lot to account for when painting, so be methodical and careful to not forget anything. Like sometimes, painters forget to paint the chestnuts or the bottoms of the feet—don’t do that! Take your time. Besides, savor the painting experience as part of the creative journey rather than rushing through it like a crazy person. Now granted, finishing up is an incredible feeling, isn’t it? The destination is just as important as the journey! But that destination is only as satisfying as completely savoring your journey—so tread mindfully. (Recommended reading: Journation: A Symbiosis For Growth and Wabi-Sabi: Strange Bedfellows)
To that end, we now come to those aspects of painting that will certainly try our patience because they are laborious, tedious, and sometimes maddening. But muscle through them—you got this! In fact, find meditation in these phases because they can truly be so relaxing for the brain if we frame it that way. Because every painter has an aspect of painting they just don’t look forward to. For some, it’s painting eyes or hooves, for others, it’s painting manes and tails, and for many, painting dapples is a real trail. So don’t be surprised if there’s some aspect of painting you dread—we all have our own sword of Damocles hanging over us. Just do your best and gut it out because there will be an end to it when you're done. So in that spirit, let’s wrap things up, shall we? Let’s go!…
Painting Ticking
Ticking. Tick tick ticking. Blorg. If we had a dollar for every ticking tick we ever ticked, we could pay off our mortgages, right? Uffdah. But tick we must because it’s relatively common in horse color in various forms from sabino patterns to dapple greys to roans to fleabiting to even certain mapping techniques. But the good news is this: You already know how to do this now. Simply use the techniques for mapping or painting fuzzy ears, just make it a quick, short, tiny stroke in the direction of the hair growth. And then do that about a bajillion times and done! See, simple. Just be sure the paint consistency is sufficient to create an opaque stroke because you don’t want unevenness to force you to do it again which would only enlarge the tick. Usually a 2% milk consistency with dipping and dabbing is sufficient, but practice to develop a feel for it. Extra points: Notice that not all ticking is the same intensity so vary the brightness of your ticking as your reference warrants.
However, there are two big things to remember when it comes to ticking that are far from simple: Scale and regimentation. If you don’t have those under control, your ticking will be problematic. So let’s talk about them.
Let’s start with scale. Now consider this—just how small would a single hair have to be on our 1:9 or “traditional” scale models? Absolutely tiny, right? So tiny that even laser etching couldn’t get that small. Instead then, we have to think in terms of clumps of hair, colored or white, so when we study ticking at our scale, we’re really studying groups of hair, not single hairs. Because if you look at a roan up close, for instance, you really aren’t seeing an intermixture of single white and dark hairs, you’re seeing an intermixture of small clumps of white and dark hairs. That may not seem like such a big deal, but it actually is. You see, tiny clumps of hair behave a little bit differently than single hairs and therefore look differently. How so? Well, if we were talking about an intermixture of single hairs, the coat would have a more monochromatic, even coloring, wouldn’t it? Things would be more “evenly spaced” in a sense. However, it’s the clumping of hair that creates the grainy effect so characteristic of composite coats and that grainy effect is really important to mimic with our ticking, not a hair-by-hair look. In this, the clumps are randomized and irregular and capturing that organic quality to them is key (which we’ll get to in a moment). So let’s not think in terms of single hairs, let’s think in terms of little clumps of hairs. Now we can properly address scale. On a 1:9 scale piece then, that little clump of hair would still be frightfully tiny, wouldn’t it? So tiny that we have to keep the flicks of our brush very short and very very skinny. Very very short and very very very skinny. And that’s a lot to ask of the human brain. Why?
Because now let’s talk about regimentation. It could be easily argued that the human brain is really just a highly sophisticated pattern recognition machine. Because when you break it all down, pretty much everything in life is simply a manifestation of a pattern of some kind, and our brain is acutely keyed into that. In fact, it loves patterns so much, it’ll just make them up where none exist which is where we get our superstitions, gambling addictions, logic fallacies, and conspiracy theories, for instance. And it does this so quickly and convincingly, and right under our radar, that we can come to believe in a fictional pattern just as much as a factual pattern. So what does this mean for our art? Well, it means that our brain will cause regimentation in an effect that’s supposed to be random, it’ll introduce order into what’s supposed to have “organic chaos” — automatically and very quickly and right under our noses. If we don’t work against it then, those effects that are typified by randomness will be too orderly like dappling, ticking, patterning, or roaning. Making matters worse, the more we “zone out” while we’re creating these things—as what tends to happen with tedium—our pattern recognition really goes bananas, taking over completely very quickly. And even worse—yes, it gets worse—it also tends to scale things up, enlarging things arbitrarily as you go. Indeed, sometimes you can even tell exactly where an artist started to lean too heavily on their pattern recognition on a piece simply by how one area became too big for scale.
