"Sael" and the little pacer get COLOR!

I'm going to put these in the order I took them throughout the steps I'm painting "Sael" and the pacer SM in. First "Sael".  We can also make this a tutorial in painting black bays. I preferred to do his main coloring in airbrush and will do detailing and antiquing in pastels a little bit.

Here he's got the first layer of color.  It's a light pale golden ocre. It may not seem so in the photo because it's taken in lamplight. Whole horse is done this color. It's a mixture of deep mustard ocre, metallic gold, rust colored sienna-orange, and cream.

Next.

Here he's got a new layer. Whe I mix up the first color, especially when doing chestnuts or bays.  I mix up a lot more than I need, because it will be added to.  For example. When I finished doing his base coat in that ocre mixture, I simply added more sienna and dark sienna to it. Thinned it back down a bit with more water to compensate for the added paint which will thicken it some. Then i have a new color but a shade in another direction. Instead of mixing something completely new up that may not mesh well with the previous color.  A little tip: Take a small cup or extra bottle and dump just a spoonfull or so of each color you make and set it aside.  That way you still have a bit of it for touch-ups if you need to before you change the color of the batch to another shade.

Next.

I've darkened it up again. Notice I'm painting the musculature first and getting the areas of his body that will be dark a more thorough coat. I've added some more dark sienna to it.

Next.

Now he's got a bit more dark brown added to the sienna coloring. There's also some red-brown added to it also.

And more water, don't forget.

Next.

I added more red-brown and a lot more dark brown to the color and did another layer.  See how I go in the muscles first a couple of times then do a sweep over the whole body fewer times.  He's getting darker red-orange.

Next.

For this layer what I've done is I've mixed some more brown into it. This is a walnut brown.  Very dark but since it's thinned down with water it's almost going on like a transluscent layer that's tinting the horse's color down.

Next.

 

He's really going through a major transformation now because this time I'm mixing up a new color.  I'm adding a little bit of what's left of the sienna to it just to keep it warm, but mostly this next batch of color is water, dark brown, and black with a tiny bit of the sienna but not much.  I start at the face and leave the sienna coloration around the bottom of the face and shade the nostrils and the rest of the head in the dark color.  I leave more sienna in a small area under his eye too.

 Next.

This time I'm doing a layer of black. I've also done his mane, tail,  and the leg points.

He's almost done with the spraying of the basic color.  He's got white markings and pastelling in the details to go. I don't know if I want to go even darker with him or not.

Here's the pacer's pictures.  I used the same paint and did him the same time I was doing "Sael" so I don't need to explain just show the images.

I think he's going to look neat.

Oh, and the new TWH has a base color also. But he's going to be a black roan sabino.