So, my hobby new year's resolution was to paint more medallions to sell ...& the first one I buy is for myself! 🤦♀️ This beauty landed today! Sleipnir sculpted by @mibiam_ ! I've wanted this guy since she was working on him, & I finally broke down & got one! He's just as awesome in person as in her pictures! I have the perfect color scheme planned for him too! #medallion #artistresin #resinmedallion #modelhorsemedallion #modelhorsemedallions #AR #modelhorse #resinmodelhorse #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #artistresin #AR #artistresinmodelhorse #resinhorse #resinhorsesofinstagram #sleipnir #sleipnirmedallion
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A handful of little buckskins in in four different flavors. I just had to take this pic before Batson heads to his new home!
WIP Micronaut by Rayvin Maddock is a future sales piece but has dibs called, finished Batson by Sue Kern is sold, WIP Pollywog by Kylee Parks is a future sales piece & will go for offers (no dibs), WIP Alma by Maggie Bennett is also a future sales piece & will be openly for sale (dibs accepted, lol). #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #artistresin #AR #artistresinmodelhorse #resinhorse #micromini #microminihorse #microminimodelhorse #3dprint #threedprinting #modelhorsesofinstagram #resinhorsesofinstagram An appreciation post for just how pretty Sue's 'sea glass-esque' prints can be. I was washing off prints, & with the water & the light from the window, their thin parts turned the most brilliant violet! It was only *just* picked up be my camera, but it was so much more vivid in person!
Blue Miss Prince is a personal piece, clear Miss Prince has dibs called, LaVar will be a future sales piece. #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #artistresin #AR #artistresinmodelhorse #resinhorse #micromini #microminihorse #microminimodelhorse #3dprint #threedprinting #modelhorsesofinstagram #resinhorsesofinstagram Takeshi got the start of scales today! I have the neatest idea for him, I'm looking forward to seeing if I can pull it off! Future sales piece. #medallion #artistresin #resinmedallion #AR #modelhorse #resinmodelhorse #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #artistresin #AR #artistresinmodelhorse #resinhorse #resinhorsesofinstagram
Sleipnir is my favorite of the 16, & the first of the herd that I made. I think Uchchaihshravas & Kelpie are my next favorites. fantasymodelhorse #fantasyhorse #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #modelhorsesofinstagram
It's really unimpressive to look at in pictures, but last week, after four years of puttering, I finally (mostly) finished all the armatures for my fantasy equine herd. Still have various wings & clawed feet to add, but that'll come later! There are 16 in total (or 15 if you count the Centaur & Centauride as one, breed?). Now to spend the next 40 years sculpting them! X) What fantasy horse have you always dreamed of? I just bet it's in there!! #fantasymodelhorse #fantasyhorse #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #modelhorsesofinstagram
Still too lazy to post anything new, so have an itchy Sallie from the past until the ambition rebounds.
Currently judging a MEPSA AR/CM/China photo show; always fun to see da ponies!! MM pewter Sallie sculpted by @maggiebennettsculpture , long since sold. #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #artistresin #AR #artistresinmodelhorse #resinhorse #micromini #microminihorse #microminimodelhorse #pewter #pewtermodelhorse #modelhorsesofinstagram #resinhorsesofinstagram Going to try an experiment here, & see if I can keep up with posting to my blog what I post to my social media. We'll see if I *actually* do it, lol! This is going to be absolutely no frills, I'm not even going to change the text on it. Anything to make it easier for me! Boy oh boy do I have zero ambition to post anything lately! I think I am ready to hibernate tbh...
Picture features SWF I've Got Sixpence, an HA Shetland Pony Stallion (large) SM to a British Spotted Pony stallion. Personal collection, NFS. #modelhorse #modelhorses #horsemodel #artistresin #AR #artistresinmodelhorse #resinhorse #resinhorsesofinstagram #artistresinhorsesofinstagram Since there is no way I am even going to TRY to do the HxH red roan I intend to paint my Juggy all in one week, I have decided to have a NaMoPai-NO, & unofficially paint my Upton a dapple black before month's end! This guy has a fun story to him. My friend Laura & I went down to BF last summer, & in the AG, I was sorely tempted by an Upton second that Morgen Kilbourn had for sale. I've had my eye on Upton for a portrait of 2000 Olympic gold medalist Custom Made, but being the cheapskate that I am, I hadn't gotten a hold of one yet. Morgen had this one Upton on her table marked down simply because he had a dark stain on the resin. I was eyeballing him, & being the doll that she is, Morgen knocked off another $50 from his price. With the goading of Laura, I bought him. No regrets! As the months went on, I knew I wasn't going to be able to resist the name that was right on his price tag. He had to be black, & he had to be named Come To The Dark Side! Custom Made will simply have to wait for another model. So, black he is, & replacement NaMo he will be! Since I am pressed for time, this isn't going to be as in depth a NaMo tutorial as I usually write. But I have a few people interested in how I do a dapple black, so, even a less detailed tutorial has to be better than nothing! :) Of course I wash (in warm water with dishsoap & a nail & tooth brush to get any mold release off), prep (sand any seams, fill any holes, remove any blemishes), & prime (with red Dupli-Color sandable automotive primer) my model. All ready to paint now! I then use a soft inch or half inch flat brush & smoothly paint a couple or three layers of black gesso; this one was Master's Touch, the Hobby Lobby brand, but I have also used Liquitex Professional as well. You can thin either with water & carefully brush on as many layers as are needed to keep brush strokes at bay. Let the gesso fully dry, & then spray with Testor's colorshift paint. I have used Pink Champagne for sun bleached blacks, & Purple Mist, along with this Purple Sunrise, for true blue blacks. If you do not let the gesso dry thoroughly when you spray over it, it will 'craze' on you (raised crinkly texture). Also, at least with the Purple Mist, if you spray too many layers of it, it will lose its color & look more silver than