Weekly Update

I added light color to the dapples, and also worked on his face. The dapples will kind of morph and change for a long time before I feel satisfied. So far I've done the light base coat, then the dapples mapped in with darker paint, then more light dapples added in.

I worked on this reiner's head, body and legs. I'll want to refine the body color a little more, then I'll let him dry and start on his blanket.

I dremelled most of what I didn't like off of Jezebel's tail. I really didn't like the way it was droopy at the tip, and I cleaned off all the ragged detailing so I can try again. This time, I'm going to try really hard to wait for a while before I go in with the detailing of the apoxie. This is a problem I have; I get very impatient and want to be able to work with it immediately, and I think that causes a lot of problems. But at the same time, I don't like to wait because I get involved with something else and then it's hard to pull myself away from that. So, still experimenting with this one.

Remember this little gal? I still need to gloss her eyes, I might do a little bit with her white markings, too, but otherwise she's done. I'm not sure if I'm going to sell her or not. I just love these SM foals.

I'm trying a lot of different things with this Taboo. For instance, I tried the initial base coat in oils rather than acrylics. I think that was a mistake because I have a hard time thinning the oils down for such a small scale.

I was very ill yesterday so am taking it easy for the next couple of days. Hopefully I will still have some pictures to show next week.

Weekly Update

I'm starting to block in Alvaro's dapples, and put a layer of dark markings on to see how that will look. I usually start my dapples with pretty loose brushwork like this, I think it adds depth as I progress through many layers.

The Patty reiner has another layer of paint, I've also darkened his legs.

Here is Jezebel's third tail incarnation, still unhappy with it. I wish I felt more comfortable handling the sculpting material, it's like something foreign. I never know what tool I should use, how long I should wait before working into it, and I can't seem to get any detail. I don't know if I should wait 'til it dries and then dremel into it for detail? When I try to work with it "wet", I can't get any detail, it rips and tears and blobs up. When I wait for it to cure a little it seems to get too hard to work into. I don't know if it's my hands, the tools I'm using, or just my general inexperience. No matter what I do I can't seem to "get it." I will probably try dremelling this tail a little to see what it looks like, then chuck it and start again. A lightbulb will have to go off at some point, right?

A Comparison of Whites

I've collected a bunch of white oil paints over the years, and recently I read that certain whites dry more slowly than others. Apparently titanium white is one of the slowest-drying whites. So I made a little chart of the whites that I have and dated them to see how long they really do take to dry. The results were pretty shocking.

Winsor & Newton's Foundation White is made of lead carbonate and zinc white. Needless to say, I don't use this paint on model horses. I bought it just to see what it was like because it's supposed to be the most stable and reliable white for underpainting on canvas. It's very heavy in the tube and very, very warm, almost yellow. It has very weak tinting strength. But boy, does it dry fast! Within hours. It's very dry to the touch within a day. Too bad it's poisonous, because this would be ideal for mixing colors on a model.

W&N's Flake White Hue and Titanium White took over a month to dry. They both have nice, creamy consistencies, but the dry time is completely unacceptable.

Gamblin Tit/Zinc White is the white that I use when painting my flat artwork. I love the consistency of it. It took almost as long to dry as the two listed above, though.

Rembrandt Titanium White is what I have been using for my model horses, and I was disappointed to find that it took almost a month to dry, also. I don't paint my final white markings with oils, but I do use white when mixing and during initial lay-in, so I thought I'd look for something else.

I think I have finally found an acceptable white, Winsor & Newton Underpainting White. It's Titanium White with a small amount of zinc, and the tech at W&N told me that there is a slight grain added for better adhesion, and a metallic drier added to make it dry faster. They will never tell me the exact ingredients or proportions of anything, but this is what the tech recommended to me after I explained the way that I paint.

Underpainting White has kind of a weird consistency to it (probably the grain that the tech mentioned) that took a little getting used to, but it does indeed dry much faster than regular Titanium White. On my sample, it was dry within a couple of days, much better than a month! It is a little more gray than the other whites, but that's no problem for me because I always mix different colors into my white anyway, and like I said I don't use it as the final coat. So hopefully this will speed up my painting process a little more.