So how do we counteract the problem of scale and regimentation when so much is working against us? Well, we become aware of the problem, that’s the first step. So—step one, check. Then we actively think about what we’re doing when we’re doing it and not zone out. This does take a lot of concentration though, making our art not only very challenging, but exhausting, too. Indeed, it takes a lot of mental work to make things truly tiny enough! With every tick tick tick, you have to be really paying attention and work against your own brain. Oof! Equine realism isn’t for the faint of heart! To that end, it’s a good idea to take lots of breaks while ticking to combat the habit our hand will fall into and to give ourselves a mental breather. And another handy trick is to shrink down your reference to the scale you’re working on for a one-to-one guide. It can be quite surprising! And another trick is to paint upside down periodically to break up the pattern your brain assumes. Creating in an unfamiliar way forces the issue and you’re asked to better think about what you’re doing than allowing your brain to simply go on autopilot.
As for what brush to use, use any size brush—yes, any size—given it has the best, teenest pointed tip and longish bristles to hold a good well of paint so you don’t have to redip a thousand and one times, you can just keep tick tick ticking. So when you find a really good ticking brush, buy multiples as back ups. Seriously. A great ticking brush is hard to find and, trust me, you’ll want more than one over time because they do wear out. And take great care of your ticking brush. Like make sure it’s super clean before you put it away (make sure any paint is out of the ferule where it’ll dry and spread apart the bristles, destroying the brush's point), let it dry out on its side and store it handle-side down, don’t use it for mixing paint up, and don’t use it for anything else. A great ticking brush is literally one of your most precious tools.
There are five things to avoid with ticking. First, of course, don’t tick out of scale. Keep things as teensy as you possibly can get. Second, avoid regimentation by striving for “organic chaos,” that “grown,” randomized look. That’ll take focus and mental work, but you got this! Third, don’t create splotchy, blobby ticks. Keep your ticking streaky and neat, so have a steady hand. Practice on a junker first, a lot. Fourth, don’t create bald spots in your ticks by using the correct consistency of paint. You want those ticks completely opaque on the first pass for speed, scale, and randomness, so it does have a Goldilocks Zone. Fifth, don’t create a truly randomized mess. For instance, tick in the direction of the hair growth patterns to stay on target and lean into your references. And sixth, to avoid causing a problem on your model, do a lot of prior practice on a junker to get a feel for all this, especially for the paint consistency.
Painting Manes and Tails
When we shifted from hair manes and tails to sculpted manes and tails, we also had to learn how to paint them effectively. However, painting hair is perhaps one of the toughest things to do. Why? Well, for similar reasons as for ticking in terms of scale and regimentation, but also because hair is just that hard to convey in pigment. Now there are three basic ways to paint hair as per your preference. One, you can drybrush the colors in, mostly on the “tops” of the sculpted ridges of the hair. And for another, you can streak in the colors with a brush, creating flowing lines in the direction of the hair flow. And finally, you can apply both methods.
So let’s talk about drybrushing first. In this, you use unthinned paint and a soft, short brush to rub in the pigment, having very little pigment on the brush itself. So you essentially “burnish” the paint into the area, rubbing it on there to deposit the paint. So how do we do this for a mane and tail? Well, consider this method:
- Paint the mane and tail all one color, usually the darkest color indicated by your reference. This will be the shadings so don’t be timid with its tone. And you can vary the tones of these shadings within the mane or tail in this first coat as well for some variation in your final product.
- Now drybrush on the lighter tones indicated by your reference, onto the protruding ridges of the sculpting.
- Extra points: Vary the tones to better match any variegation in your reference.
