Squigger's Way to Paint Horses
Had trouble painting your horses? Can't see how others get it right? The shading eludes you? Sick of seeing wonderfully shaded models when yours are just drab lumps of plastic with a single coat of paint?
Try this...
Vital note - DO NOT ASSEMBLE THE HORSE BEFORE PAINTING. This is a stupid thing to do, as you are unable to reach various parts of the model properly, if at all. I don't care what any "experts" claim, you cannot paint a multi-part miniature if it is already assembled. I know through experience with second hand Bretonnians. Trust me on this.
First, undercoat your horse white. This horse will be a light brown, and so I will use bubonic brown for most of it. I am relating the painting of an elf steed because they have the most detail and least obscured parts, so if your horse doesn't have all the bits mentioned, don't worry (chaos steeds, for example, don't have visible manes, and Bretonnian warhorses have very little detail at all).
Once you have a roughly white horse (the undercost isn't supposed to give a uniform white look - if it is like that, then you've done it too much like a normal coat of paint), find all the indented lines around the muscles and and joints. Some of the joints will simply be raised knobs, like the knees. Into these indentations (and around the knobbly bits), paint a line of a slightly darker paint than the main one (in this case use snakebite leather). Don't worry if it's messy, you'll be painting over most of this later. This step includes painting the deeper parts of the tail, mane, and ankle hair, as well as inside the ears and nostrils and around the eye.
Once this darker paint has dried, you start with the lighter paint. This stage must be done very carefully. You can be relatively careless with large undetailed areas like the rump, but for the legs you must take all the care you can. Paint from the centre of the blank areas outwards, until you reach a dark line around a joint or in a hollow. Allow your light paint to meet and then cover the edge of the dark paint. In some places (around joints) you will want to leave only a thin line of darker paint, and in others (between the legs and the body) a thicker line will work best. Making a mistake here is not good, because you will have to re-do that dark line and then use the light paint there again. This is because there is (oddly, I think) a visible and somewhat ugly difference between a dark line of paint covered on the sides by a lighter paint and a dark line of paint over a light colour. It's also easier to get the width of the line right by painting over the dark bit.
Next, drybrush the mane, tail, and ankle hair. For those who don't know what this means:
Get an old brush, one with lots of bristles, but has lost its point (you may even want to guillotine a brush to get a nice flat end). Dip the first couple of millimetres into your chosen paint. Wipe this paint off the brush onto whatever is handy (except the miniature ;). When only a patchy streak appears, the brush is ready. Wipe the brush over whatever raised area you are painting. A small amount of paint will be deposited. This is the idea. Do this several times until you think that there is enough paint on the model. After practice, you may be able to do this with more paint on the brush.
This does take time.
After the drybrushing, paint the saddle and whatever barding and tackle there may be. In my case with the elf steed, I will use snakebite leather again (keep your palette small and simple - oddly enough, fewer paints will give a better result than more). Paint the hooves black, grey, or off-white (with a light brown horse you can choose all three - note that you never have white hooves on a dark horse, or black hooves on a light horse).
At this point you can base the horse and mount the rider, and it will be good enough for battle. Don't worry about the fact that the horse doesn't look very good from up close - sit it on your table, then move at least one foot away. From here the dark lines are simply very good shading, and don't stand out as oddly different paint at all.
If you want to go further...
You can drybrush the edge of any raised hooves with a highlight, put lines between any teeth by using a wash and then repainting them white, add socks by painting the leg(s) a lighter colour (usually white, and if you do this you ought to plan to do it from the start and use a separate darker paint for the affected area), give the horse some head markings (a white spot or stripe down the nose, or a coloured muzzle), highlight the coat, or fill in the eyes. I usually just add an occasional sock and / or head marking, and maybe the eyes (they tend to be black or dark brown).
If you want a particularly striking horse, use a different two colours for the mane and tail - not too different, perhaps just a shade or two lighter, very rarely darker (it doesn't work too well).
You might like to have a speckled horse - get your drybrush, put a little paint on it, wipe it, and instead of brushing, stab at the model. The bristles ought to spread a little, giving you a round, patchy spot. If you like you could turn the brush whilst painting, to give a wider and more solid spot.
Patchy horses can look good, if done well, but are difficult. Paint your horse as above, then, using a shade up or down, paint a small, irregular splotch on the rump. Cover about half of the rump. If you cover any hollows, re-do your shading, adjusting the shades to suit. If you put your splotch in the centre of the rump, put one on the other side going down the leg. Don't try to make the patches symmetrical. Put one or two other patches on the horse, not too large, but don't go overboard. If you're not sure if you've done enough, leave it underdone.
Don't ask how to paint a decent black horse - after several chaos steeds, I still can't get it right. If you know, tell me!
If you have any extra ideas, please send them to me - and if you think it won't work, try it before you tell me. You don't need to have great ability to us this method - that's why I use it. I have no artistic ability, but I enjoy painting miniatures, and want them to look good. So any idiot with several thumbs can do it. It won't win you any competitions, but it does look good. From a distance. In a certain light...
squigger