Tales from the Body Box - Collecta draft horse customs

Or, an exercise in painting models the same colour they were already!

Last week I bought some bargain Collecta horses on ebay, a bulk listing which worked out at just over £3 each, containing six I'd got already, plus one appaloosa who's been set aside to join my OF herd once his picture is done.

The first to be picked out for customising were the bay Ardennes, and the grey Percheron, and here they are, as....uhhh..a bay Ardennes and a grey Percheron.

Having spent most of last week on the WIA Gustavs, Collecta are only the slightest increase in scale, so painting these big chunky horses wasn't quite as daunting as jumping straight in there after a couple of years of Stablemates only.

Meet Hercule, the French form of the name Hercules, perfect for such a strong draft breed. I've been painting a lot of darker bays lately, so I went for a much lighter, sandier tone with him, with a mealy muzzle and bright highlights on his flanks and elbows.

Here you can see his new bay coat, compared with my OF Cornelius, standing in as the 'before' in this Before and After shot! My favourite thing about the upgraded hand-painted paintjob was detailing the ends of his mane.

A couple more angles, he's such a wide and muscly chunk of a horse, and I think the shaded custom colour is more flattering to the mould than the basic bay he comes with - I'd like to see him in roan, too (but I don't have any others to spare, so that'll have to wait).

His companion doesn't have a name yet, but I love her! The Percheron mould has long been one of my favourites out of all the Collecta horses, and she was a really satisfying to paint - a base coat of shaded grey all over, then a couple of hours spent adding the dappling in layers of diluted cream and white.

With her OF counterpart, Clémence, which shows again how the added detail brings the model to life. 

Her colour's based on another breed example from The Ultimate Horse Book, the same shot's now uploaded on Alamy as a stock photo so I can link it here.

One of those make-the-quarters-look-even-bigger angles, loved by draft horse breeders the world over!

I accidentally rubbed the end of her nose as I was resting it on my knee to dapple the other side, and rather than attempt to re-do the shading without messing it up, I gave her a pink snip, decorated with a spot inside, and a pink lower lip to go with it. I always think inventing markings makes a paintjob more than just a colour idea, it turns them into individual horses with their own character, and is one of the most fun bits of customising!