Friesian 08-27-12 Left Angle

And lo, the painting has begun! 😀

(Quick sum-up: Part I, Part II, and Part III)

As you can see this little gal has finally moved out of sculpting and into the painting arena (although I’m still doing minor touchups as I go to the prepwork.

As always, click to embiggen the photos and please keep in mind this little gal is only three inches high, so I don’t notice a lot of the problems until I’ve got these photos and see where I need to rework things.

(aka Yes, I do see the fuzz on her nose and I’m fixing it. ;))

Dapples Away!

Friesian 08-27-12 Left

The paintwork is done with a size 20/0 brush with watered down Ivory Black, Neutral Gray, and Gesso (white). I’m very slowly going over each area to add layering and building up the color from light to dark.

It’s a bit of a mix between working with wet layers and dry layers– which is not helped by the fact that it’s been horribly humid (and flood-y) the past few days which means I can’t use sealer.

At least not unless I want a very cloudy horse. *mutter*

So for the moment, it’s layer after layer of almost translucent grey and black and white, but it’s building up quite nicely. I think I may have gone a little too dark, but unlike pastels, acrylics are very forgiving. 🙂

The Eyes Have It

Friesian 08-27-12 Headshot

I do like doing some detail work as I go, instead of saving it for last, so you can see her eyes are done. I haven’t glossed them, since I was expecting to be using the matte sealer– but I’m tempted to do it just for fun until the humidity drops.

The front leg is looking a lot better now that it’s got some color on it, but I need to bring down the bump between the leg and the hoofwall a bit.

Friesian 08-27-12 Front

The hooves are still a layer of flat Neutral gray, but I’ll be building them up with washes and color pencils to get the striations and growth rings. Always fun mixing medias when you’re painting something this small!

The eyes are a standard four color method– starting with a black circle and then feathering the light brown (upper) and dark brown (lower) halves of the eye together. Then you add a pupil, touch up the highlights and now all it needs is some gloss.

Friesian 08-27-12 Back

As for the dappling, as you can see the right side of the horse is just about done. I was hoping to get the rest of her done this weekend, but the sudden storm on Saturday knocked that plan for a loop. (It also put a kibosh on the idea of using spray sealer since they go cloudy in high humidity).

Friesian 08-27-12 Right

And you might have guessed from the other photos, the left side of the horse is mostly a blank slate. I did the head on both sides and I started working down the neck (and up the legs).

I’m saving any more work until today’s work dries and I’m hoping the humidity drops– Acrylics remain water soluble and I’ve been using such light layers that it would be easy to wipe them off while handling her.

So we’ll see what tomorrow brings! 🙂