Model Horse Repainting

Customizing your own Breyer Horse, Grand Champion Horse, or Stone Horse is one of the most fun things for a model horse hobbyist because this is where they can get creative and make the horse look totally different! That’s right; you can use any model horse. Of course, Breyer is the favorite to most hobbyists because of the realism and availability of them. 

Materials Needed 

Paints 

Most model horse hobbyists that customize use Acrylics, so that’s what will be discussed in this article. Acrylic Paints come in tubes. They are water-based and dry quickly unlike most paints, which is why a lot of people use them. You can find these paints at a hobby and art supply store, as well as Wal-Mart and other discount stores that carry the hobbies/school supplies. A good basic set of colors to start with are: Black, White, Burnt Sienna, and Raw Sienna. If you are feeling more daring and experimental, feel free to experiment with other colors. 

Brushes

 Its better if you have a large variety of different brushes, but a good starter kit along the lines of a 0, a 2, and a 5 Sable Brush will do just fine. A separate pair of scrungy brushes is good to have for wrecking when you work with blending and things.  

Blending Tools 

Blending tools is to make the model horse look realistic and not cheesy. Every artist should have a set of blending tools for any project they’re painting. The scrungy paint brushes mentioned above, cut very short down to 1/8” in length. Triangle and/or Circular cosmetic sponges and foam rubber is a popular choice for blending tools. A lot of people have had good luck using their fingertips!

 Gesso 

Gesso is a weird name, but it’s a popular water-based primer which works very well to prepare the model horse before painting. Gesso turns the surface of the model horse to feel slightly chalky, which allows the paint to adhere better than if there were nothing at all. Like the Acrylics, Gesso is available at the hobby/art supply stores. The colors come in black, grey, and the traditional white. It is also available in spray cans. A lot of hobbyists like to use Auto Primer for its economy and it’s easy to use. Experiment with different ones and see what you come up with! 

Matte Sealer 

Matte Sealer is used for a couple different things, but its main use is to protect the completed repainted horse. This spray product is actually used to prep glazed China and Ceramic horses. Spray a coat of this protectant once the paint is completely dry so it prevents paint spots and smudges. It also comes in a Gloss finish, but Matte is preferred. Available in Craft and Art Supply Stores. 

Preparing of the Body 

There is very little preparation needed if you’re working with a plastic horse, such as Breyer or Grand Champions. The amount of prep work depends on how picky you are. There is no need to remove the factory paint at all; after all, you are going to be painting over it. If you want, the seams may be sanded smooth. Some repainters like to carve out the ears and hooves to add a 3-D veining before painting, but this would be considered Remaking, which you find in our article: Remaking of the Model Horse.

 If you’re working with a china or ceramic horse, such as a Hagen-Renaker, it’s almost mandatory to treat the horse before you paint it. If you don’t, the paints will not stick because of the glazed surface. Experienced repainters like to coat the model horse with Krylon™ Matte Spray Finish. Or you can use other brands that are available in Hobby and Art Supply Stores. This way when you paint the horse, it will adhere instead of coming off. This product is also used when you’re finished repainting your horse to protect the paint. 

 Resin horses also need special preparation even if received unpainted. Many of the casters recommend cleaning the model with a bleach solution to remove oils, and then the model should be coated with some sort of primer paint to seal the resin and allow better adherence of the paint. Simple white gesso with do great for this. 

Starting with Basic Painting 

 Basic painting does not include advanced painting jobs such as Appaloosas or Dappled Greys. Start with easy tasks or you will get frustrated. 

 Explained is how the Bay-Colored horse is painted. We’ll work from light-to-dark-to-light. To get a light tan cream color, you need to mix about 20% Burnt Sienna, 10% Raw Sienna, and maybe 70% white. Paint the underside of the horse in this color… the belly, chest, genital area, and the inside of the legs. Set it down to dry. Once dried, add more burnt sienna to darken the paint you already mixed. Paint the rest of the horse with the darker color, blending it with the lighter color on the underside. Before continuing on, let your model horse dry completely. 

 Using Burnt Sienna with a touch of Raw Sienna, use a brush to apply the paint along the top of the muscles-area to be that color. This makes those parts look shadowed for a realistic look. Then using a cosmetic sponge, dabbing at the paint, blend and feather it into the lighter color underneath it. You may want to grab a fresh sponge if you want a dry-brush effect. If the sponge gets saturated with paint, it will cause bubbles and will not blend as smoothly. 

 Continue doing this, using progressively darker paints, letting the paint dry between colors. Using reference photos when painting your model horse will show you where the shading and highlights are on a real horse. Using these photos for guides will really help you. 

Once applying the darkest layer of paint and it has dried, start mixing progressively brighter paints using these for highlights on the muscles. In this case, add the Raw Sienna to the Burnt Sienna to get more of a golden brown. You may want to touch up the light underside of the horse, so add more white to the golden brown and go over the lighter areas. By this time 99% of the original layer of paints has probably been totally covered up, but it adds a glow to the colors that would not be there otherwise. It’s not uncommon for one of the repainted model horses to have 10-15 layers of tones! 

For darker points, such as for your bay, use a dark brown to shade the lower legs and muzzle area. Once that dries, work at it some more to darker shades of brown, until you get to a black (only use it on the hocks and the front of the knees, the front of the cannon bones, and the front of the fetlocks, letting the brown show through on the back of the legs). For muzzles, only use black on the very front of the muzzle between the nostrils, and let the darker browns make up the rest of the muzzle shadings. Otherwise the horse will look like he’d been drinking from an inkwell! 

For white markings, you should first map out the markings with white wash, that is white paint diluted to a transparent consistency. Once that drives, go over it with the white, carefully making sure that the edges of the markings are irregular…real horses never have stockings that go straight access their legs, there is always some irregularity. 

A quick and easy dappling method for solid colors is to mix some paint a shade or two lighter than the color you want to dapple. This paint is then thinned slightly (not too runny!). Using a smallish brush (a number 1 or 2), lightly dab on the paint in the area you want dappled. Only dapple a half dozen at a time. Quickly, before the paint dries, take your finger (or cosmetic sponge) and dab at the dapples, blotting them. You can also dab your then-wet finger on the surrounding area, and this creates fainter dapples in the background.  This works great for solid colors as well! 

For Eyes, perhaps what’s simplest for beginners is to simply paint them solid black. When you view a horse from any distance, their eyes appear black anyway. It’s better to do that than to try to paint a fancy tri-colored eye and end up with something that looks like a freak. Once the paint is dry, dot the eyes (and the nostrils while you’re at it) with clear nail polish. This will give them that “lifelike shine”. 

Hooves are quite fun. If your horse is going to be a showhorse, and is not an Appaloosa, you can take the easy way out and paint all the hooves black. Showhorses can have blacked hooves, no matter what color their legs are. Appaloosas are the exception. Since they have the striped hooves, they are shown with clear hoof polish to show off their striping. If the horse will not be wearing hoof black, then remember if the leg is dark, the hoof is dark. If the leg is white, the hoof is light. There are exceptions, but this is just the basics. I find a good dark hoof color is black mixed with some burnt sienna to give a real blackish-brown color. If the horse is a grey, I like to go with a dark grey instead. For a light hoof, you can't go wrong with white, raw sienna, and a touch of burnt sienna to give it that pinkish shell color. Experiment. And if you want to get really tricky, use a white wash around the coronet band to give the appearance of the growth band on a real hoof! If you want to give it the hoof polish effect, once the paint is dry, coat the hooves with clear nail polish.

Once the horse is dry, spray with the matte finish to protect it. Now you're ready for Hairing, if not, you're ready to show!