purple-teal, so don't go too heavy if you use it. Pink Champagne, on the other hand, takes a few layers to actually cover. It is spray paint, so make sure to shake the can vigorously, & spray in a well ventilated area (like OUTside)! It stinks! Especially the Pink Champagne! This stuff is soooooo much fun though!!! I mean, LOOK at it!! Enough playing with the colorshift! Let it cure fully, & then spray it good with Testor's Dull Coat. The colorshift is glossy, & if you try to oil over it, the oil paint will not be happy about having to cover such a slick surface. Dull Coat is matte enough that it gives it a good 'tooth' to hold on to. I've never used it, but workable fixative *might* work for this as well. I have several tutorials that show how I hand paint base coats (the black gesso is a base coat), & mix & paint with oils, so please do check them out under the Tutorials tag. They will show you how I go about doing them since I don't have the time to elaborate on it this year. I had to mix a new batch of paint for Dark Side. My last black pallet dried up in Dec, but it was nearly three years old too, so I can't complain! The colors I used were: Body: Oils-
Powders-
Shading: Oils-
No powders. Blue Shading: Oils-
Powders-
Brown shading: (probably not going to be used on this guy) Oils-
Powders-
Highlighting: (also probably not going to be used on him) Oils-
Powders-
Many other Pearl-Ex powders can be added as well, blues, reds, browns, etc. Fold a sheet of pallet paper in half (wax paper is, unfortunately, not a substitute for pallet paper, the oil just soaks through), & mix these colors on the seam & one half only; then you can fold it over & store in a Ziploc in the freezer to keep! You can see below that the biggest blob of color is the Body blue-grey. It is what I use the most of. * Regarding the asterisk. Last February, the natural gas boiler needed cleaned (that's a story in & of itself!), & I discovered that the carbon soot is a STUNNING, light eating, BLACK. I am certain that the plumber thinks I am crazy, but I had him save me three containers of this beautiful black treasure! Carbon soot is actually what they use (or at least used to use) to make lamp/carbon black paint, so it is a legitimate pigment. I carefully shovel small amounts of it it into a paint pot with a pallet knife & try to mash the fragile chunks out of it. I then use it like pastel. So unfortunately, not many people are going to be able to attain this pigment. My apologies for that!! ANYWAY! Armed with my new pallet of black mix, & grab a faithful frizzy half inch flat & sort of thinly scrub it on. I do have videos of how I do this in other painting (NaMoPaiMo) tutorials, if you want to see the technique in action! You want only enough paint to cover, not so much that it will take forever to dry or get 'muddy' when blending. About 98% of the splendor of the colorshift is lost when you oil over it, but it is still slightly there, especially in bight & sun light. & anything to add depth & dimension to black is worth it in my opinion! As I go, I will use a quarter inch angle or a small flat to add the black shading to the low areas, the muscle grooves & such (again, see past painting tutorials for a better description of this), & blend it in. I work in such a way, that every section is finished, & I always have a hand hold on the horse. Do this over the whole horse. I refrain from shading over the topline, since I want to add dapples & it will be easier to see what I am doing (& have them show up) if I haven't added the dark shading over his back/neck. Once you have your whole horse painted, take a clean, big (I grabbed an inch) soft flat, & lightly stroke the paint in the hairgrowth direction to smooth any brush strokes that may have remained. Set aside & let dry. Black can unfortunately take a long time to dry. The powders do help, but if you really want to speed it up, you will need to add dryer to your pallet, which I don't use since it's tricky. & so that is where I have stopped for now! Waiting on my paint to dry! I will continue my tutorial once I move on with him! OH! Must not forget to report on Kylo's NaMo! He has gotten the oils down! He was painting along with me the other day as I tackled a couple of bays. I think it turned out well considering he's never painted before! Kylo & I are looking forward to the NaMoPaiMo party my friend Laura & I are hosting on Saturday!! It should be a lot of fun to get together & art with others!!
Til next time! Happy painting all!! Welp! Juggy number 3 arrived! & before prepping even ONE more Juggy, I washed him off & hit him with some primer. Boy am I glad I did too! Because he had the same sticky reaction as the first two! This guy even had it across his neck & face! Of course Rayvin & Jen were dumbfounded. They are awesome though, & certainly get an A+++++++++++++++++++ for customer service!!! Jen & Tom finally tracked the issue down to a bad batch of resin. & Jen made sure to wash & prime the next Juggy heading my way to make SURE he's a good boy! Just to rule out that it was not possibly anything I was doing, I ran these horses through the mill! I thoroughly washed in warm water & dish soap, sanded multiple times, Dremeled down the pour on one, covered the spots in gesso, changed primers, scrubbed with alcohol & mineral spirits (& washed again of course), finally I even stripped one in Easy Off: You can see on him now that the troublesome spots are yellowed as compared to the rest of the horse. I was going to try soaking the stripped one in alcohol, washing, & spraying in new primer, but by that point, I'm pretty sure this isn't anything I am doing! So, now the 19th day of NaMo, & I am waiting for Jugy number 4 to land. The luck I seem to have had for bad Juggies is apparently pretty fantastic according to Rayvin. I must say though, the view was pretty while it lasted! Accidents happen, & this was totally out of Rayvin or Jolt's control, so I am not fussed about it! I won't be finishing NaMoPaiMo this year though. Instead I have decided to entertain myself & have a NaMoPai-NO, lol! I can't officially do NaMo since I am signed up with a red roan Juggy, but I still want to play, so I am doing my best to paint my Upton a dapple black before month's end, just so I can "I did it" for another year! What a wild ride this has been! 🤪 If you happen to have a Juggy with any issues, Rayvin & Jen ask that you please contact them! I hope you all are having a much more successful NaMo, with much better behaved ponies!