Now for brushing on streaks. This has become a very popular method nowadays because it’s been refined to a wonderful sophistication with beautiful results. Just expect to practice at it a lot to perfect, but you can do it! So in this, the brush you use is critical—use one with a great tip but with long bristles, like a line-painting brush nail artists use, so you can make a long, continuous line without having to redip into your paint to continue. That’s critical because you won’t have a broken line which leads to messiness and distracting errors. So to do this technique, think about this process:
- Paint your mane and tail in the darkest shade indicated by your reference.
- Thin your mixed paint colors to about the consistency of 2% milk then take your brush and, in the direction of the hair flow, brush on a line of pigment from the root to the tip, being careful not to obliterate the dark shadings in the deepest crevices.
- Keep those streaks in scale for the most convincing result.
- Repeat with all your colors until you’re happy with it, and do any clean up as necessary. You might even have to do some clean up on body if your streak went off the mane, which can happen sometimes.
- If you wish, you can use a drying retardant to maybe blend some areas if you want more softness.
- Extra points: Make the ending tail pointed, not blunt.
There are five things to avoid with either method. First, avoid oversimplification. Variegation is really quite complex and multi-layered, so your colors or streaking will have to be similarly so to best mimic this effect. Second, avoid messiness and a careless hand. Painting the mane and tail requires a steady hand and absolute tidiness—your painting should be clear and confident. It simply comes across better the more clear your painting. Third, don’t leave a border of dark pigment around the perimeter of your mane or the dock of your tail. Get that drybrushing or streaking right up to the edge so your variegation isn’t “outlined” by dark color. Fourth, don’t go off-tone. It’s easy to get caught up in the coloring of the mane and tail—they’re fun to paint! So really lean into your reference to stay accurate. And fifth, avoid bald spots in the drybrushing or the streaking by maintaining the correct consistency of the paint. In this, make sure you’re painting in such a way that the end result is truly opaque on the first pass so you don’t have to go over that portion twice. This will ensure that the end result is tidy and clear in execution.
Painting White Markings
This aspect of painting is often the bane of any painter’s existence. Why? Because it’s incredibly tedious and very fussy. But one big way we can really help ourselves is using a white paint that’s naturally powerfully opaque such as Golden Fluid Acrylics Titanium White. This stuff is fantastic because it’s nearly opaque in the first pass even thinned down, greatly reducing the number of passes we’ll have to do. And that’s the name of the game: Complete your white markings with the least amount of passes. Why? Because it’s easier and faster for one. For another, it reduces the error inevitably introduced with so many passes. And for another, it reduces the potential for a ridge of paint to form along the perimeter from all those layers, keeping the white paint completely flush with the surface, which is what we want. And lastly, the less passes we do, the less chance there is for the introduction of dreaded brushstrokes. Because you don’t want brushstrokes in your white markings. You want that marking to be perfectly smooth and consistent with the rest of the paintjob's surface.
Another way we can help ourselves is thinning our paint to the correct consistency, about that of skim milk. You want the paint to have decent coverage, but mostly to also “melt” into surface to smooth out, too. So there’s definitely a Goldilocks Zone here. For that then, play around with markings on a junker to learn the feel of it, because it’s definitely “go by feel.”
Now some artists mix in white gesso into their white paint in a 50/50 ratio to increase coverage and so reduce the passes required, and this does work great! However, this is a bit more advanced as you have to be quick. You can’t be fussy if gesso is in the mix because it “disturbs” quickly, leaving brushstrokes and ripples or puddles if you fuss with it too long or your consistency is just a little bit off. You literally have to swipe and move on quickly so everything melts together. But try it to see if if works for you. In fact, some artists even lay down the first couple of layers in pure gesso, then that last couple of layers in white paint, which also works well. So try that method, too. Liquitex white gesso works well, for example, for either approach.
And the last way we can help ourselves is using the right brushes: Soft, quality brushes in rounds and filberts up to size 6 with a good point and long bristles to hold a good, but controllable well of paint. Natural brushes hold paint better than artificial brushes, but the latter can be softer, so go to an art store to pick out those you believe are softest. Why so soft? To avoid brushstrokes, those dang brushstrokes! So take good care of your “whiting” brushes because if they’re abused, they’ll get messed up and become imprecise, rough, and useless. So make sure they’re truly clean when you’re done, store them handle side down, don’t use them for anything other that white markings, and don’t use them to mix paint. And when you find a good whiting brush, buy multiples because like your ticking brush, they’re actually not too easy to find.
