Harecroft Horses - Tales from the Body Box - CollectA batch two!

I think I'm doing things right and following STS forum tradition by starting one long thread to post in each time I've finished painting something. Of course, this isn't my first custom model, but as the first to be painted since I registered here, he gets to be first on the post

This little pony hasn't spent long in my box of bodies (duplicates, blanks, and broken, scuffed or flawed models) - he arrived yesterday morning, and had his brand new coat by evening.

Here's a 'before' shot :

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While I love the mould, and like the idea of his design as a pale palomino with dapples and white socks, the execution of the paintjob left a lot to be desired - the dappling unfortunately came out as randomly applied widely spaced pale spots. If he hadn't had those, I would've kept him original finish for my herd, but I knew I couldn't just live with them when I could easily redo his paintjob in a much more flattering way.
I kept the pale palomino colour, and the same white markings of four white feet and a stripe, but here's how he looks now :

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He turned out exactly as I hoped, the softer shade of palomino rather than the brassy 'new penny' colour we're told they should be. I think it suits the mould nicely, and hopefully matches my original idea of painting the pony the colour it was anyway but better

Here's a few more angles, such a sweet pony with a nice alert pose for taking pictures...

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Although I've done loads of customs before, this is my first Mojo one, and the mould was quite fun to work with, the hairy texture helps with brush painted acrylics cos any slight roughness is hidden in the textured finish, and his big deeply defined eyes were so much easier to paint than when you have to more of less draw the eye onto a smoother sculpt.
He's got a lot of character, and I'm really glad I can have this mould in my herd now I've got past the problem of not liking the OF paintjob!

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I love the detail on the eyes and snout and the subtle spots.

Nice horse

He sounds wonderful, but annoyingly the photos aren't working for me yet- I'll remember to check back here later!

I don't know why my photos are being temperamental on here - they work for some people but not others, then reappear for those who couldn't see them first time round, it seems? I've never had this issue with postimg before

Really really stunning work! The mold was made by a member on forum but yes the paintwork is a shame for this sculpt..great work!

It works now!
And wow, I'm so glad they did!! We now have another extremely talented artist on STS, this is a stunning repaint! I thought I was looking at a real horse, so delicate, so detailed- I love how you have painted this model in such a realistic way, so that the brush strokes can't be seen and the colours all softly blend into each other! And that palomino colour is beautiful, all those wonderful creams and goldens, and perfectly painted so that the right areas are darker and lighter!
I'm really looking forward to seeing more models, you have so much talent!

Ahhh, thanks. Bonnie! And funnily enough, let me tell you something : I might put my knack for this colour down to the fact my real life shetland pony is a palomino, and her name is Bonnie

I've somehow made a bit of a habit of repainting models the same colour as their original paintjob

Three CollectAs :

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Hercule, the ardennes who came in plain red bay

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Chérie, the percheron who was originally pale grey with no dapples

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Triskellion, who was bay pinto and still is

This Safari :

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Blue Galant, who was a very blotchy blue dappled grey!

And this WIA :

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Marius Nero, who was a very slightly different shade of dark bay

I DO usually paint things a totally different colour than they were issued in, probably nine times out of ten, but it amuses me how quite often I like the idea, or the breed just suits a certain colour, and I end up doing the 'paint it the same but different' thing again

How wonderful you have a Palomino Shetland, and how wonderful that her name is Bonnie! Bonnie's the name of my Rough Collie- she is very lucky to share a name with your pretty horse!
These three are stunning once again, I feel as though I've just looked at 5 real horses!
My favourite has to be your amazing Triskellion though, the way you have painted the fur makes it look as though it's actually fluffy- I'd love to know how you create this effect? It's fantastic!

It's mostly the edges of the patches, I do them with a feathery layer of diluted white, applied with a very tiny brush, over the top of the completed colour. It makes them blend in a hairy looking way. A lot of people do a 'mapping' effect by tracing a line around the edge of each patch, following the outline and painting across the direction the hair would be growing, but I find by painting with tiny strokes into the patches, always sticking to the way the hair would grow on a real horse, you get the edges looking more natural and fuzzy.

George wrote:

It's mostly the edges of the patches, I do them with a feathery layer of diluted white, applied with a very tiny brush, over the top of the completed colour. It makes them blend in a hairy looking way. A lot of people do a 'mapping' effect by tracing a line around the edge of each patch, following the outline and painting across the direction the hair would be growing, but I find by painting with tiny strokes into the patches, always sticking to the way the hair would grow on a real horse, you get the edges looking more natural and fuzzy.

This is really interesting, thank you!

These are excellent! Your new paint is the job as it should have been, and it presents these models perfectly. I love each one but percherons are a personal favorite.

Wow, those are great repaints!
Of course, your version of Mojo Welsh pony makes me very happy! Great improvement over the original color, beautifully painted palomino!
Your bays, dapple greys, and pinto are also fantastic!