Happy painting all!! SO! Juggy #2 landed on Thursday! A day early! Woohoo! & Rayvin is awesome! I mean, SERIOUSLY awesome!! She slipped in a Fortis medallion as a gift! She didn't have to do that!! With only a little over three weeks to prep, base, paint, tick, detail, & finish, I gave Juggy #2 a serious talking to... & dove in headfirst!! I was motorin' along on prepping him! & then... Doggone it!! The same sticky reaction that happened on #1's seams, happened on #2's pour!! Back to Rayvin with the reluctant news... Lol, if I gambled, I might take her up on her suggestion! 😆 So here I am, waiting again. This time for Juggy #3 to land on Monday! I said last post that you learn to roll with the setbacks you encounter. After this NaMo, I should qualify for the Olympic gymnastic team! 🤣 It's no one's fault, it's not as if anyone is TRYING to send me bum resins, so you just have to laugh at the chances & move on! & I will save you from asking right now: No, nether of these Juggies are, or ever will be, for sale. Not even as bodies or seconds. Please stop asking, lol! For those of you who are not in the resin hobby, Juggernaut is exceptionally popular, limited to 110, & not everyone was able to buy him as he was sold by lottery draw (you had to be drawn to have the opportunity to buy a copy). So on the secondary market, unpainted Juggies are selling for $700 to $1000 each. They are very sought after! I got curious & asked a friend who has been in the resin business for over 30 years about this. I wanted to know the whys & the hows of the phenomena since I have never encountered it before. I knew she'd be able to answer my questions about it! "Somehow moisture has gotten into the resin and it now will not cure. Even if you Dremel all that out, you can't be sure it won't pop up elsewhere." That he'd be "...a 'time bomb'!" That's good to know if I ever encounter another AR in the future that gets sticky! I don't ever want to sell a time bomb!! & so, I wait some more, hoping that "third time's a charm"! I'm not even sure I want to try to do NaMo now, there's not a whole lot of time to accomplish everything I want to achieve on him in the time left. NaMo Juggy is to be a sales piece, & he must be perfect. & perfection takes time! 😉 In other news, while I have been having Jugernaut drama, Kylo has gotten around to basing his model! He hasn't done any painting yet, but I expect he will get to it when he's good & ready! Happy painting all! May your ponies behave better than mine!
Here we are, nearly 5 days into NaMoPaiMo 2020... What am I doing? ...Waiting. I had the best laid plan. I got my horse, a beautiful Traditional Juggernaut by Rayvin Maddock! I was a lucky winner of the first timepay lottery draw for him in August, & received him on January 3rd of this year! After six months of mentally running through the equine rainbow of colors he would look good as, I decided to go crazy & push myself to do this red roan. & with bated breath, I signed up, wondering what I had gotten myself into for the month of February. I got my selfie with my 'nudie'... Gave him a good bath... Assessed what needed prepped... & fixed them. There were some setbacks... But you learn to roll with it. All was going to plan! Until something amiss was clearly evident by the 1st. Sticky spots! Along nearly all of his seams!! I was perplexed! I've had this happen at pours (I think I just Dremeled out the resin & filled it with epoxy putty), but never along all the seams! No matter what I did, they always reappeared! I finally asked Rayvin about it... & the reason for the issue wasn't exactly good news... But thankfully, Rayvin is beyond awesome! So that is why I am waiting... Not sure if I will make it to the deadline this year, but I'mma' give it a sincere go!! In other news, this year there is a ridiculous fun offshoot of NaMoPaiMo; Minis Painting Minis! Where the minis hanging around in your studio can have a go at painting a model for NaMo! Kylo Ren decided that he wanted to join in! He signed up to make it official & everything, but he's yet to touch his horse. I guess he's off doing Supreme Leader stuff or Force Skyping Rey or something. Other than waiting for Juggy no. 2, & hoping Kylo will get to his horse soon, I am planning a Painting Party with my friend Laura! There should be five model horse artists of varying levels of experience there, & as many non-model horse people who have been invited to come art with us! As long as nothing goes amiss, the 22nd should be a blast!! ...Here's hoping I have an insanely good start going on Juggy 2.0 by then!! Happy painting all!! :)
Even though I am running behind on my blog, that doesn't mean that the ponies have been neglected! A quick victory shot of my NaMo! Better pictures (as well as the rest of his journey to this point) to come! & Kim finished her fella over the weekend! Doesn't he look great??? Good luck to everyone still working to finish their NaMos!! You can do it!!!!!!
Alrighty, let's move on with oiling this poneh! No, not that kind!! This kind!! Since Kipling is on the road to being silver dapple grey, & that road will wind up taking many layers, he will not follow my typical oiling approach. That is, I usually go over the base acrylics with three colors/shades of oil: body, highlight, & shading, all done by section of the horse until the model is completely oiled. This guy, on the other hand, was oiled all in one session. This then will go on to be something of a base for the dappling that will go over it. Supplies for this first layer are: * Pallet paper. (Kind of like super wax paper, but it won't soak up the oil like wax paper would. ...Yes, I have tried wax paper before, it's a no go!) * A pallet knife. * Pearl-Ex Powders in: micro pearl, misty lavender, silver, carbon black, & antique bronze. * Oil paint in: titanium white, burnt umber, carbon black, & raw sienna. * There was also white pastel chalk that forgot to get in the family portrait here. & of course brushes. But I only used four of them. To start, fold the pallet paper in half; You'll mix your oil on one side & the crease only. This way you can fold it over & save your paint. Your acrylic base should already fairly closely match your 'body' color of oils. With it being close, you will be able to keep your oil layers thin (not to be confused with thinned down). If it is not a close match, you will wind up fighting the base to get a good, solid covering of your base oils. That leads to your oil either being put down too thickly, or to your having to do two layers of body, letting them dry in between. Never a lost cause, but way more trouble than it needs to be. :) For this silver grey's body color, the base color of your oil painting, I picked out the light greyish-brown color on his coat. For the body mix, it is about 99% straight white! I'm not sure if you can see the comparison of the dab of white at the bottom to the started mix above it. Just like the acrylic base mix, the white is easily overwhelmed. I was adding color literally by the merest touch & building from there. & the result was this.
