WIP Critique Marwari Stallion - commission piece equine resin

[kathrynloch]

ETA - Updated pic for Thumbnail


I'd thought I'd post something a little different but also something that folks might enjoy.



This is a Classic size resin Marwari Stallion. Classic is roughly 1:24 I think...He's larger than my 90mm Templar Sergeant so about 120mm. He's sculpted by Mel Miller and I'm painting him to a red dun.



The Marwari hails from that region in India and the breed is known for their tipped ears. It's interesting to note that if they are cross-bred with other horses, the curved eartips are not passed to the foal. They are also known for "dancing". The breed registry is working hard to promote and protect this vanishing breed.



Closely related is the Kathiawari breed also named for its region and actually the one I will be painting this model to look like. Another interesting point of fact, the Marwari breed has all colors, black and pinto included, while the Kathiawari is mostly duns and other dilutes, there are no black horses in the breed yet the regions are very close to each other.

Extremely hardy and versatile, both breeds were very popular as war mounts. But the mare was most often preferred over the stallion for her ability to "keep quiet". Nothing like a bellowing stallion, hollering at mares, to ruin your raiding plans.

This is my reference that my client picked out.



I will be using primarily my dry pigment technique but there will also be other mixed media.

Right now, I'm still in the process of prepping. I thought I had him but found a few rough spots so I'm sanding him and will hopefully apply primer this afternoon if the weather cooperates.

Cheers,
Karrie

 

[Ron Tamburrini]

That looks a cracking horse, looking forward to the paint job

 

[chippy]

Sorry to jump of topic but what's a Strawberry Roan ? I guess that's not an edible horse but I keep coming across this in western books and films and as I a bit of a western fan I would like to paint one some day .
chippy

 

[Ron Tamburrini]

A roan colored horse has white hairs ticked through the coat,a strawberry roan is a chestnut with this mottle giving it a pinkish tinge

 

[DEL]

I'm hugely impressed, I paint horses brown and grey and hope for the best.
Cheers
Derek

 

[kathrynloch]

That looks a cracking horse, looking forward to the paint job

Thank you Ron!

Sorry to jump of topic but what's a Strawberry Roan ? I guess that's not an edible horse but I keep coming across this in western books and films and as I a bit of a western fan I would like to paint one some day .
chippy

A roan colored horse has white hairs ticked through the coat,a strawberry roan is a chestnut with this mottle giving it a pinkish tinge

Yup - what he said! I just uploaded a couple of pics of a blue roan I painted to my gallery if you want to get an idea. Blue Roan is the same thing except on a black coat.

I'm hugely impressed, I paint horses brown and grey and hope for the best.
Cheers
Derek

Thank you Derek! Don't worry! We'll have you painting roans and grullas in no time!

Thanks again guys, I appreciate it!

Cheers,
Karrie

 

[skeeterbuck]

Karrie, do you ever use an airbrush to paint your horses?

I would think that that would be the perfect tool for such a large project. I have used them to paint 54mm horses in the past with good results.

 

[kathrynloch]

I never tried airbrush, unfortunately. I've always wanted to learn but the capital outlay for even a starter set is a bit much for me right now, especially since I don't know if I could paint a barn with it.

I have two friends who airbrush and one of these days i'm going to get over there and try my hand at it. It's getting our various schedules to cooperate that's the difficult part.

My friends also layer their work with the airbrushes, they start light and go dark. I know some artists will airbrush to a certain level of color as a base with shading, and then go from there with pastels or pigments.

It's the same with oils. I really, really want to try them too but with the pets and the fur around here...yikes it's a scary thought.

When I started the horse hobby I had two things, acrylics and pastels. So I went that direction because I didn't have to buy anything new. Then came the pigments and at $3-$4 for a jar that will literally last me years (honest - if you place a clean piece of paper under the model to catch the powder that drops, you hardly use anything to tint the horse, even the big ones) well that seemed the easiest direction for me to go at the time.

There are a couple of artists in the hobby who take mixed media to the extreme and can do just about everything on one model and have it look fantastic.

Using this Classic sized horse for the example, to tint one side with just a regular ole nylon brush and pigment should only take me about 5-10 minutes.

The good news is I got more primer on him, so I'm gonna let him be for the rest of the night so it will cure and then start on him tomorrow. So now you'll get to see the entire technique without tack getting in the way.