Ahhh, thank you! I just love doing these 'same colour' paintjobs on models which are let down by their factory paint, where the mould is nice but the colouring comes out very plain, or unflattering (except the WIA, who was painted really nicely but had some nasty scuff-marks and moulding flaws, so I didn't mind going over his good colour!)

I'll have to post some more of my customs here, I've got a couple of 'yearly recap' graphics where you can see my entire output for 2019 and 2020 all laid out in one image, I think they're not quite too big to fit onto the forum :)

Very beautiful repaints!

These are gorgeous! They look like oil paintings, but as sculptures. Love the subtle shading and soft edges of the dapples and pangare. That ardennes is MAGNIFICENT. What a skill!

It's interesting you should mention oil paintings, cos I only said the other day that I find I can take inspiration for my work from older canvas/board paintings of horses, not just real photographs. In a way I consider my model painting to be a 3D adaptation of flat artwork, so the influences of style and technique come from art as well as living animals? I don't even know if that makes sense

There's something about the artistic, painterly touch you get from brush-painting by hand which I find much more appealing than airbrushing or pastelling, which I hate the very idea of learning. I know other people do great things with them, I don't dislike the results, and admire artists who can master the techniques, but I'm just repelled by the process : handling of spray cans or airbrush, not for me! I stick to my brushes and paint pots and feel totally in control of putting colour where and how I want it :)

Absolutely gorgeous repaints

George wrote:

It's interesting you should mention oil paintings, cos I only said the other day that I find I can take inspiration for my work from older canvas/board paintings of horses, not just real photographs. In a way I consider my model painting to be a 3D adaptation of flat artwork, so the influences of style and technique come from art as well as living animals? I don't even know if that makes sense

It does, and I can see it! You have a technique that captures the qualities of the animal but also reminds you that it is a piece of art and not "only" a reproduction (my art professor would have loved it - he was always disagreeable about just "copying a photo." He said to me once, why recreate something that we already have? I love photorealism as well, but that's a different discussion that he and I had several times!). It has a painterly quality to it without losing the realism, and personally, I love that combination.

These look great

I think it is really cool to get your inspiration from not just photo's but also form paintings. Paintings, for me, tell a much more rich story about the horse or animal being portrait and I can imagine that using that as reference for a model repaint will give more focus on the character of the model then just achieving realism (and giving character/story/personality to an animal figure artwork is something I've been looking into after years of focusing mainly on realism)

I think a lot of artists are influenced by historic styles and old masters, but in model painting, there tends to be a concentration on realism and learning the top techniques of other hobby artists, rather than letting your style become too 'painty', for want of a better word
Everyone seems to see brush painting as the beginner's tactic or the base layer, and strive toward airbrushing and pastelling as the finished product once they've had some practise and invested some money in taking it seriously.
But I've been a determined brush-painter for fifteen years and refuse to move on from it

I've even done a few customised mini models specially to look like some of my favourite old horse paintings.

Cerbero, by Johann George von Hamilton, with my resculpt/repaint jumping horse

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Whistlejacket, by George Stubbs, with my resculpt/repaint cantering warmblood

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'Landscape with two horses', by Nicolas Berchem, with my repainted andalusian. No resculpting this time, I did a simple repaint just to recreate the colour, not the pose.

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And Paragon, who belonged to the first Duke of Newcastle - I don't have a large copy of the colour picture, sorry

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I wrote at length about Paragon and the story behind his creation here on my blog, if you want to read more on why I picked this horse to remake in miniature!

Oh I LOVE those, both the idea and the execution. I can't say I've ever seen a project like that, recreations of paintings in sculpture (at least not with model horses). The Whistlejacket custom is such a perfect little recreation, down to the directional coat brush strokes on his barrel. And the braids on the Cerbero!

And what a fascinating history of Paragon, really enjoyed reading about your research, very impressed by your dedication to find out about him!

This is such an amazing idea and you have made some beautiful models! I've always loved the painting Whistlejacket, as I once tried to replicate it myself- so I loved seeing how you brought the horse to life in this model!

There's quite a few other art-inspired model horses, I've seen quite a few custom works which I recognise as Stubbs or Hamilton paintings, and several resins have been sculpted exactly as famous artworks, though once cast and sold they're not always painted up in the same colour as their painting selves!

The full-size Whistlejacket is enormous, and quite exciting to see - standing in front of the painting is like meeting somebody famous! Even though the one I saw was a reproduction, filling his wall space in the home of the family who originally owned him (the real one is away in a London gallery)

I'd like to do an Alfred Munnings style model horse at some point, there's a recent Thoroughbred mould which reminds me of some of his lean shiny hunters

Someday, in my estate, when I am independently wealthy thanks to my zookeeper salary ( ), I'll have a gallery of models paying homage to classic horse oil paintings. I'm over the moon about the idea and am delighted to learn it's a thing people do!

I look forward to seeing more, if you do! :)

(Also, good gravy, I can't imagine the suffering that went into painting Whistlejack. I did horses for my senior exhibition, in oil, on canvases over three foot each and I hated myself, my paintings, and art in general for the duration of the semester.)