Scarlett is ending on eBay tonight

I'm so sorry that I forgot to post this information until the last day, but the Scarlett resin that I used in my recent tutorial is available for purchase on eBay. Her auction ends tonight! Here's the link:


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230341972700

All of the pertinent info can be found there. Thanks for looking!

Seeing spots part 7 - Finishing touches

The most famous Appaloosa characteristic is, beyond doubt, the spots. Lesser known, but also important, are the visible white sclera around the eye, striped hooves, and mottled skin. I'm now going to show you how to create these effects starting with the eyes.

I like to build the eye up in layers. Step one is simple. Paint the eye white.



Next, add a pink spot in the front corner for the third eyelid/nicitating membrane. Dry brush a tiny bit or red on top of it to give the impression of capillaries.



In order to tone the whole thing down and make it more lifelike, go over the entire eye with a very thin wash of mostly water and a teeny tiny dab of Golden Airbrush Raw Umber.



Use the same color full strength for the iris and, while it is still wet (you'll have to move fast!), blend some metallic gold into the center. This is the secret to that lifelike sparkle.



Now make a horizontal bar of black for the pupil. I like to add a bit of metallic blue at the center for depth, but it's not mandatory.



On to the hooves. Apply loose chalk pastel using a paintbrush to any hooves you have painted white. You'll want to choose a dark gold or raw sienna. This is just a base so don't worry overmuch about what shade you choose.



Now take a colored pencil in a similar shade and draw some stripes onto the dark hooves. Be sure to vary your line. Some stripes should be fat, some thin, some clustered together, others off on their own. Symmetry in NOT your friend here! Just make sure that they follow the angle of the hoof wall exactly. You will do the same on the light hooves using a dark gray or black pencil. On the lighter hooves, I like to go over the stripes with pastel in a matching color. It fleshes them out a bit.



Finally, choose a dark reddish brown pastel color and go around all the hooves horizontally. You can use this same color to shade the undersides of any raised hooves.



The mottled skin around the eyes, muzzle, and dock area can make or break the whole look of your horse, but is actually very simple to create. You will need a pale pink or flesh colored watercolor pencil. My brand of choice is Derwent. Get the pencil nice and sharp and then briefly dip the tip into a cup of water. Using the damp tip, make little spots. Just like the hoof stripes, you'll make different sizes, some you'll spread out, and some you'll cluster. Allow me to reiterate: Symmetry = Bad

Once the mottling has dried, brush a thin coat of red pastel over it, and then tone it down with another coat of pastel, this time in black or a very dark gray. That last bit is important. I've seen a lot of lovely appaloosa ruined by skin mottling that dominates the entire face by being too bold.



That's it. Give your horse a good once over for any damage resulting from handling (unavoidable), spray him/her with the sealant of your choice, and top it off by glossing the eyes, hooves, and nostrils. Your Appaloosa is now complete!

Seeing spots part 6 - Roaning

If you wear glasses, it's time to put them on. We are going to get into the very intense detail now. Do you remember how I said in the last post that white markings take forever? What we are about to do takes longer still.

We're going to add roaning to our horse. On a real horse, roaning refers to scattered white hairs mixed into the main body color. On our model appaloosa, we'll be adding some colored hairs in as well, but in the same style. We'll also be using the roaning to make some more spots. This is the look you'll be aiming for:



You have a choice here. You can use a tiny paint brush and very thinly diluted paint, or you can use professional quality colored pencils with a VERY sharp point. On Scarlett, I'm using Prismacolors which I have come to prefer. In the interest of letting you make an informed decision, here is another Tumlinson sculpture, Desperado, roaned using a paint brush:



Starting on the dark areas of the body with a white or light color (I used mostly French Grey 50% with some White and Putty Grey Prismacolors on my girl) and create a bunch of teeny tiny strokes following the hair pattern. The mane and tail are done the same way, you'll just make each hair far longer.



You don't want all solid blocks of roaning here, make more spots by leaving some holes. Feel free to overdo it and leave tons of these holes, you can always fill some (or most, or all) of them in later with more roaning.



Some, but not all, of these holes can have a spot painted into them as well. You can also take your pencils and add some tiny spots wherever your reference picture or artistic sensibilities dictate. Just be sure to stick to the spot placement guidelines we went over earlier.



In areas where there are unbroken expanses of roan hairs, I like to make parts of the roaning more dense, even going so far as to scribble in blocks of white like a kindergartener with a crayon. Be careful with this, it's easy to overdo.

The trickiest part of all this will be when you need to follow a cowlick. The easiest way I've found is to outline the cowlick in roan hairs and then fill it in layer by layer as such:



When you hit the edge where the body color and the white meet, dig out some pencils that match the body color in that area and paint some hairs onto the white marking with them by way of blending. Scarlett is obviously not a horse groomed for a show, but a broodmare out in pasture, so I went over all of her white areas with hairs done in French Grey 50% and Putty Grey to make her look both shaggy and not so squeaky clean. You may or may not want to do this with your horse depending on the model you're using. Lastly, you can choose to halo your spots with a bit of light and dark hairs mixed together. I haven't done this to Scarlett yet, but probably will by the next time you see her. Here is Scarlett now:



The worst is now over. It's finally time to paint the finishing details!