Extra points: Mute your whites with greiges or Burnt Umber so your whites are softer and more life-like. This also gives you "somewhere to go" when highlighting them like in manes, tails, feathers, and on the face, even the body.
Extra extra points: Increase the realism of your white markings by adding flesh-toned “pinking” nicely subtle, soft, and blended in, such as on the muzzle, elbow, flank, groin, between the lateral cartilages of the foot, and maybe the tendon grooves on the lower legs.
There are six things to avoid with white markings. First, and most obviously, avoid brushstrokes at all costs. If that means you have to thin the paint down more and make more passes, that’s what you have to do. Ugh—I know. Second, don’t allow creep to ruin your paint job. Keep that white edge clean and controlled so any messiness or carelessness doesn’t necessitate you having to enlarge the white marking to cover up an oopsie. Stay clean and precise with each pass. Third, avoid ridges and ripples along the edges of the white. If this happens, it means your paint is too thick. Fourth, keep your whites clean clean clean! No debris, no hair, no fingerprints, no lint, no smudges…nada in that white paint. It must be absolutely pristine. Fifth, avoid a granular texture in the paint. This can sometimes happen when mixing in gesso as the gesso dries pretty quickly, or isn’t ground up as fine as the white paint. You want your whites to be absolutely mirror smooth. And sixth, avoid drips and pooling in the white areas. If this happens, your paint is too thin.
Painting Dapples
Dappling is another bane of a painter’s existence because they, too, are fussy and tedious. But unlike white markings, they’re also very complicated to paint, making them a rather more advanced painting technique. But what the heck right? We can still talk about some baseline concepts to get you off on the right track. Plus, if you spin them the right way, they’re actually pretty fun to paint. To see your vision realized like that right before your eyes is pretty cool! So find the fun in it, the meditation, and you’ll nail it while joyfully creating at the same time! (Recommended reading: The Dapple Dilemma: Different Strokes for Different Coats, and Dazzled By Dapples Part I and Part II)
For starters, like ticking, watch for scale and regimentation lurking on the periphery for your dappling. You want to avoid problems with them just as much here, too. What’s more, avoid the same size, shape, spacing, and intensity trap, which is a form of regimentation unique to dappling so be vigilant and attentive. Every dapple is unique like a snowflake, so approach each one from that angle and you’ll nail it. However, that said, despite its seeming chaos, also notice that dappling is a pattern just like a pinto or appaloosa pattern—it has its characteristics. Now that said, notice too that each color has its own dappling pattern you have to be sensitive to as well. Now this isn’t to say that each one has a set pattern per se, but more of a bubble of telltale characteristics so look for them in your references. For example, you cannot apply a dapple grey pattern to a silver dapple and call it a silver dapple. Silver has its own dappling pattern, as does sooty, bloom/condition, grey, roan, reverse, clipper, seasonal, pangaré/transition, and dun. This is why it’s smart to do dappling work directly from a very good reference, ideally of both sides. However, you can always flip your reference for the other side if you’re missing that second view, and fudge things a little bit.
Tips for painting a dappled coat:
- Shrink your reference(s) to the size you’re painting for a direct one-to-one comparison. It can be quite surprising.
- Take breaks, just like with ticking and for the same reasons.
- Do your dappling work painting upside down or sideways. This helps to break up your brain’s pattern recognition response assumptions and you’ll end up creating a more truthful result. It’ll feel awkward, but try it.
- Take your references and run them through a photo editing program to turn them into greyscale, or black and white. That helps to reveal the pattern. Likewise, an even more powerful trick is to run them through the “invert” option which will switch the darks and lights in the image, really making the pattern pop forwards for you.
- Regularly inspect your paintjob “backwards” in a hand mirror to check your work for scale and regimentation or any awkward areas.
- Snap a photo of your work in progress and compare that image to your references. The objectifying lens of the camera can reveal a lot.
- When evaluating your work, squint your eyes at times between your paintjob and your reference. This will generalize things better, helping you to pick out problem areas you didn’t See before.
- Try not to paint in your dappling as the last thing, but along with the coat color. This will help them “sit back” into the coat rather than look “painted on top.” You want your dapples to look like part of the coat, not an afterthought.