Cheers,
Karrie

 

[kathrynloch]

Okay, here we go. The workbench photos are rather rough, I've been working so much with smaller scale that I'm having a hard time adjusting. lol!

First, I'm translating an oil painting color recipe to pigments. I've done this in the past with good results but sometimes it can be a bit hit and miss. What I do is pull up a color chart, I select a long standing company like Grumbacher. So if the recipe calls for Naples Yellow, I select the closest matching pigment.

So I'm going to share my recipe with you. The oil paint color is listed first and the second color is the pigment I chose for it.

Raw Sienna = Natural Sienna
Gold Ocher = Dark Yellow Ocher
Naples Yellow = Yellow 920 (Reduce?)
Titanium White = Titanium White
Burnt Sienna = Burnt Sienna

I had put Reduce as a note because Yellow 920 is an Oxide Pigment, it is very dense and the Oxides in general (at least from Earth Pigments) are very powerful and have a tendency to overwhelm.

So I got to mixing.

I thought you might get a kick out of this. The folks at CMON call me the Alchemist. I wonder why. lol! But seriously, the mortar and pestle are really needed to get rid of any tiny clumps. There's nothing more infuriating than getting a great color then all of a sudden get a nasty streak going across because a tiny clump got caught in the brush.

But as I eyeballed the color, I had a feeling that yellow was going to be too strong.

Yup, I was right. I stopped and added a buff color that I mixed together awhile back. It has some Titanium White a little light yellow ocher and a little brown ocher...it's a really nice flat buff color.

Sorry - it was tough to hang on to him and take pics at the same time.

But notice I haven't covered him entirely with my color. my reference horse has some really light spots to his color that are light buff or almost no color at all. I have very few layers to work with in regard to this light color so I'm not going to cover the horse entirely. Also, any spots that have white, such as his face and legs, I also leave those white.

I'm not going to replicate my reference horse exactly but I am going to do that bald face but slightly different and I'm going to give him four high whites instead of three like the reference. So I'm not putting color down where he's going to have white.

Once he's sealed he did go slightly darker but he's still got too much yellow. So this time, I take my buff color by itself and go over him again. I have to be careful though, because of the Titanium White, he has a strong blue undertone. If I apply too much, he's going to start looking like a big bruise.

Here he is after the buff application and after sealing again.

Tomorrow or the next day, I get to mix up another color and start putting a little more red on him.

 

[Einion]

Horse is lookin' good so far Karrie. One thing I wanted to check with you given the heavy use of pigments, are you wearing a dust mask when you're grinding and brushing them on? Highly advisable if not.

To go back to the airbrush thing for a second, I think one would be a huge boon to you; the speed and ease they provide in getting the basic colour down is probably the most obvious benefit - you could undercoat a 1/16 horse literally in five minutes, do all the basic lights and darks in half an hour or so (plus it'd save you having to spray multiple sealer coats). The quality of the output might be an even better reason to consider one as even though it's way faster the results are superior to what can be achieved by brush.

The initial setup cost is a bear, particularly worrying if you're not sure you'll get on with it, but FWIW most people who get used to them wouldn't want to be without one from then on.

Einion

 

[kathrynloch]

Hi Einion, yup, I do wear a dust mask. This stuff isn't toxic like some of the oil paint pigments but I do wear one.

As to the airbrush, I really want to at least try one. But the speed in which I can apply these pigments is really fast as well. Seriously, the layer I did last night was absolutely nothing. It took me longer just to take pictures. The only thing I have to wait for is the sealer to dry but that's why I like to have other projects going. Plus, on the sealer, I only have to wait about 20 minutes at the most.

But yes, if I can find a starter set up cheap, I probably would jump at the chance to get one. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to wait for the finances but one of these days I definitely want to give it a shot. Thanks!!!

 

[kathrynloch]

Okay - more work done. This time I added a touch of red tone to him. This is just a 2-1 mix of Burnt Sienna and Raw Sienna.

First off, he's going orange, and since he was a bit yellow, it's to be expected. Second, I have some grain issues popping up. Grain is caused by several different reasons but you can see it when you go to the next darker color. I tried to get some pics for you but unfortunately, it just looks like camera noise.

So, my next step will take care of both of these issues and it's to back up and add that buff color again. That will take care of the grain and the yellow/orange. More later.

Oh I forgot to mention. Look closely at the red highlights on my reference horse. I only added the red to those areas, with a small amount of translation considering my horse is moving and my reference is standing, so I have to considered some muscle movement. But basically where my reference horse is red, that's where I applied it. I then very lightly blended the dust to other areas so I don't have zebra stripes or unnatural looking color transitions. Going back to the buff color will also mute these transitions even more.