Other colors I mixed for Kipling were straight out of the tube: raw sienna, burnt umber, carbon black, & titainium white. There were no other oil colors added, but I did of course add Pearl-Ex to them as well. Misty lavender for the black. Antique bronze & carbon black to the burnt umber. Antique bronze & silver to the raw sienna. I randomly decided not to add Pearl-Ex to the white. But to help it dry, I did mix in some white pastel chalk. Here is the final pallet. There is some carbon black right out of the tube as well, nothing added. & with that, it's time to start painting! My very favorite brushes for adding body are a couple well loved, half inch(?) synthetic flats. They are over a decade old, & extremely frizzed! A, shall we say 'civilized' flat that is not all frizzied up works too of course, but that's how these poor things got this way! ;) Dab just the tip into of your brush into your chosen color; you want to have just enough to color the area you're working on & no more. Putting too much down at once just makes it more difficult to spread it out to keep it thin. Wipe it off on a paper towel if needed. Then using the tip, kind of scrub or stipple the color onto the horse. Here's what I mean: When I oil, I like to 'grid' off a horse & work in sections, & even though this guy doesn't follow my usual oiling method, I still pretty much worked by sections: Head, neck/chest, belly/inner thighs (leaving a firm hand hold over his back as seen below), barrel/back/haunches (leaving the legs to hold if they are sturdy enough), & finally the legs, which left me with a slightly precarious hand hold of part of his tail. Though since he has a double mane, I was able to cheat this time & hold him around his neck too. Completely painted in the body color. Next, with a much less frizzy natural half inch flat, I lightly added the black mix for shading. You want to go slowly with adding dark color. You can always add more, but you can't take it off if you add too much! I use much the same stippling motion for this, carefully watching my reference pictures to determine where it needs to go. Shaded! Just like the black mix, I added just a touch of the browns, mostly to his lower legs, but also to the stifle & elbow areas. I also hit a few areas such as his lower barrel with white to highlight. Ta-da! You'll probably get sick of seeing this reference picture, but it's going to keep popping up! Compare to the horse I am going by. There will be many more layers over this oil layer, so I am not too concerned of going too dark just yet; I'll need a lighter foundation to build up dappling over. When you are finished with your oil session, fold over the pallet paper & pop it in the fridge or freezer! It can keep exceptionally well this way; I am still working off last year's NaMoPaiMo bay/red pallet as a matter of fact, & it is still perfectly good. You can also cheat a bit with your brushes if you don't feel like cleaning them right away by also sticking them in the freezer. ;) They will need cleaned soon though; I simply use dish soap in warm water, no need for anything fancier. WHEW!! Sorry it took so long to get this posted!! I've really been struggling to write this NaMo! Kip is quite a bit further than this now. Hopefully I'll be able to be a bit more timely with the next posts!! I'm not the only one making headway on their NaMo pony! My friend Kim Prosek of Longwing Studio has been busy at it too with her Sleepy Shire! Kim airbrushes her acrylic base, & then works her magic with powder pigments. "He isn’t just white in this first picture; It’s actually a light fawn color." "And then milk chocolate." "Next is burnt umber mixed with burnt sienna." "And then a light dusting of black." "Then I decided I didn’t want to mess anything else up and went with my trusty pigments. So one layer of pigment & there he is for his first weekend's work!" Then this past weekend she continued to bring him to life! "I added a few more layers of pigment, sketching in the dapples." "Then painted the m/t to get an idea of where I was." "And then onto black pigment." He looks soooo good Kim!! I hope he continues to play nice with you!! Just for a laugh, as it pertains to the joke at the beginning of my post, read the label on this old gun oil bottle. Someone had a sense of humor! Until next time! Happy painting all!!
Whew. This has taken me longer to write than I thought, but here we are! I feel like I basically just repeat myself on the subject of basing every NaMo. It doesn't really change any! The first step of painting a model horse in just about any medium is a good base coat. I paint in a layering combination of oils & pastel, but regardless of the materials, I think it's safe to say that most techniques start with an acrylic base coat. Base coats can be air brushed, or layered by hand with a brush. Last year I had fully intended to have an air brush in my life by this time, just to hopefully help speed up the base coat process, But here we are, a year later, & I still haven't gotten one. So I continue to lay down base coats by hand. Which I will say is a valuable skill as if you can put down a smooth base by hand, that means you can put down any amount of white markings just as smooth! (I still want an airbrush though, lol!) But I'm rambling! On with the important stuff! So that's my starting point. Never underestimate the importance of reference! ;) & the more of it the better! I have about 50 pictures of this horse, Astro, to go by, & it's all going to come in handy! I don't really have a magic recipe for how to go about picking out the base color, practice is the best advise I can give, as unhelpful as that may be. I don't get it right all the time either, so mistakes happen! Read on! The general shopping list for mixing a base color reads as follows: * Acrylic in the color or colors desired * Clear, black, or white Gesso (I use Liquitex Professional) * Water * A sealable container (the one I used is a condiment container from the dollar store, but they're not carrying them anymore) * A stir of some sort (I use a popsicle stick). This silver color's base is kind of a bluish, brownish, grey, so in my ultra professional technique of "pour some in & see what happens", these wound up being the individual colors that I used. Left to right in no particular order: Liquitex Professional white gesso, Americana pearlizing medium, Folk Art camel, Americana traditional burnt seina, Deco Art metallic expresso, Americana burnt umber, Folk Art burnt umber (again, different brand), & Liquitex Professional black gesso. Above them all is Precious Metals metallic bronze. As a bit of a side note: I've noticed that Folk Art acrylics are more opaque & more heavily pigmented than the Americana paints. This comes in handy for quickly building thin layers of your base coat. But, Folk Art is also really thick, so the bottles tend to dry out quicker than Americana. For silver dapple, White was of course the greater majority of the base mix, & for that I used what gesso. Always be sure that there is some gesso included in your base mix, either white, black, or clear; Gesso has 'tooth', a texture to give your next paint layer more to grab onto, & also the ability to sand if needed. Straight acrylic, on the other hand, will have more of a tendency to rip & tear if you attempt to sand it. So adding gesso is a great help if you find something that you missed in prepping that