Horses in Contrast
After my recent comments on the Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy Podcast No 31, I thought I'd better do a blog about painting horses, using (drum roll!) Contrast Paints!
As I've mentioned before (see previous blogs here and here), the Contrast paints are useful but the range is quite limited. I see people painting their World War 2 armies with the colours available but I find myself baulking at the prospect. But what about horses? That requires (cover your ears Admiral Drax!, its double trouble) mixing them to make the right horse colours... The horror!
The Para colour swatch!
I made up a small swatch colour board to act as a guide to brown colours. I had some spare heads from a Warlord 'build' (yes they are British and Polish Para heads!) and glued them down to a piece of flat plastic. Then, I mixed the relevant colours in turn. SB = Snakebite. GG = Goregrunta. DO = Darkoath. SH = Skeleton Horde. NY = Nazdreg Yellow. AD =Aggaros Dunes. WW = Wildwood. CB = Cygor Brown.
Early experiments with Fireforge Mongol horses.
Using the board as a reference, I could then pick out the most suitable colour for horses. I found Snakebite Leather and Goregrunta Brown mixed made a good Bay horse (reddish brown) colour. Snakebite and Aggaros mixed make a good dun colour. By altering the consistency of the colours, several good horse colours can be made. Goregrunta is very red and Cygor Brown is very strong, so both should be used in moderation.
Ok the maine and tail are a bit light!
I usually add a little Cygor Brown to the original colour for the maine and tail. Tack and gear can then be added with Snakebite leather (my main reason for not wanting to use pure Snakebite... so there is contrast between horse and tack). Highlights can be added by using a little white (Citadel or otherwise) with the original mixture.
Gripping Beast plastic horseman converted for the Sudan.
This method is quick and very satisfying. I've not added socks or face markings, but again this would be easy enough to do. So there you go, there's my 'messing with horses', in 28mm of course!