 

[gordy]

Most impressive

I really like the stainless mortar and pestle!

 

[kathrynloch]

Thank you gordy! I've gotten a number of compliments on that mortar and pestle, it seems that very few are made of stainless steel. I like it because the pigments don't stain it.

I'll be doing more work on this guy this weekend too.

 

[kathrynloch]

I got more work done on this guy this weekend, it just took me a bit to get pics.

He was actually going dark on me so I hit him with a buff color to tone him down. The buff has a lot of white which has a strong blue undertone and that began to give me purple.

So, basic color theory, I mixed in some yellow (wasn't that the color that started all of this?) to counter the purple and continued to lighten him.

In the pics he still looks more like a palomino but he's really a light tan color.

It took about three layers two to get rid of the purple and three to take care of the grain issue that had started.

So now I can resume applying color and an areas I want lighter, I can apply this buff color only and work around it with the other colors.

I'll show y'all what I mean soon!

 

[Ferris]

Interesting to learn about your technique Karrie. I haven't encountered the 'full pigment approach' before...

Cheers,
Adrian

 

[Mike S.]

I concur with the dangers of ingesting pigments. MANY of them, like the cadmium colors, are deadly.

Your depiction of the horse's coat is beautiful Karrie!

 

[kathrynloch]

Interesting to learn about your technique Karrie. I haven't encountered the 'full pigment approach' before...

Cheers,
Adrian

I hope that's nothing like the "Full Monty" (sorry j/k!) lol! Thank you Adrian. It's very different which is probably why I like it so much. When I get done with him, only the details such as mane, tail, eyes, hooves, markings, etc. will be done in acrylic everything else is pigment.

I concur with the dangers of ingesting pigments. MANY of them, like the cadmium colors, are deadly.

Your depiction of the horse's coat is beautiful Karrie!

Thank you Mike! And don't worry, these Earth Pigments are completely non-toxic unlike many other brands, especially if you consider oil paint pigments. They don't have Cadmium a stuff like that in them which is a major reason why I went with this brand. They have a high quality product that isn't going to try and kill you. Yay for that!

Thanks again guys! I hope to have more work done on him this weekend.

Cheers,
Karrie

 

[kathrynloch]

Have I got some serious updating to do. All of my projects have pics and need their threads updated, it's just been making the time to do it. lol!

This little guy got sorta pushed to the side while I battled with some apoxie issues on something else. So I worked on him quite a bit yesterday and just flew through those layers. So here we go on fast forward again.

The challenge here has been too keep this light tan color and highlight and add a little brown and a lot of red without going orange or purple.

So I made up this buff color to use for my tan areas and now I'm mixing and adding reds and browns. Here's where I started.

In those little bead jars you can see my buff color on the left. On the right is a mix of Brown Ocher and and an oxide pigment Brown 610 which has a lot of red in it but it is not as strong or as deep as Burnt Sienna.

I applied the brown to the specific areas according to my reference and started to get purple. I then applied the buff color to the areas I wanted to keep light but also used it to merge the transitions and nuke the purple. Then I sealed. And here he is dry after sealing.

I repeated the same process as above and sealed again.

I added just a little burnt sienna to the mix. I don't want to go too dark too fast or too red too fast.

Again repeating the same process above with all of these steps by applying the buff at the same time I added the red to help with tint and transitions. I also added a bit of metallic pigment, Interference Gold to high points but you really can't see any of it in the photos.

I then took Red Ocher and a small brush and added that only to the red areas on my reference. I didn't use the buff this time. I took a pic but unfortunately it washed out on me and you can't even see the red.

I then did the same thing with Burnt Sienna and that pic turned out a little better - not much.

I have to hold him at an angle otherwise I get too much glare. I'm going to try to find a spot to set up my light tent. I want to get better photos to post and I also want to send some to my client. So no work table shots for that one! lol!

He's not done but this is just a color check with my client to see if this is close to what she wants. I can still change the tints if I need to but if I continue any farther, I'll be committed from this point forward.

So that's where I stand on this guy.

Now, I need to get some pics of my other projects.

 

[Dr Force]

Beautiful sculpt & beautiful painting!

Just a quick question, do you have any recommended suppliers who sell 1/16 horses fir a reasonable price?

Thanks
Dave