needs sanded down. Now, if you're not planning to use oil paints, but straight pastel or powder pigments, gesso may not be for you because of the texture. I'm not an expert on pastelling, but that would be my assumption. Do your research if pastelling is how you plan to go. With the white gesso, I added a little bit of 'camel' color (seriously, they couldn't come up with a better name? *sigh*). Since white can be overwhelmed so easily by other colors, I wasn't even squirting paint out of the bottles for a lot of them, but dipping the popsicle stick in & adding dabs to my mix to build it up. I was sunk my first try on this base by adding too big a dab of black, so you really do need to be cautious with primarily white bases! I had to start over! Once the 'camel' was mixed to my satisfaction, I added some Folk Art burnt umber. That gave me the greyish-brown color I wanted, but it needed a little more red to me. So I added some Americana burnt umber, which has a little more of a red hue. Shades can vary, sometimes dramatically, from company to company. Sometimes even batch to batch within a company. Just for the heck of it, I added some metallic 'expresso', pearling medium, & bronze to the mix too. I'm really not sure it will make any difference in the end, but we'll find out! Added the tiniest dab of black, & this was my result. After getting to the color I wanted, I added a little water to thin it down. Thinning the paint greatly helps to avoid building up brushstrokes in your base coat. Many thin layers are better than a few thick ones. I like to describe the consistency I aim for as being just so it coats the side of the container without beading up, but do feel free to thin it to what you feel is right. & with base mixed, I grab a soft half inch(?) synthetic or sable flat... & start painting! Dip only about the first fourth or third of your brush into the base color to avoid overloading your brush. You don't want to try to brush on more paint than you can spread before it starts drying. Adding only a bit at a time helps to keep your paint brush stroke free. After completing the first layer on Kip, I decided that it was going to be too dark. So I added more white, & some more burnt umber I believe... & moved forward with a little bit lighter color. ...Though it's really hard to tell in my pictures!! As you paint, change the direction you brush to keep from building up brush strokes in your base coat. You want this to be as smooth as possible when you're finished. Here's a quick video of me adding a second layer. (My apologies for the door slam in the video! I'm not the only one in the house.) Lol, & after I say "don't add too much paint" I added too much paint on that first go! I like to start basing at the head, & work my way back until only my hand hold is left. On Kip, that hand hold is the end of his tail. I really prefer to not base where I will be holding the horse while I paint, as the base paint can wear off or even wrinkle up if handled too much. Worn off paint can be patched, but wrinkled paint will need sanded. All things I'd just rather avoid having to do. Here is something to look out for as you lay your base: Tiny bubbles. I notice this happening if my brush is overloaded. Akin to squeezing out of a sponge, it leaves the paint with air in it. This isn't much of an issue over the (flat) body as you can brush it out. But in the mane & tail, it can cause trouble. You do not want to leave these bubbles to dry; they will leave little bitty holes in the base. Do your best to brush them out, even grab a clean dry brush if needed, or try to pop them by sharply blowing on them. If you do manage to miss some & they dry, it's not the end of the world. Simply carefully add more layers of base over them to try to fill them in, akin to the gesso to fill pin holes technique used in prepping (see previous post from 1/31/19.) ...I swear, part of painting is learning to troubleshoot as things arise! After a few layers, I often like to spray a layer of finish over my base. This helps to keep from accidentally rubbing a hole in the base color while adding more layers, or while handling the model while painting. You may still rub off color, but you won't rub it off down to the primer, you will only go as far as where the finish was sprayed. The finish I used for this was *takes deep breath* Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X Ultra Cover Matte Clear. It is a very thick & shiny matte finish which can be finicky to work with. It works well here since it is such a thick finish & won't rub easily. But be careful if you try it over a painted horse, it takes some practice to use it with success. After the finish dries, continue adding several more thin layers until the finish is completely covered. I lost count of how many coats I did on Kip's base, at least eight. & it did take me several hours to get full coverage. Be sure that there are NO thin spots. Though on this color, which is going to have many layers, it may not matter too much; But chances are that on any other color, you will see any thin areas show through on the finished paint job. Though I mixed this specifically for Kipling, the color wound up being shockingly close to what I use for creamello, classic champagne, dunalino, & some palominos. As I do paint many horses, I mix paint in bulk batches so that I have base color on hand when I'm ready to start painting the next horse. As long as you put the container's lid on securely, it should last you for several months, especially if you remember to give it a stir & add a little more water every now & then.
& there we have a base coated Kipling. Next post will be on the first coat of oils, which will hopefully be up, soon? As of right now, Kip's oils are fairly dry, but not dry enough to spray finish & move onto the next layer, so things are still quiet on him for now. Happy painting all! Just a quick post here tonight to show where Kipling's at presently. I had a slow start on NaMo this year; On the 1st I was anticipating a load of hay (& having to drop what I was doing to go stack it) & so didn't get the start I wanted. & yesterday's excuse was an all day headache that blossomed into a migraine. :P Today made up for those two lost days though! I not only got him completely based... But also the first layer of oils down! ...Exciting, isn't he? (No, not really!) Now I sit back & wait for the oils to dry, which could take a couple days. White seems to be the slowest color to dry, & he has a lot of white! Browns, on the other hand, tend to dry overnight. But anyway, stay tuned! Hopefully tomorrow I can get my more in depth post on basing & oiling him posted. We'll see if I can get that accomplished! Happy painting all! P.S. Totally unrelated, but check out these cool old Breyers I picked up at a farm toy show yesterday! In such great shape too! They were obviously never played with! & the Micro Mini Hazel I bought arrived on Friday! (Future sales piece) Such a gorgeous little thing! Tomorrow's the day! The start of NaMoPaiMo 2019! I'm, almost ready. Prepping this week has been interesting. Not because of the model, but because of the weather. It's been single digits & below zero for the past few days, making it too cold to spray primer. He is technically prepped though, so all's well! I'd just prefer that he be ALL white! (You'll see, keep reading!) Weather aside, I can still show you some of the process of