- Try to envision not only the lighter spots of the dapples, but also their dark networks around them, if present (or in the case of roan, the frosty lighter network). Note whether the edges of those dark networks diffuse out into the coat or end abruptly like a broken honeycomb because that’s part of the pattern’s characteristics of that color or individual you need to pay attention to.
- Try to keep the perimeter of the dapples diffused rather than sharp and abrupt. This will help them look like they’re grown from the coat rather than “painted on top.”
- When searching for references, don’t forget about front views and back views, if you can find them. Even better are belly shots and above-the-back shots, even under the jaw shots and ear shots. These more esoteric ones can be found in unexpected ways like with rolling, rearing, or jumping horses or grazing shots and whatnot. Point is, stay open to where to find your references. The best ones often don’t come from obvious sources.
Now as for actually painting dapples, there are many different methods for that so experiment to find the one that works best for you and your media. For example, you can airbrush them on if you have that capability. Or you can paint them on such as with oils. You can draw them on as with pastel pencils or color pencils. Or, lastly, you can paint them on (with drying retardant) or drybrush them in with acrylics. It’s your choice. The actual how-to for each one lies beyond the scope of this series, but suffice to say, this is a great opportunity to take classes or learn from online videos and, above all, experiment with techniques and media.
There are seven things to avoid when dappling a coat color. First, and this is really important, avoid veering out of scale. Count dapples on your reference across a region to get a better idea of sizing if you have to, it’s that important. Second, at all costs, avoid regimentation of any kind. This is critical. Your dappled paintjob should look like “ordered chaos,” which is characteristic of every dappled coat. In this, it’s ordered because of its overarching pattern, but it’s chaotic in that it’s randomized by the genetic “luck of the draw.” That’s one of the reasons why dappled coats are so darned tricky to mimic—they’re two opposites that have to marry together. But you can do it! Third, avoid bald spots in your dapples, "donut dapples," so they give themselves away as painted rather than grown. Each dapple should be opaque and solid and non-patchy so it looks like it really belongs there. On that note, four, avoid “braille” dapples of raised paint. Your dappling should be flush with the surface to melt into the rest of the paintjob seamlessly. Fifth, don’t apply too much artistic license. Stick to the pattern in your reference as religiously as you feasibly can and trust the process. Sixth, don’t apply too much muscling shading and highlighting with a dapple grey or often a sooty dapple because this can confuse the look of their patterns. Just paint the pattern. As you become more advanced, you can play with shading a highlight a little bit, but truth be told, dapple coats tend to read better with a minimal treatment of these touches And seventh, ideally your reference exhibits the dappling pattern of the breed you’re painting as some breeds can be predisposed to a certain set of characteristics not really found so much in other breeds. For instance, the silver dappling pattern on Shetlands is kinda its own thing as compared to that on Rocky Mountain Horses which looks a little bit different. So just be sensitive to breed influences on the patterns as well so you place the right one on your sculpture.
Painting With An Integrated Palette
At some point, you’re going to want to integrate other colors into your palette to open up the possibilities more. You’ll simply gain access to a lot more horse colors that way, and no other way. Now you’ll need to know color theory and how to use the color wheel, but it’s all very learnable and fun to boot! But the point is, there will come a time when you’ll be inspired to rethink color.
For instance, take Raw Umber. This is a not-red brown, a very “cool” brown (as opposed to Burnt Umber which is a very “warm” brown). Some people would say it leans green, but no—it’s simply not-red. Yet it’s easy to understand how someone from our genre would interpret a not-red as greenish. Why? Because our art form has a very heavy red bias and a very strong not-red prejudice when it comes to browns, blacks, yellows, and neutrals. Indeed, overall, there’s a strong undercurrent against cool colors and a very strong weight on warm colors. Maybe it’s because we key in on horse colors, yet the fact remains: Many horse colors are cool, not-red based, are Raw Umber based. Take many silvers, grullas, chestnuts, even some roans and duns lean that way. So if nature doesn’t care about warm or cool colors—neither should we. Really, as a realistic artist, we need to remain open to all of Nature’s options, don’t we? And hey, it’s just more fun that way! So reconsider Raw Umber in your repertoire. It’s an incredible color and remarkably versatile and wholly applicable to what we do. Same with all the other "cool" colors that can become very handy partners on our palette.
