Horse Painting Guide for wargamers

A wargamers Guide to painting Horses.
(or why not paint every horse different?)

After trawling the 'interweb' I collected a few dozen examples of horse colour schemes to inspire me to paint my ancient Skythian horse archers and some Thracian mercenary cavalry -  mercenary units for my ancient Macedonian army and Greek Peloponnesian Wars Armies.

Here I'll try to jot down my notes for painting each horse really as a future reference. Otherwise I'll forget what I did, as usual.

Each horse will have a general coat colour & pattern - specified, then extras such as face markings, nose colour, mane. tail, leg markings and even eye colour etc. General colour guides can be good but photo reference is always the best.

The Method:
After buying some Skythian and Thracian cavalry on ebay a few weeks ago at a reasonable price I used the following process:

Preparation: All horses prepped with flash removed with a scalpel and needle files. Mounted onto cardstock with PVA glue, then undercoated in black enamel paint and left to dry.

Decide on first set of colour schemes lets say #1 Tobiano #2 Sabino #3 Chestnut #4 Bay.These all use the same colours but with different markings. The main colour is similar to 'burnt sienna' oil paint. The markings are cream.

scheme #1 A Tobiano Horse.
Okay now I know I'm going to use burnt sienna oil paint as the main colour I need to find a good under coat colour, this will be burnt umber oil paint. Why oil paint? because I can thin it out and it paints on like a dream, with oils as you add new layers you need to use thicker paint and on the final layer your brush strokes simulate the texture of the hairs on the horse coat (assuming you got the consistency correct).

I use 'Windsor & Newton Artists Oils' as they're good quality, with good pigments, don't bother with cheaper brands as they will be crap.The best oils are actually cheaper than acyrlic paints, last longer, have better pigments and you can mix them with enamel paints! The only dissadvantage is that they take longer to dry....

pic.1 primed black (enamel humbrol no.33) then undercoated brown burnt umber oil paint.
pic.2 brown areas brushed with burnt sienna oil, a tan colour (enamel leather humbrol no.62) as undercoat for the white areas.
pic.3 extra layers of burnt sienna oil for the brown areas, tan (enamel leather humbrol no.62) mixed with white for the white areas.
pic.4 markings picked out with cream (leather humbrol no.62 mixed with more white)

pic.5 & pic.6 details picked out with lighter shades, Absolutely no dry brushing used! Then at last the extras are painted such as face markings, nose colour, mane. tail, leg markings and even eye colour etc. All that is needed is a final coat of Testors dullcote varnish.

Tip: Yes you can mix oil paints with enamel paint to produce really good pigments (but if you mix enamel paint with enamel paint you tend to get a gungy colour and a headache).

Allow each layer to dry. If you make a mistake just wipe with a cloth doused in white spirit or turps and start again.

This is the first of  15 horses on their way, so I'll  leave it to dry and pick the colour scheme for the next horse.....

scheme #3 A Chestnut Horse.

pic.1 primed black matt enamel paint (enamel humbrol no.33) , then undercoated brown burnt umber oil paint.
pic.2 brown areas brushed with red enamel no.60 mixed with black enamel no.33.
pic.3 extra layers of burnt sienna oil paint brushed over the brown areas.
pic.4 markings picked out with greys and whites (enamel black no.33 mixed with more white no.34)

finished paint job varnished matt 'Testors dullcote' spray varnish.

scheme #4 A Bay Horse.
The Bay is very similar to the Chestnut except it has a black mane and tail and usually black legs.

pic.1 primed black matt enamel paint (enamel humbrol no.33) , then undercoated brown burnt umber oil paint.
pic.2 brown areas brushed with red enamel no.60 mixed with black enamel no.33.
pic.3 extra layers of burnt sienna oil paint brushed over the brown areas. Mane and tail painted black.
pic.4 markings picked out with greys and whites (enamel black no.33 mixed with more white no.34)

scheme #5 A Dappled Grey Horse.
Using matt black enamel (enamel humbrol no.33) mixed matt white enamel  (enamel humbrol no.34) as the main colour, it is just a case of mixing various shades of grey working up to lighter shades for the top coat, grey washes can be applied to tone down hard edges on the dappling.

pic.1 primed black (enamel humbrol no.33)
pic.2 grey areas brushed on, working up to a lighter colour.
pic.3 Dapple light grey applied then working up to white.
pic.4 horse furniture started.

The final figure is spray varnished in 'Testors dullcote' varnish.

scheme #6 A Piebald Horse.

no pic. primed black (enamel humbrol no.33)

pic.1 grey areas brushed on, working up to a lighter colour.

pic.2 Dapple light grey applied then working up to white.

pic.3 horse furniture started.

The final figure is spray varnished in 'Testors dullcote' varnish.

scheme #7 A Palomino Horse.

scheme #8 A Dun Horse.

pic.1 primed black matt enamel paint (enamel humbrol no.33) , then undercoated brown burnt umber oil paint.
pic.2 brown areas brushed with tan leather (humbrol enamel no.62) mixed with burnt umber oil paint. Then each successive layer of paint uses more tan in the mix, finally tan used on its own then slightly mixed with white enamel for the highlights. After that the black mane, tail and legs are painted, toned with grey.

Skythian raiders enmasse.

I'll update this page as I finish more examples...
To be continued :)