prepping him. Firstly to start off at the very basic action of prepping a model horse: It is the process of preparing your 'canvas' for painting. It is important to smooth out any blemishes, which can affect the smoothness of your finishwork & it's color, & faults also can knock a finished horse out of placing at a show. I'll be painting an artist resin (AR), which is a hand cast copy of an original sculpture. ARs come from the casting companies with only the very minimum of clean up done to them once they're pulled from the mold. So there are always at least some mold seams that need to be addressed. Here are a few of the things that I could see needed taken care of on Kipling. Here we have two small seams, one down the middle of his forelock, & one across the side fwip of forelock. (They're there, trust me!) & here you can see some 'pin holes', bubbles in the resin that leave tiny holes behind. & less visible is the uneven & slightly rough surface from where the caster Dremeled off the pour from where the resin was poured into the mold. This is another area where they Dremeled a little too much off, probably while knocking off seams or flashing (where some resin leaks out between two parts of the mold). & a few more pin holes along his neck too. This was a new one to me: these are actually the reinforcement wires that run through his back legs! They are apparently so long, they showed through on his back! Not a problem, but they did leave blemishes on the surface that would need filled. Also, more seam. This was the biggest issue (which wasn't much of one): Pin holes all along one hoof 'ate' the edge off. To tackle these prepping issues requires a few various tools & supplies. Here is everything that was used for prepping Kip: Dish soap, warm water, & soft brushes (nail & tooth). Resins should be washed thoroughly at least once to remove mold release (or mold pam as I like to call it!) that may resist paint. Get down into all those little crevasses & scrub! You may want to wash the AR again before spraying primer to wash away dust from prepping. Make sure they're dry before you spray though! Priming water doesn't work well, trust me. Sandpaper in 220 & 320 grit, carbide scraper with the tapering round & the chisel tips, small round & small triangle files. Two different white gessos & modeling paste (gesso is much like acrylic paint, but with 'tooth' & sandability which acrylic does not have). 5 minute epoxy (I get mine from the dairy supply, but it should be available from any hardware), & a popsicle stick to mix it. Dremel with this round bit which I don't know the name of, lol. Breathing & eye protection (& a light) when working with dusty & fumey things. Ave's Apoxy Sculpt & rubbing alcohol to smooth it (though water works fine too. I've started using alcohol as I've noticed it doesn't make so much of a mess of the putty when using a lot to smooth). Rust-Oleum primer in Red & white, & powderless nitrile gloves. First thing I did was give him a go over with the carbide scrapers to take off seams. The scrapers are awesome since they go through resin like butter, but you have to work at it to hurt yourself on them (it CAN be done though!). You can purchase Carbide scrapers from Rio Rondo Enterprises . Trust me when I say that they are worth every penny!! So many uses! After that I did some seam sanding, first with the coarser grit, & then with the finer, to take down any rough spots. I also used the small round file in some places, mostly on his legs. For pesky pinholes, since these ones were pretty small, I simply brushed over the affected areas with the Liquitex Basics gesso. Though both the gessos pictured above seem like they should be the same, the Basics one is much thicker & courser. This makes it lousy for painting (at least for me), but great for filling pinholes! Simply brush it over the holes, try to keep it smooth & without brush strokes, let dry, & sand. Sometimes I will smooth it out with a finger to get it down into the details more. I've also found it helpful to primer over the gesso, let cure absolutely, & then sand it down. For a few of the more troublesome divots I used some modeling paste as well in much the same way as the gesso. It is thicker than the gesso, so a finger to smooth it over the target spot is all that's required. You can use a tiny dab of water to smooth the paste further if needed. For the hoof wall I tried something new. I've recently added 5 minute epoxy to my tool box, & the more I thought about how I wanted to repair that hoof, the more I liked the idea of the 5min epoxy. It is a two part chemical reactive like epoxy putty, but in a glue like consistency that sets in a few minutes. You press both parts A & B out of the syringe tube onto something you can toss (I use cardboard from something like a tissue or cracker box), mix it thoroughly (I use a popsicle stick), & then use it how you want. Make sure to wear gloves though; I don't know if it would ever come off your skin if you don't! I carefully used the edge of the stick to layer it along the hoof wall until it cured. Once it was set, I Dremeled the hoof sole's details back in, & filed & sanded the outside to shape. It worked well, & I now don't need to worry about it chipping off like epoxy putty might have if it's hit wrongly. I also put a couple dabs of the 5min epoxy over the wires on his back, which once sanded, turned out nicely. Once I got every flaw I could find, I hit Kip with some red primer to see what I had going on. Red primer catches light better than any other primer color to show details. …& faults! Like this seam on his pasturn... Or a few pin holes, like this one under his chin... More sanding needed on the seams on his front legs... Or this glob on the inside edge of his ear. There's also a chunk missing from the other side which you can just see from here. I filled that missing bit with epoxy putty, & I also replaced a chestnut that was missing (not sure how it was lost!). Which is where the second gesso (Liqutex Professional) came in, to paint over that chestnut to help blend in the edges. Epoxy putty, if you were not aware, is a two part chemical reactive; mix equal parts A & B together thoroughly, & it will start to cure. It is a staple for any model horse artist! With the red primer I could see a few harsh details & gappish (did I just make a new word?) holes on his face, legs, main & tail that I wanted filled, so I gave these areas a layer of gesso as well. I also went over the pin holes on his belly & neck again since they weren't completely filled in yet. You can see here that the pin hole under his chin filled in with the gesso. It also softened the harsh lines on his jaw. More primer, more flaws to fix. & then finally... With a layer of white primer... Everything appeared... To be... Smooth at last! The reason I took him back to white is because he is to be a portrait of Astro, who is a silver dapple, & it simply gets me a step closer to that color to start off in white. Well, he's ALMOST all white. I managed to spray white primer one step ahead of the polar vortex that hit & plunged us below zero with, at one point, wind chills of 38 below. But that's ok! I'm pretty sure I'll be able to catch that last bit tomorrow since it's supposed to get up to about 20. & if not, this is still ok; I can put down a few more layers when it comes time to paint his tail. :) Tomorrow's the day! Good luck everyone!!!