Or think about integrating oranges, yellows, reds, purples, greens, and blues into your repertoire, too. Yes—those actual colors. Sure, they aren’t horse colors per se, but with color theory, they really are! Like when you mix together yellow and purple, you come up with some really fascinating browns that have a whole range of applications, browns you can’t get any other way. Or mix a blue with Red Oxide or Burnt Sienna and you get these truly gorgeous dark browns that add so much punch and character to a paintjob.
Or say you want to brighten Burnt Umber or Burnt Sienna—how would you do it? With white? But that simply yields a pinkish tan or a fleshy pink, respectively. What’s the solution? Yellows, oranges, and reds to the rescue, that’s what! Brighten your browns and rusts with these colors rather than white and you’ll find that your paintjobs will glow and “pop” much more beautifully.
So think again about what colors to incorporate into your palette as you advance. Being dependent on pre-mixed “horsey hues” is okay and all, but if you’re curious about more, these non-horsey colors offer more interesting options. So why hold back? A whole new world of color waits for you when you’re ready! (Recommended Reading: Fire and Ice: The Power of a Warm and Cool Palette, Pop n’ Glow: Waking Up Your Palette With Color, A Cacophony of Color: The Magic of Unlikely Pigments and Black Magic: A Versatile Powerhouse)
Conclusion
You did it! You finished this six-part series in style, hopefully deriving some useful tidbits along the way. Because, indeedy, painting these tricky effects can be really challenging for a beginner yet with practice practice practice, it will all get easier. So just keep at it! And have some junker models on hand to do some practicing so you develop a real feel for all the different techniques and effects. Really, so much of what we do is by feel, so keep that in mind.
Now there are five big takeaways from all this. First, always have a steady hand that produces great precision with no messiness or confused effects. Absolute precision is your best friend with any paintjob. Second, stay mindful to the tones of your effects as the hue of your pigment can greatly impact the overall impression. Third, always—always—work from good reference photos. A great reference is a tremendous guide so study it closely and follow it faithfully. Fourth, and here’s the fun part, get out there and do lots of field study, get up and close with the real deal. So visit stables and go to shows to see these effects in person. Take a camera, too, to snap your own references. Fifth, know when to call done. This is just as important as starting, calling done. We cannot spin our wheels forever, trapped in a perfectionist trap. Honestly, it’s so important to say “done,” and move onto the next piece’s lessons as a regular habit. Now this doesn’t mean you don’t work hard, of course you do. But you don’t go chasing after windmills like Don Quixote, either. Know when to move on. And sixth, build on these techniques and ideas in your own way, make them yours with your own unique vision. Like, if you discover a different way that works for you better, rock on! So don't be afraid to explore and develop your own methods, that's part of the fun! (Recommended reading: Finally Finito: When To Call Done, and Wabi-Sabi And Realism: Strange Bedfellows, and The Perfectionist Paradox)
Overall, and this is a biggie, don’t get discouraged. We all start out struggling with these things, too. And sometimes we still do. Really, these effects aren’t easy for any artist no matter their skill level and experience so just keep at it. To that end, stay open to new media or techniques. Often times, simply switching to another media can hold the key to a much better or easier result. For instance, if you’re having a hard time with brushed-on acrylic or oil paint, switch to pastel pencils or color pencils instead. So experiment with different media to find those that work best for you.
On that note, never forget this: Mistakes are an inevitability with all art work. We all make corrections along the way! But hey…you painted that piece so you can fix it, right? You’re the creator here! Whatever you make, you can un-make and remake to your liking. Most anything can be backtracked and fixed. So don’t be so afraid…dive in and have fun and fix things along the way. That’s what even the most experienced artists do! And never forget that mistakes are actually your conduit for learning. Indeed, every mistake is a learning opportunity so don’t overlook what they offer when they happen.
So practice, use good references, find media you like, and apply a precise hand and you, too, can create an array of cool effects no matter how tricky they seem to be! Before you know it, you’ll be whipping them out with much more confidence and authenticity, wowing us with your progress! Truly, we can’t wait to see how truly special your effects are!
“Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant, there is no such thing. Making your unknown known is the important thing.”
– Georgia O’Keeffe
