Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Weekly Update

My hot water heater broke last week, but I still managed to get some work done. Today is a little iffy, because I'm waiting for the permit inspector. I'm pretty nervous because we have had a bad experience with a previous inspector. I hope it's not the same one this time!

Blogger has been acting up on me today, but I think this post will go through. Okay, on to the pictures:
Vixen is getting some roaning done to her. I used a combination of reference photos, one was a darker buckskin dun, and the other was much lighter, almost like a red dun color. I will probably put some red in her mane and tail.




I worked on Finn's legs, and added a little color to the mane and tail to see what adjustments I'll need to make. I am finding that light bay or chestnut colors are the hardest to get right. I can't just paint a couple of layers, I have to adjust the color, glaze, and generally fiddle with it for ages before I get it the way I want.
Here is a Lajjina that I've started. This is a simple airbrush coat to look for imperfections.





Here's Ravenhill from the other side. I worked on his legs, underside and tail a bit. In the next couple of days I hope to do some work on his face. He's going to be an appaloosa, but I want to get his base color right. I toyed with the idea of painting his blanket in oils along with the base color, but I like the way the base color spots and shading show through on a blanket pattern appy.

Daffyd got some work done on his legs and mane/tail, and I'm waiting for Bitty Bosco to dry so I can spray him and gloss his eyes. I think he looks fabulous in grullo.

That's it for this week!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

they are looking good! loving the roans.. you have to tell me how your doing the roaning? I havent done one yet but have one I need to start on adn I love the look yours have! so.. pencils? tiny brush? what?..lol come on.. share the secret.. I just love your work carol! hope you get hot water again soon...
Becky Turner

Carol H. said...

No secrets from me! I hate when artists are stingy with information, it's not like this is easy to begin with lol!

I use pencils for the roaning, just plain old Prismacolor that I try to keep really sharp. I use lots of coats of it and spray between each coat. Every few coats I'll scumble on some watered-down acrylic paint with a hog bristle brush. And then I try really hard not to make long strokes, I almost try to stipple it on (with the pencil). Also, I take my time. On that Swaps I was working on, I spent about 27 hours doing just the roaning. On Swaps I used an 18/0 miniature brush and acrylics for one layer, but the rest was with pencils/scumbling. Hope that helps!

The hot water debacle wasn't too bad, the inspector was even nice!

Unknown said...

Oh good Im glad you got your water back! I had no idea oyu had ot have an inspector out just for replaying one though! thanks for the info.. thats how I have done roans in the past.. yours just look better than mine.....lol
BEcky