Wow, so, I guess I win the award for blog neglect, huh? It was just before the conclusion of last years NaMo when I fell off the Earth! My computer chose that time to finally start showing signs of impending death. Which brought on the side effect of panic on my behalf as I didn't have anything backed up. My circles are pretty low tech, so no one had ever showed me how to save things. But I digress. With the discovery of the library having a (brilliant!!!) tech lady, I got everything backed up, a new computer located, ordered, & set up! Still, that took me over a month, & by that time, I was completely out of my blogging groove. But, here I am to at least partially rectify that! We all "Did It" & completed in time! So if I may, let me present to you the 2018 "I Did It" NaMoPaiMo ponies! Here we have Kim's CM AR MM Pegasus. Isn't she just fabulous?? & Angel's CM Classic Shire to a Gypsy, who won double seconds at his first show! Carole's CM PAM, so preety! & my Nocturno AR, who I've yet to get a decent picture of, poor fella. Armed with a fresh computer that had better not have even the vaguest thoghts of dying on me this year, I once again will be taking my NaMo progress to this very blog, as well as sharing it with my friend Kim Prosek of Longwing Studio. Us face book-less hobbyists, lol. ;) Kim is all signed up & rearin' to go with her restored & prepped 'Sleepy Shire', who she aims to paint a beautiful contrasty dappled pangare bay like this guy. & my chosen pony this year is a Traditional 'Kipling' AR sculpted by Morgen Kilbourn... …& is a commission from my good friend Laura to be a portrait of her Mini boy Astro. THANK YOU Laura for about 30 pictures of Astro!!! Today, with all of four days 'til the start of NaMo, I thought I should maybe prep my dude for this year. Sounds logical, right? As of my posting this, there are still about three days left to register for NaMoPaiMo if you'd like to join us in the fun! You need not be a master painter, just dive in & have fun! It isn't a contest, it is simply a challenge to paint any 3-D model equine, in anyway you choose, with any media you care to, & try to do so between February 1st at 12:01 & February 29th at 12 midnight. If you still need convincing, I suggest watching this video by Christina Riley. ...Actually, I suggest watching it anyway as it's fabulous! For NaMoPaiMo rules & registration be sure to check out the Braymere Blog here! Also, if you have face book, take a look at the NaMo FB page where the greater majority of the action takes place. Stay tuned to my blog for a forthcoming post on prepping, & many updates on painting progress from both Kim & I!
Bring on February!! Hey all! SO! The silence... & all the things left hanging here... Two words: Computer trouble. My poor old 5yo laptop is on it's last legs. I am on it now, though it's not happy about it, but I had not been able to use it for several weeks. In those weeks, I have been learning lots about computers as I search for what I wanted to replace the old thing with. I have a new one on order (it can not get here fast enough), & am happy to at least have this one creaking along until then. Once the new one is in, set up, & we're getting along, I fully intend to finish up my NaMoPaiMo posts & videos! My poor friends stories have been left hanging! I will say that we all did finish! :) I was also surprised to get a NaMoPaiMo Van Gogh in the mail! I had a lot of fun painting him! Thank you Jennifer & Kylee! Also, Finn, my medallion mold, cast like a dream! I ran the mold out at 31 total. I have 11 blanks for sale at $20 each, as well as various cast colored ones (one each purple, blue, green, rose, & glittery bronze, all cleaned up & glossed) for $30 each. They will be properly posted for sale once the new laptop is in, but if anyone is interested, they are up for grabs, just drop me an email! I will happily paint them as well for an added price. I still have the report from the New Year's Bash to post as well. And just for fun, three of my MMs are in Maggie Bennett's MM Madness contest. I really don't expect to win anything, but it's fun to see them in the herd on her FB. :) Kim's 'Apollo', named KP Guy Noir, did win a category though! He took best preservation of details! But anyway. That's the reason for the silence!
Day 25 of NaMoPaiMo & Kim & Angel are still hard at work! Kim had a little set back on wings today, they just weren't meeting with her approval. So they were whited out & started over. But she's much happier with the second try! I believe that she now just has details to go on her! Angel has had good progress too! She's done fiddling with CMing & has been air brushing the base on her Gypsy! She's never air brushed before NaMoPaiMo! Kudos to her for trying something new! She's also been having fun running with the inspiration that NaMoPaiMo has brought on & painted a couple SMs too! Carole's still showing us all up. ;) Me? Oh, well, um, I, haven't done anything with Nocturno this weekend. What have I been doing? Everything else! As usual I have a whole herd that is calling. Plus an experiment that I've been dyeing to try. Today I broke new ground for myself & tried my hand at molding something for the first time ever. I made this medallion last week just for this endeavor. Built my first ever mold box. & mixed & poured my first ever silicone. You have no idea how much I want to pull it apart & see if it worked or not. Morning can't come fast enough!
There are still three more days in NaMoPaiMo, we still have hope, right Nocturno? {:| Happy painting all!! One week to go in NaMoPaiMo! I have been neglecting my blog, but things are still moving, albeit slowly, for us all! My Nocturno is still working on dapples. ...My my but we had go rounds on them! He was fighting me tooth & nail about them. But eventually, after the fifth try, I got them going how I wanted! I still have more to do on the other side before I can move onto the next step. *sigh* No matter how you do them, dapples are time consuming!! Alas, I do have other horses to work on too, so he has been getting my in-between time, poor boy. Kim, likewise, has been picking at her NaMo Pegasus, but has other horses that have taken priority on being finished. "This past week (Feb 12th) has involved me frantically painting and finishing another MM for an upcoming show next month. This will be my first show ever! And Carissa has kindly agreed to proxy for me. :) Now that I have everybody done (well, almost) I can turn my attention to Furia. I am planning on painting her similar to the light morph hawk in the picture. This reference comes from The Sibley Guide to Birds. It’s an awesome book that is illustrated by the author, David Allen Sibley. Cross your fingers that Furia cooperates!" Fingers crossed, Kim! I think she looks good so far though! Can't wait to see what ponies you send me to show too! Angel is still CMing her Shire-turned-Gypsy, but after a bit of a shaky start with sculpting, she's finally getting to the point of being pretty happy with him! She's still picking on the tail, so he may be a NaMoPaiMARCH pony. ;) I know I would prefer to be late but happy with my model, than finish in the month & forever dislike something about him, & I think that is how she is looking at it now too. :) Carole, on the other hand, is still showing us all up. ;) She's sold her NaMo PAM, who was finished earlier, & has gone onto paint two medallions for herself! I think they look lovely!! Wish us luck in this last week! We're still plodding along!