I hope this was helpful!

Lots of Photos

Lajjina's dapples are still evolving.

I recently finished this Finn commission. I hope to have more pictures of him posted on my website and Facebook soon.

This Fenwick is close to being finished, I have some minor details to do. He's got some shiny spots that haven't been sprayed yet.

I think I'm going to start in with oils on Alvaro next. This is all airbrushed. I like this color right now, he looks like a red dun to me (not what color he's going to be).

And I've put another coat of paint on the Patty Reiner. He's going to be a darker bay than he looks like here.

Whew! I've been spending a lot of time painting in the studio. Ravenhill is still being detailed so I won't show him until he's done, probably.

Have a great week!

Weekly Update

I hope everyone is enjoying NAN! I was watching the results but unfortunately the photos haven't been posted yet. I love to see what won, and I also like looking at how the judges placed their pieces and how different the placings can be.

Okay, on to some progress pictures.

Alvaro got another airbrush coat on him. I actually had to go backwards with him because I found a couple spots that needed to be filled. I will probably do one more airbrush coat on him and then start on the oils.

The Patty reiner is looking rather hideous. It's painful for me to look at pieces when they are at this point, knowing that I have to wait for the paint to dry before I can do more to it.
I'm going to spray Finn tomorrow, and I'm hoping that he will be done and that I can show a final picture of him next week.

And here's a Jezebel that I've been working on. I can't remember if I've shown a picture of her before. My goal was to re-do the tail so that it was shorter, but still had the same "style" as the original. I really struggled with this and frankly I'm not happy with it, especially the tips of her tail. This is the second version. I'm embarrassed to say that I've spent 20 hours sculpting this. At this point I just want to chuck the whole thing! I didn't want to re-sculpt the mane, but I will probably end up doing that and re-doing the tail some other way. I don't think I have the skill at this point to get the refinement and gracefulness to match the mane. If anyone has any suggestions or advice for me I'd be happy to hear it! I know my advice to myself: Carol, stick to painting lol!

Details, Details

 

I've been working on a lot of little details over the last week, lots of blanket work on Ravenhill but also some detailing on his head and hooves, so here's a little peek at that:

I've also been working on Lajjina's dapples, moving them about a little and changing their size, etc. I still have quite a bit of work to do on them at this point

And here is a shot of my new favorite detail brush, the Escoda 1210 Kolinsky sable, size 5/0. This is a pretty pricey brush (about $5 at dickblick), but the one I bought lasted a long time and held its point really well. I only used it for oils, not acrylics. I wore it down to a little nub! I also bought their higher-end brush, the 1212 Kolinsky Tajmyr, but have not tried that yet.

Production has slowed to a crawl while I work on a lot of these little details. Normally I can touch 4-6 horses a day, but when I'm doing work like this it slows to 1-2 horses.


I know Breyerfest and NAN are just around the corner, I wish all that are going good luck and will be watching the results online :-)

Weekly Update

Not much to show this week as I'm doing a lot of detailing, touching up and letting things dry, etc. Lajjina above is getting some adjustments made to her dappling.

Here's an old Page Patty custom that I just started. He has a very simple basecoat in acrylics and I've just started to put a little oils on him. He looks really orange right now but his coat color is going to be bay. He will be an appaloosa.

I think I did figure out my airbrush problem. I have an Iwata HP-CH (I think) that has something called a MAC valve at the bottom of it. The documentation for this valve offers precious little insight into how to use it, and for some reason I had it set in a way that wasn't allowing a lot of paint to come out. Fiddling around with that valve fixed my paint flow problem so the airbrush is back in business. Whew!

I hope everyone reading this has a great week and stays safe in the heat! I personally am loving this hot weather in Seattle, I wish every day were sunny and in the 80s. I'm living in the wrong state.