Painting Black Horses...

[Harry Faversham]

Any tips from the Brethren on how to shade a black beauty? Black horse with grey highlights look a bit naff, in my 'umble opinion. I was wondering if there was a better technique I could employ to get a nice highlight on a 15mm scale black horse?

[Kekso]

I've recently heard that any neutral grey highlight on black looks too artificial.
So it is better to use blueish, brownish or greenish grey as highlight.
Therefore, for black horses I would use grey with dash of blue in it.
Scalecolor Anthracite Grey SC-04 could be your starting point (as an example).

[DerkleinePUC]

White undercoating. Acrylic black and a tip of water on the surface of the blackpaint. Brush through the water into the black and then up on the horse. that works quite well.

[Minuteman]

Any tips from the Brethren on how to shade a black beauty? Black horse with grey highlights look a bit naff, in my 'umble opinion. I was wondering if there was a better technique I could employ to get a nice highlight on a 15mm scale black horse?

Try doing it a different way Harry. Dark Brown base coat, then over-wash with black Indian ink (or similar), diluted slightly. Try a few and see how they look. The black ink runs into the deep, dark folds and underside of the figures, and the upper parts have an almost-black finish but a little of the dark brown still shows through. Black horses are rarely pure black......

[Harry Faversham]

Thanks chaps, your assistance is most appreciated.

[Bluefalchion]

Marvin used to drop just a tiny bit of blue into the black of the base coat iirc. If you look at his blog he has some nice horse painting tutorials.

Suburban Militarism is what he is calling it I believe.

[Peter]

Marvin used to drop just a tiny bit of blue into the black of the base coat iirc. If you look at his blog he has some nice horse painting tutorials.

Suburban Militarism is what he is calling it I believe.

That is right: https://suburbanmilitarism.wordpress.com/

[Kekso]

I see that Marvin is active on his blog. I just hope he hasn't left us.

[Bluefalchion]

I hope the same about Marvin. To Harry Faversham, please post some pics of your black horse experiments for the good of the order. I have never tried the blue added black horse technique and I might like to give it a go.

[Marvin]

I see that Marvin is active on his blog. I just hope he hasn't left us.

Marvin is still here and doing OK thanks! And thanks to Peter for flagging this up to me. I really need to get back in with the Benno's crowd - it's always such a nice place to be. I aim to get organised this year and get posting again here. Hope everybody at Bennos is well.

@Harry Faversham - as for the black horses, there's some good advice on this thread which I may well try myself. @Bluefalchion is quite correct in that I use a mix of Dark Prussian Blue with the black paint as basecoat. Highlighting on black needs to be subtle, I think but some of the advice here sounds interesting to try.

Not to do with shading but one thing not to neglect is to add some white face and leg markings which perhaps takes the attention away from the 'boring' black colour?

[Peter]

Thank you Marvin! Good to have you back!

[Bluefalchion]

Marvin is my gold standard for painting horses, but there are several others on here who can also crank out a convincing nag or two.

Trial and error is the best way to learn. For me, it is a bit of trial, but mostly error.

[Kekso]

Marvin, you've made me happy.
Thanks.

[Harry Faversham]

Had a pop with the blue highlighting on a 15mm black horse, it gave it a very nice sheen... that I've totally ruined with a coat of matt varnish!

[MABO]

Marvin is still here and doing OK thanks! And thanks to Peter for flagging this up to me. I really need to get back in with the Benno's crowd - it's always such a nice place to be. I aim to get organised this year and get posting again here. Hope everybody at Bennos is well.

[PhilC]

Marvin is still here and doing OK thanks! And thanks to Peter for flagging this up to me. I really need to get back in with the Benno's crowd - it's always such a nice place to be. I aim to get organised this year and get posting again here. Hope everybody at Bennos is well.

Don't know why I can't like this post, but I suppose that a few words are even better. We always need horse masters in this forum, so please come back and post your wonderful pictures again

[MABO]

I can also not like PhilC's last post. So feel a like!