Happy painting all! "I Did It" has become the triumphant cry of NaMoPaiMo when one finishes their chosen horse within the month of February. & it should be no surprise that Carole is the first of us four to be able to say that! ...Eventually! "Thought I was done. Then saw where she fell over during spraying. Didn't notice until photos as I don't wear glasses outside for spraying. Working on repairs now. Grrrr" "I did play dress up before I saw her boo boo. She is a fun mare." A Little later she had this update: "It seems to be coming along OK. Just to show we can work through problems." Shortly followed by: "She wasn't real hard to fix. The scratches were easy with pigments. The little ding was harder as it went to base and was like a chip. So I had to carefully use a little acrylics to build it back up. Tried to keep it close to same color and then pigments to blend. I think it is unnoticeable now. The little brat..." Because of her disobedience, PAM's final finished pictured were without background, but still beautiful! Congratulations, Carole!! Angel, on the othe hand, is having a little harder time though. Yesterday he finally had a tail again. But when it came to sculpting some extra hair she said that she wasn't feeling as confident as she had been. You can do it Angel!!
As for my Nocturno... Not much. I washed off the dapples I did the other day & haven't gotten around to doing them again! Other horses have been getting my attention. I always have a herd of WIPs. Stay tuned for more later! Cheers all! The very start of painting a horse in just about any medium is usually a good base coat of acrylics. As a prelude to my article on painting in oils, here is a little on how I do base coats. A side note before we get to the info here though. I do not have an air brush (though I hope to get one sometime this year), I lay basecoats entirely by hand & have for years. With that in mind, this mix may not be good for an airbrush, I really have no idea! Just wanted to toss that out there before someone makes their airbrush unhappy! On with the tutorial! Since Nocturno is going to be a rich dark bay, his base color is a mix of burnt sienna acrylic & clear gesso, thinned with water. You will want to pick or mix a base color as close to the body, or middle color, of your chosen finishwork color. Like all of my paints, I mix in bulk to have it when I need it, so I do not have pictures of mixing the base I used on Nocturno. But I did take pictures of another color of base that I mixed not too long ago. The motions are the same no matter what color the base is. You will need: * Acrylic in the color or colors desired * Clear Gesso (I use Liquitex Professional) * Water * A sealable container * A stir of some sort (I use a popsicle stick). Add however much acrylic you need to your container. This "Honey Brown" is one of my staple base colors which I had run out of. I had washed out its container to reuse & it was still a little wet which is what the swirls in the paint are. Add a good bit of clear gesso, but do it somewhat cautiously; The gesso is to add 'tooth' for the oils to grab onto, as well as to add a little more sandability (yes spell check that is the word I mean!) if you need to knock down imperfections in your base or something missed in prepping. But, if you add too much it will leave you with a sandy texture that will show in your finishwork. (Really bad if you use pastel as that sandy texture will 'pop' with the pastel catching it.) Mix... & add water. You want to thin it down to a consistency so that it will just cover the side of the container without beading up. It's something of a learned skill to determine how far to thin it... But as long as you are not leaving brushstrokes on your horse, you are probably good! If you start painting it on & think that the paint is a little too thick, you can always water it down more. With a prepped & primed horse (taking off seams, logos, imperfections, etc. & giving it a good coat of spray primer), you can start brushing on your base. Nocturno was primed in Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X Coverage flat red primer, which was really close to my base color! Made my work easier! If you are starting a light base color, white is a better choice, you won't have to fight the stronger color under it, saving you layers of painting base. In the picture below, the first layer has been laid down on his head, neck, shoulders, & first half of his barrel. It takes many layers to completely finish a good base coat. With a half inch flat (that isn't frizzed up!), dip the very tip into your base paint & attack your horse! Brush it over the surface, being careful not to leave brushstrokes. A way to help avoid brushstrokes is to not load more paint onto your brush than you can smooth out before it starts drying, & acrylics dry super fast! Also, brush in many different directions to help avoid building up any brushstrokes & ridges. If you do get a ridge, you might be able to smooth it out gently with your finger while the paint it still wet/damp; be careful not to rub a hole in your base coat though! The safest solution to ridges is to wait for the base to totally dry & hit it with a light touch of 220 or finer sandpaper. That's where the gesso comes in handy! Straight acrylic likes to tear & peal when sanded, but the gesso allows it to be sanded. I start basing at the head & work my way back, usually leaving the tail for a hand hold. If your chosen model does not have a tail suitable for a handle, you have to improvise, using legs which will have to 'catch up' to the painting at every step. Since Nocturno is going to be bay & thus his legs are going to be black, I didn't bother basing them & can use them for a hand hold too. Usually when I a basing, by the time I have gotten to the rear of the horse, the head is has dried & I can start over again. Don't get frustrated if your base looks really splotchy, you need to build up many layers to keep from getting brushstrokes, so this it totally normal for it to look horrible! Just take a look at 'Rastus' between the first few layers & the final result. TIP: Quite often I will spray a layer of finish over my base layers at some point to help avoid any of the base wearing off & leaving a 'hole' to fill, which is fixable, but annoying. I usually use Rust-Oleum Painter's Touch 2X Coverage matte for this, but any finish should work just fine! Make sure you no longer have ANY thin spots in your base; if you move onto painting while there are some weak areas in the base, I guarantee that you will see them in the finished horse, so make double sure to catch them all! Once the base is absolutely solid you are ready to move on to actual painting! It's really hard to tell, but here was Nocturno when his base was finished. Check back later for a tutorial on how to paint bay with oils next!
Happy painting all! Not a whole lot was accomplished in the way of NaMoPaiMo for me today. Other models were calling, so I did not do much to Nocturno, or any writing at all. I did start to add dapples in pastel, but I'm not sure if I like them. They look too small to me. Yeah, I dunno. I'll leave it 'til tomorrow, but I might wash them off & start again. At least I'm not too far along! I also shaded his mouth, nostrils, & eyes, & a little around his head. Not much to look at yet! Carole's moving right along though! "Today I worked on the flaxen blending on her mane and tail. This was shades of cream, light tan, gold Pearl-X, white and pearl Pearl-X. Also popped the chestnuts on because that is a step I had forgotten before. ;D I also sent different pictures besides straight sides. She will be done fairly soon so I am thinking I should paint one of my 3 medallions." & Angel's working on getting her Shire CM's tail attached, etching foals, & making tassels for her Arab costume! "Tail wire... used what I had. Your right glue and soda on fingers is impossible to remove! Used razor blade; pretty sure I don't have a finger print on index finger." Glad you still have fingers left Angel!
The fun continues! Check back later for more! :) |
AuthorRamblings & tutorials of a model horse artist. NOTE
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