What do you do with an aging pot of white paint which is getting rather too solid for easy application or mixing? Smudgey appaloosa time!
This is my first go at a roany white-over-dark appaloosa pattern; usually I add the white markings sharp with brushstroke-detailed edges if I'm working over the top of a colour, or do roaned ones by adding the colour paint over a white base coat.
It wasn't quite as successful as I'd hoped, possibly because I picked a fairly light and neutral base colour in the first place, so the roaning has got a bit lost and faint - don't get me wrong, I like how she turned out, she just doesn't quite match what I had in mind, and it's always frustrating when a paintjob goes off at a tangent - I feel I should be able to just think of a colour and paint it, not paint something different accidentally!
I have several OF models in this loping QH mould already, and still don't know which is their 'good side'!
Look what happened next! My body box contains a little selection of very scuffed foal moulds which came from ebay last year, and every now and then I paint a mare who seems to need a foal at foot, so I choose one which suits her and paint up a matching colour baby.
It's always fun doing paintwork at half the size, foals are a bit like changing scale to something mid way between SM and Micro size. I seem to have missed roaning the inside of that hind leg though, oops!
Having created a pretty but not-quite-what-I-wanted-to-happen appaloosa mare, the only logical next custom was the try again for the look I'd intended in the first place, so it was back to the body box to rummage for another stock-breed type mould...
And that's much better! I used a lot more black and red to make an almost plum-colour base before the dry-brushed roaning went on top, and this makes it stand out a lot more. I think the two socks set her off perfectly, too - just as some paintjobs are disappointing by going off target, others are immediately satisfying cos they turn out so right!
And co-incidentally this is another mare mould, which was an ideal excuse to do another matching appaloosa foal!
The soft roaned pattern looks so nice on this little one - even though I only ended up trying smudgey blankets and roaning because my paint was too solid for applying them normally, I'm really glad this has pushed me to have a go with a new technique.
While I was thoroughly in spotted mode, I really wanted to tackle a custom I've had in mind for ages, based on a glorious reference picture of a very hairy leopard pattern pony (here - it took me forever to find this photo on a proper credited link which wasn't on flipping Pinterest!)
I've gone with quite a deliberately brushstrokey hairy-coated look, and really do love how it worked out, I'm thrilled to bits with him. Again, like the smudgey appaloosas, this layering of brush strokes is very different to how I usually add colour and shading, and it took some getting used to but was worth the effort, I think.
Although the Breyer Shetland mould isn't quite the same type of pony as the photo, it's the closest I've got, and handily a couple of them were base-coated with a plain pure white undercoat, which helped skirt round my white-paint's-almost-solid problem, too!
What a lot of attitude - that's a pony who knows he'll be the centre of attention anywhere he goes, and thinks he deserves every bit of it!
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